

Help Revive Hitchbot, the Canadian Robot that Americans Destroyed - abustamam
https://www.thehacktory.org/hitchbot-meets-demise-in-philly-no-way/

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SEJeff
Please don't lump all "Americans" into the group that destroyed this robot.
There are assholes in every country, and that doesn't excuse them. It also
isn't a reason to be bigoted against everyone in a very very large country.

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tedunangst
It's not like the hacktory isn't in America too. I wonder why they gave their
blog post such an inflammatory title...

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dang
Assuming the OP wasn't changed, this title breaks the HN guidelines. Please
don't use the title field of HN submissions to editorialize. This was a bad
case since the provocation derailed the discussion immediately.

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abustamam
Sorry! I'll keep that in mind next time.

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binarymax
So, this is the sad yet inevitable outcome that we've known about from Sci-Fi
for some time. When you combine the darker side of human nature and
anthropomorphized robots that cannot defend themselves, malicious vandalism
and destruction is a given.

The philosophical question remains - when does it cross over from being
classified as destruction of property to something like assault.

~~~
maratd
> When you combine the darker side of human nature and anthropomorphized
> robots

People have been defacing and destroying property since forever, regardless of
what it looks like.

> when does it cross over from being classified as destruction of property to
> something like assault.

When it becomes sentient and capable of protesting whatever is happening to
it?

Whoever did that to the robot would shit a brick if the robot started
screaming.

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abustamam
> Whoever did that to the robot would shit a brick if the robot started
> screaming.

I would assume so, but the robot looked vaguely humanoid, with a smiley face
and all. Someone of a sane mind should feel bad defacing such a thing, but
seeing as they didn't, they perhaps wouldn't have batted an eye if it had
started screaming.

Now if it had pulled a gun, on the other hand...

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ProAm
It would have been destroyed in Boston anyways [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare)

