"About 10 years ago, Canadian robotics professors unleashed a hitchhiking robot to roam the globe. HitchBOT, as it was dubbed, snapped photos of whatever it was observing, which were then uploaded to social media. After a sojourn throughout Europe, where it made brief conversation with passersby and took in the sights around the Netherlands and Germany, the robot landed on the East Coast of the United States. Eventually, it hoped to wind up in San Francisco."
"A decade later, I think of the crumpled robot as I'm standing inside the airy, new permanent Meta outpost in West Hollywood, watching roughly a dozen people try on pairs of the company's new artificial intelligence " smart glasses." Although Los Angeles County could not be further from Philadelphia in a spiritual and geographic sense, I felt whiplash from how swiftly culture had pivoted since the bot's demise."
A Canadian hitchhiking robot named HitchBOT traveled across Europe and the United States, documenting scenes and interactions before being destroyed in Philadelphia. A decade later, people in West Hollywood tried on new AI-powered smart glasses at a permanent Meta Lab outpost. Public acceptance of AI and voice-assisted technologies has increased, moving from earlier skepticism to broader willingness to use AI in daily life. Pew Research reported 46% voice-assistant use in 2017 and later found 73% of Americans willing to let AI assist with everyday tasks. Meta Lab sells AI glasses and VR headsets and opened a storefront in West Hollywood.
Read at SFGATE
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