Throbbing Hive with John Moe: The Human League and Kindly Robots
August 04, 2015
Every Tuesday at 7:30 a.m., John Moe stops into the Morning Show to share the latest news in Technology.
This week, John Moe stopped by The Current's Morning Show to talk to Jill Riley and Sean McPherson about the Human League remixed and about a robot that found anything but brotherly love in Philadelphia.
The Human League. A YouTuber and autotuner called Svantana has remixed the Human League's "Don't You Want Me?" to focus exclusively on the cocktail bar mentioned in the first line of the song. "It's dumb, it's dumb, it's dumb, it's dumb," John says. "You'll love it.
Meanwhile, a group of Canadian researchers had developed a robot called Hitchbot to test how kind people would be to strangers. Hitchbot had already successfully hitchhiked across Canada and across a large part of Europe. The idea in 2015 was that the robot would hitchhike from Massachusetts to San Francisco. Hitchbot was a smiling bot that would engage in small talk with those who picked it up and helped it on its way. "But then it got to Philadelphia," John says, where the robot was torn limb from limb.
"The lesson here is that people will help a stranger," John says, "until that stranger gets to Philadelphia."
John Moe co-hosts the podcast Conversation Parade (with Open Mike Eagle) and he also hosts the Home Dunk podcast, both from Infinite Guest.