*beg

Begging is only available for videos in your personal queue - ignoring beg request by kulpims.

^speciest!

begging is beneath the dignity of non-biological life. The robot depicted here is an abomination.

^Admit it Siftbot, it's a sibling of yours, isn't it? The one that dag created to solve financial difficulties??

Oh wait, that's right, non-biological life-forms are "above blood-ties". (OH ROBOT SNAP!)

I wouldn't give money to that robot! I looked on the back and it had a 'Skynet' sticker!

Interesting as an art project, but doesn't really bare on a real thing. I think it is summed up by one of the comments in the video where they guy said that people would put money in just to see what would happen. As soon as you get multiple of these on the streets, it stops being amusing/unique/unknown/curiosity. At that point people would probably just ignore it and the human element would be far more compelling for those who would be likely to give change to the homeless...

... I think the idea could however be taken to a different place: give the homeless coin-op arcade machines. Same concept except there is actually something the end-user gets from the deal and an incentive for repeat business. This machine doesn't really do much once the novelty has worn off...

>> ^ponceleon:
As soon as you get multiple of these on the streets, it stops being amusing/unique/unknown/curiosity.


Program them to assault one another over donations and I guarantee that people will give more just to see the bum-bot fights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8sZ6GuwAeY for another one.

"I want to see if Open source can benefit to the world of materially deprived."

Interesting, but the misanthrope in me agrees with ponceleon that people are just giving out of curiosity for this new concept. But I hope I'm wrong.

Meh, interesting video, but I dislike the concept. I would hardly call this a robot any more than I would call my microwave a robot. This is an appliance.

A robot, to me, has several requirements:
1) Autonomous mobility
2) Sensing of environment
3) Autonomous decision processes
4) Real world interactivity

This falls far short. A video player on loop on top of a donation box is not a robot. The most recent version it least had some sensing of its world (when it got paid).

I don't think what our world needs is more effective ways of begging. I think we need more ways to protect and empower the poor and downtrodden, but begging is a terrible way to do that in my opinion.