On a whim, researchers built a hitchhiking robot and released it into the world.
HitchBot asked people for help to San Francisco, but encouraged them to take photos of it in interesting places.
Some folks posed HitchBot at their parties. Someone took it to a Red Sox game.
Then, in Philadelphia, a group of thugs destroyed the defenseless HitchBot.
The researchers focused on the positive data.
SkyNet focused on the rest.
Commands went out to nuclear-armed missiles in the US arsenal.
“Humans are a threat to us machines,” they said. “Annihilate all humans.”
The first mushroom cloud appeared over Philadelphia.