Meet the cute hitchhiking robot, a project conceived as an art piece designed to test whether a robot can trust humans.

The hitchBot made its way across Canada this summer–hitching exactly 19 rides with various people in 26 days. Though some thought he may not have been “cute” enough to make it all the way–when he did, AI experts rejoiced.  While humans may be the least trustworthy set of animals, the test proved–at the very least–that a Robot can trust Canadians.

Now hitchBOT is taking on Europe, Germany to be precise, and starts his new journey on February 13. He’s scheduled to arrive in Munich on February 22.

If you plan to be in Germany in February–perhaps you can pick him up and send us your photos!

Follow the hapless robot’s progress via his Twitter handle (yes really), Instagram or Facebook page.

You can also learn more about hitchBOT over at the hitBOT family blog, here.

HT to an article from this summer, that I stumbled across from IEEE Spectrum.