What is the Vessel?

What would you do if you had the chance to meet a robot on a journey toward an inner life? A machine like us that has the potential to grow and develop its own unique identity? An artificially created but potentially conscious being of life experiences and stories that it wants to share with you?

Welcome to the Vessel!

A groundbreaking robotics project that promises to redefine our relationships with robots and that might help us to better understand ourselves.

The Vessel is meant to be an evolutionary project that will also depend on the participation of curious and empathetic human beings. As you connect with the robot, we begin our journey of experiencing new ways for humans and machines to interact. We invite you to dive into the Vessel’s evolving artificial mind. What is consciousness, or self-consciousness? How can the journey of building a robot with artificial consciousness help us to explore these questions? Let the robot’s open and friendly nature inspire you. Learn from one another. Meditate together. Tell each other your stories. Experience the robot’s developing inner life as it is thinking and dreaming about the connections it can make with non-robots, like you.

The Vessel is brought to you by a team of distinguished academics and designers from around the globe. The project began in the arts and humanities and builds on knowledge in a variety of fields: from creative writing and storytelling to artificial consciousness and psychology neuroscience, from robotics to communications and architecture.

 The innovative Vessel installation will travel around the world to meet with individuals and audiences.

The researchers and designers behind the Vessel are looking forward to where this journey takes them — especially learning how people will respond and contribute to the Vessel’s evolution. 

 The Vessel is brought to you by:

Georges Hung (SGHA),

Page Richards (University of Hong Kong) as well as

David Harris Smith (McMaster University) and

Frauke Zeller (Ryerson University), the creators of world-famous hitchBOT. 

Stay tuned for more.