This robot, Probo (a somewhat unfortunately choice of moniker that is likely intended to refer to his elephant-like nose), is designed to help the morale of hospitalized children. This and the other examples in this trend have me speculating about 'muppetizing' and the effects thereof. A puppet is not a robot per se, but robots as we know them are puppets. Even the interactions of a sophisticated specimen represent a mediated communication with another person, the performance of a puppeteer, programmer, builder, or, more likely, an entire cast. In essence, we can ask 'why do we trust puppets' and connect up puppet-related literature (uhm... Carlos Collodi's Pinnochio ... RUR's paradigmatic 'puppet' class) to get an additional perspective. Of course, there's a point where seeing any technical construction as a puppet created by its designers and manipulated by whomever seizes the strings is intellectually interesting but of limited utility.
http://www.walyou.com/blog/2009/04/24/probo-robot/
Video: http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=102437&videoChannel=4
This other example, a robot built by one Rufus Terril, patrols a neighborhood. "Rufus built a robot to roam his neighborhood streets and scare criminals and troublemakers away."
http://www.walyou.com/blog/2008/03/11/man-made-robot-is-cleaning-up-the-streets/
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