It was a showdown worthy of a classic Western, except the things rolling down the street weren’t tumbleweeds. They were robots.

On one side of an Old City sidewalk in Philadelphia, an Uber Eats robot trundled along on its daily route. Suddenly, something blocked its path, and it was met face-to-interface with another, new robot. This new bot on the block was wildly different from its utilitarian, food-conveying counterpart: Not only did it have blond hair, blue eyes, and a perpetually lolling tongue, but it also had a name. Meet Orifice the Awebot.

Meg Saligman, founder of the Ministry of Awe , an immersive art installation located in a 19th-century Old City bank building, had raced ahead to intercept the bot so Orifice could meet it.…