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[–] 9 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

She says “as a protest against their incursion into public spaces.” and claims “the delivery robots pose a hazard to people with mobility issues.”

Could it be because they should not be using the footpaths?

What is the maximum number of robots that can we actually allow on the footpaths?

At what point will footpaths be considered unusable due to robot traffic?

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  • [–] 3 points 7 hours ago

    Could it be because they should not be using the footpaths?

    I know some cities have outlawed things like segways and electric scooters from using sidewalks because they’re considered a hazard to pedestrians. Perhaps this explains why I haven’t seen any of these robots in Boston yet…

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  • [–] 26 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    I'm sorry but a robot box delivering my food doesn't make it "slop," this isn't like AI at all. The food isn't worse, or even colder, it's just being delivered by a robot instead of an underpaid guy on a bike or in a car. Why are we fighting to maintain an extremely exploitative gig economy and tipping culture at the same time? I thought both were bad? I don't get it.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    For one it's a big box blocking the road for people and there will not be few of them.

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  • [–] 4 points 16 hours ago

    But the ubereats guy is whizzing along footpaths as quick as he dares on an electric bike because hes gotta get back to make more deliveries to survive.

    I live in a tiny town where that doesnt happen, but whenever I go into my local Big City I'm always dodging them, terrified.

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  • Except they don't block the road. I live and work in an area with a ton of these things all the time. They usually are annoyingly cautious not to block the road, leading to them sometimes sitting at crosswalks for several cycles. That's just not true. They don't even really block the sidewalks even though there are a ton of them.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 day ago

    Some people just need their windmills...

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  • [–] 10 points 1 day ago

    I mean in one sense I get it but in another sense what a weird hill to have chosen.

    Of all the things and ways to protest, how is stopping me from getting my burger really helping? It's not even as if I ordered it from an AI company, it's from a local burger place.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Thing is that delivery robots are quite an efficient way to get stuff moved. Getting a robot delivery from a store is better for the environment than driving there.

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  • "Motor intimidation"

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    I think that's a reasonable reaction to the further encroachment of robots into parts of life where they didn't exist before.

    I'll also say that if they decorated those things in a way that didn't make us feel like we're living in the WALL-E universe, I'd feel a tad bit better about it. Like, make it steampunk or something.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 hours ago

    I genuinely hope I never get to a point where this is how I decide to spend my time. What a sad existence.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    I'm wonder why she doesn't just gift them little hats.

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  • I wonder what would happen if you covered up the lidar. Seems like it would stop doing whatever it was doing and ask for human assistance. Seems like the lidar would fit nicely under a to-go bowl, maybe a large soda cup.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago (17 children)

    This is a really tough one to decide where to side. On the one hand, its first amendment rights and on the other, its the rights of corporations via robots. I'm so torn on this issue.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 day ago (16 children)

    Do delivery robots belong on the sidewalk?

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  • [–] 15 points 1 day ago (11 children)
  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (10 children)
  • [–] 18 points 1 day ago (9 children)

    The road! It's got 4 wheels and motors. Or we could think about how we've designed urban spaces that surrender all space to cars forcing everyone not in a car can get fucked, so maybe take one car lane away and make a new bike/ delivery bot lane.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    I have news for you about some wheelchairs

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  • [–] 0 points 18 hours ago

    Well unluckily we don't have any special exceptions for people with disabilities, so this means I'm forced to double down and say wheelchair users also belong on the road, IF their wheelchair is electrified.

    My argument is still that more space should be taken from driving and parking lanes rather than turning pedestrian areas into the dumping ground for anything that's not a car, overcrowding it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    These things are pretty much exclusively used on college campuses and downtown areas

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    I'm not sure I see your point, unless you're assuming college campuses and downtown cores aren't still heavily car based in the US? I assure you most of them have a road or parking lane to spare near the restaurants that the bots want to pick up from

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Except they're not road fit.

    They can't go at appropriate speeds (IIRC most of these go at best 10mph)

    They're small and low - visibility within city level follow distance is impossible

    Overall, everyone's safer if they stay on the pavement.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Honestly, have them share a bus lane, or expand bike lanes into a secondary lane for delivery robots. Make it on the outside though, so there's a buffer for cyclists.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Definitely not. Look at the short video in the article, and imagine there are dozens of those things, which will inevitably happen if this kind of thing ramps up, which is surely what the corporation who's running these things wants. There would be no way to safely walk down the sidewalk, and people would be forced to walk in the street to get around them.

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  • [–] 2 points 14 hours ago

    Good question. I'd say based on speed and risk. If they go as fast as a walking person and won't bump people, upset the flow or get in the way, sidewalk is OK (to a limit, you can't have hundreds of these things zooming all over.) If they are slow and on the street or bike lane, they're likely to cause problems. I've heard some people say that companies need to pay to widen the sidewalk to accommodate these things, but that's a whole different problem

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  • She found a way to get attention.

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  • [–] -3 points 16 hours ago (1 child)

    What a stupid hill to die on. Robots in service fields are inevitable. It's not about AI stealing jobs, either. It's about technology being used to do the work of humans...which has been occurring since the industrial revolution.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 hours ago

    Sidewalks are for humans. If standing in front of a robot is a crime, it's a crime we ought to be breaking routinely until the laws change.

    Nothing but respect for the people standing up to keep human spaces human.

    And, I don't know how anyone could be so delusional as to think that delivery robots aren't intended to replace human jobs. What else are they for?

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  • [–] 0 points 9 hours ago

    Why has it taken me so long to hear the term Slop-bowl's. I love it!

    Does that make delivery drones, Slop-birds?

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