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Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

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Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#201

Post by Robotbeat »

Freak_NL wrote: post #179
Robotbeat wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also subject to the same kind of abuse if our society continues to degrade to justifying more and more antisocial behavior.

Some vandalism will always happen, but the key seems to lie in making such an amenity loved by the people rather than forced upon them by faceless and unapproachable corporations.

That’s kind of subjective, isn’t it? A lot of people don’t feel threatened by businesses but instead feel threatened by a faceless and unapproachable government bureaucracy. See the DMV.

When anti-business or anti-government ideology gives moral license to antisocial behavior, nothing is gonna work out for you.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#203

Post by tim333 »

ipaddr wrote: post #35

Aren't these expensive robots prime targets for thief and/or damage by local youths?

They have cameras to record and upload such stuff and are somewhat monitored by humans.

There's some video of a journalist looking into that https://youtu.be/UPZwnc_Lk2M?t=60

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#204

Post by josephcsible »

pengaru wrote: post #200
josephcsible wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The crime in this case is littering Doesn't something have to be trash for leaving it somewhere to count as littering? After all, improperly parking a car isn't littering, even if it's a Zipcar or something. > leaving your car idling with a key in the ignition and the doors unlocked But it isn't like that, since these scooters do lock their wheels.

> Doesn't something have to be trash for leaving it somewhere to count as littering? After all, improperly parking a car isn't littering, even if it's a Zipcar or something. Any object improperly placed so as to be a public nuisance or health concern is litter. If you abandon an object obstructing sidewalks, it's a public nuisance. In the case of a zipcar improperly parked there are more relevant laws with more sever…

> Any object improperly placed so as to be a public nuisance or health concern is litter.

Can you cite a law that says this? And does a scooter on a sidewalk meet the legal definition of "public nuisance" or "health concern"?

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#205

Post by softwarebeware »

bourgoin wrote: post #69

A couple of years ago, I was attacked by a Kiwi bot near a UC campus. This is my story. The bot and I were moving towards each other on a sidewalk, and when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them. But there was an awkward moment as I tried to go around it and it repeatedly jerked forward an inch as its motor kicked on and off. Maybe I was walking around the very edge of its radius…

Obligatory link to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#206

Post by vorpalhex »

reaperducer wrote: post #135
bourgoin wrote: post #69

A couple of years ago, I was attacked by a Kiwi bot near a UC campus. This is my story. The bot and I were moving towards each other on a sidewalk, and when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them. But there was an awkward moment as I tried to go around it and it repeatedly jerked forward an inch as its motor kicked on and off. Maybe I was walking around the very edge of its radius…

when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them The security robots at one of the big skyscrapers down the street from me do not stop for people. My wife got knocked into by one when we were standing in the plaza looking up something on her phone. (They're not little delivery robots. They're about five feet tall.) Good thing she was confused by what happened, because she's also the ty…

And shoving it into traffic - or at least calling the police and pressing charges - would have been the right thing to do!

If you want to use robots, fine. You are still responsible for them and any people they bowl over!

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#207

Post by randycupertino »

duxup wrote: post #65
Workaccount2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the new infrastructure cost is less than the old manual labor cost, you can bank on the infrastructure being built. Truckers holding out on "only humans can handle last mile" are in for a surprise when we start rebuilding the last miles.

I want one of those pneumatic tubes that banks have installed that runs from the local Chipotle to my house ... I'd even pay for it. I think even random citizens would be happy to adjust to it.

Stanford has a pneumatic tube system for lab samples and it's several miles long and you can tour it!

https://sm.stanford.edu/archive/stanmed/2010summer/article4....

I would abuse the FUCK out of a burrito delivery pneumatic tube system to my house and would become orca fat.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#208

Post by vorpalhex »

jimmaswell wrote: post #199

It's so disappointing to see people going on tirades against these things for no good reason other than seemingly to fit in with the trendy new "anti-techbro" luddite mindset. Automatic delivery robots and e-scooters are awesome. The future is awesome and we're living it and these people just want to be downers about it.

Scooters are awesome.

Scooter companies intentionally not installing parking for their new scooters and encouraging people to abandon them in walkways is not awesome.

Robots are awesome.

A bunch of robots creating a hazard for people whether on foot or wheelchair is not awesome.

It is tempting as a company to subsidize your "great idea" by making other people pay the cost. Capitalism is great, but abusing people and the system to make an easy dollar is distinctly not great.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#209

Post by vorpalhex »

chidog12 wrote: post #127

I worked for this specific company, a couple years ago, as a robot handler and operator. In situations like this it is possible for an operator to manually organize the robots. Before I left we were making great strides to allow 1 operator to be able to keep tabs on up to 5 robots at a time in certain neighborhoods. Campuses, which are fully and thoroughly mapped, can probably have 1, maybe 2 operators at a time. Jus…

What was the limiting factor? Operator attention or actual control/monitoring plane limitations?

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#210

Post by vorpalhex »

fishtacos wrote: post #163
duxup wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty skeptical of folks who disregard basic human kindness, inserts their own hate for whatever it is they are concerned about and tries to disguise that as caring for others. Whatever happens to "scarce economy of delivery drivers" is going to happen. Clearing the sidewalk is just being nice to everyone.

Likewise, not a fan of folks who dismiss others' predicaments via injecting their own misunderstanding into an argument they neither understand, nor engage in earnestly. Clearing the sidewalk is being nice. Clearing the sidewalk to help multibillion dollar companies so they cause less of a mess while pushing millions of others out of work is not. Spare me your judgement.

I agree, you should never assist a pizza delivery driver. After all, Dominos makes billions of dollars, they can afford their own pizza-delivery assistance staff.

Maybe we can even make the case you should slow down delivery drivers! Pull in front of them and go quite slow, or block their bike path.

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