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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

#211

Post by chidog12 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #209
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?

The limiting factor was Operator attention and issues with an environment.

In a closed, mapped environment like a campus with minimal street crossings. The robot can make its way to the restaurant, get the delivery and make the delivery, with out operator input or attention… even if people block the robot, it can navigate around and interact. After a couple failed attempts, it alerts an operator and then manual action may occur.

Some situations were a bit more complicated. I’ve had to navigate 4 robots, all at street crossings with different types of traffic. The safe thing to do is, take care of them one at a time, even if a couple robots miss the light.

Once a crossing light changes and things look safe, we would just initiate the crossing. The robot can navigate on its own.

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

#212

Post by yumraj »

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.

> future is awesome and we're living it

This sentence which I keep seeing again and again always confuses me, because it makes no sense whatsoever.

Is this something new that people have started using to defend and assign value to things when they run out of logical arguments in their favor? I see it being used to support crypto a lot.

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

#214

Post by thepasswordis »

gwbas1c wrote: post #124
thepasswordis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Usually when I see this, I just knock the things over and push them out of the way. So you make the problem worse ? Why don’t you take 2 minutes and push them to the side of the sidewalk if you care so much about ADA access? You can fix the problem you are encountering, and the people you want to protect CANT. You are choosing to make the problem worse for them? Why? I live in a major downtown full of these scooter…

> Why don’t you take 2 minutes Wow, if a 3-4 minute walk involves 10 scooters that's now almost a 25-minute walk. It's not the OP's job to clean up after everyone else.

It doesn’t take 2 minutes to move a scooter 3 feet. It takes about 10 seconds.

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

#215

Post by freeopinion »

thepasswordis wrote: post #55
_fullpint wrote: post #13

Absolutely hate these scooters from an ADA prospective. My neighborhood is a mostly quiet one near the center of a large city, where there are a lot of mothers who push their kids in strollers, older folks with canes, and some people even in wheelchairs. On the weekends -- sometimes the weekdays as well depending on the time of the year -- the city gets flooded with both tourists, and suburbanites who want to go to a…

> Usually when I see this, I just knock the things over and push them out of the way. So you make the problem worse ? Why don’t you take 2 minutes and push them to the side of the sidewalk if you care so much about ADA access? You can fix the problem you are encountering, and the people you want to protect CANT. You are choosing to make the problem worse for them? Why? I live in a major downtown full of these scooter…

Perhaps it is human nature to want to inflict harm on those we perceive to be causing harm. This rarely leads to the best outcome. So I would love to hear from cooler heads that could improve the following idea and take the pointless retribution out of it:

It is not enough to kick over a scooter. We need to tag repeat offenders and increase the severity of the response. For instance, paint one handlebar grip on the first infraction, then the other grip on the second, then a seat, headlight/taillight, etc. A scooter that has been tagged enough can have the tires flattened, spokes broken, etc.

Clearly, there are numerous flaws with the solution above. It's really a terrible idea. To some degree it shows the flaws with kicking over offending scooters.

Alternatively, you could hire enforcement officers to issue citations. That also has flaws. You could build a system that allows random citizens to document offenses in a credible way and then have authorities act on repeated offenses. Also not without problems.

Perhaps coloring the scenario differently might help. Imagine, for instance, that a certain neighborhood house is popular with the neighborhood children. The children frequently ride their bikes to the house and leave their bikes strewn in the driveway, the front yard, and on the sidewalk. What would be an appropriate series of responses? How could you build a system that protects against a grumpy neighbor abusing whatever escalation mechanism you devise?

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

#217

Post by tim333 »

ck2 wrote: post #158

Now consider the military is trying to add weapons to bots. Probably already has, imagine those beta-test stories and "just ship it" results someday.

The Israelis have some quite functional border protection bots I think. https://youtu.be/v2nfPUxWlMc?t=40

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

#218

Post by onion2k »

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.

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.

I understand that you are keen on the idea, but that doesn't mean every possible criticism is wrong. Dismissing potentially valid posts because you have an unfounded belief about the motivations behind them is not the best way to defend an idea.

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

#219

Post by psyc »

yumraj wrote: post #212
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.

> future is awesome and we're living it This sentence which I keep seeing again and again always confuses me, because it makes no sense whatsoever. Is this something new that people have started using to defend and assign value to things when they run out of logical arguments in their favor? I see it being used to support crypto a lot.

I mean, I’ve felt that way since the Commodore 64 and the feeling has mostly only increased. When I was a kid, I assumed video phones would look like desk phones with a TV on top. I couldn’t have imagined they’d be wallet sized, and include an encyclopedia.
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