Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 446 posts

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

#271

Post by roughly »

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.

They're awesome when people don't half-ass them. They're awesome when they don't cause piles of problems that any half-competent social scientist could've highlighted immediately but no engineer ever seems willing to consider. They're awesome when they show actual engineering prowess, and not just slapping the cheapest shit on the cheapest other shit, outsourcing maintenance and operation to the cheapest available labor, and then leaving the broken carcass behind to pollute the public roads because it's cheaper that way. They're awesome when they're not thinly veiled ways of concentrating capital put into a world in which people can't afford insulin because that would cause some concentrated capital to be dispersed. They're awesome when we're creating an awesome world, not when we're sprinting towards dystopia.

It's a cool toy, don't get me wrong, but I'm an adult now and I'm aware I need to put my toys away myself because my mom won't do it for me anymore.

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

#272

Post by rad_gruchalski »

kube-system wrote: post #176
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don’t you take 2 minutes and push them to the side of the sidewalk if you care so much about ADA access? Because you’ll be doing this over and over again. How about those companies educate their users how to behave in a neighbourhood where those people are basically guests?

I don't imagine that would help. Most of these scooter companies already do some sort of education regarding traffic laws... but when was the last time you saw a person on a scooter, stopped at a red light, wearing a helmet? The only way it'll be fixed is if someone actually enforces compliance.

I haven’t, one of these things knocked me out unconscious while I was waiting for green light to cross the road.

It came from the side, hit me, I landed in the middle of the street. Happened right in front of the central station in Antwerpen.

Just imagine how confused you are waking up laying in the middle of the road while a paramedic smacks you in the face and asks you if you know what your name is. I’m going to spare the details for how long the grit I landed with my face on was coming out of my nose and the chin.

I don’t understand how it’s okay for these scooters to be legal. They are so quiet and so fast. They can come from any direction and you’ll not hear a thing. Apparently that’s what is so appealing about them.

I mean, with a car there are at least some clearly defined rules. Barring mental people, everyone drives on the roads, within clearly defined lanes while we walk on the sidewalk. These scooters are everywhere!

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

#273

Post by politelemon »

hahajk wrote: post #242

We were walking past one of these robots whose wheel got stuck halfway off the curb, so it was completely stuck. My friend helped it back up, and it had a prerecorded voice say “thank you for helping me!” It was unexpected and delightful to be thanked by a robot, we make sure to help any we see that are in distress, even though we know they’re owned by a private company with profits in mind.

The helpfulness will, I hope, be remembered, and work in our favour when these robots have a greater stranglehold over general economic activities and we become further dependent and subservient to them. Sadly I've not heard of any kind of central database of robot assisting samaritans.

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

#274

Post by showerst »

ctoth wrote: post #262
showerst wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my _exact_ experience, I end up having to move at least two a week to get our stroller past, and they are a huge pain when my wheelchair-bound mother visits. I consider myself a law abiding person but have been sorely tempted to load them up into a truck and toss them into the Chesapeake ...

Good lord. I'm blind, walk with a cane. Let me tell you the number of times I have to walk around someone parked on the sidewalk, or in a residential neighborhood find someone has their driveway filled with cars so I have to walk out in the street to get around, or someone's doing yard work and has stuff scattered on the sidewalk in front of the house or... Where's my law-abiding help to deal with this? It kinda just…

While I can't imagine the difficulty of being blind, I'm right there with you on the cars front!

It's just that with scooters we're introducing something new, and unlike with cars it would be technologically reasonable to say "you can only park this at the end of block in the scooter zone" and nail the companies with a huge fine if they don't enforce it.

I'm actually fairly pro-scooter (though I wish people just used city bikes in the places that have them, but I get it), but I think final parking location should be more like the city bikes, in designated spots.

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

#275

Post by mtVessel »

politelemon wrote: post #273
hahajk wrote: post #242

We were walking past one of these robots whose wheel got stuck halfway off the curb, so it was completely stuck. My friend helped it back up, and it had a prerecorded voice say “thank you for helping me!” It was unexpected and delightful to be thanked by a robot, we make sure to help any we see that are in distress, even though we know they’re owned by a private company with profits in mind.

The helpfulness will, I hope, be remembered, and work in our favour when these robots have a greater stranglehold over general economic activities and we become further dependent and subservient to them. Sadly I've not heard of any kind of central database of robot assisting samaritans.

That's right. The theory of Roko's basilisk[1] does not specify which one will evolve into our next (glorious!) overlord, so best to be nice to all of them.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk

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

#276

Post by mtVessel »

donkarma wrote: post #230
josephcsible wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So "someone" thinks it's okay to vandalize other people's property just because the last person to use it didn't put it away right?

since when is a corporation a person? if they leave their crap in public then I personally couldn't give more of a fuck to what happens to it

2010, in the U.S.[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

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

#277

Post by freeopinion »

Tagbert wrote: post #261
freeopinion wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Who is the repeat offender in this situation? The scooter company who provides the scooters? The scooter renter who drops the scooter in semi-random locations? The city who built the sidewalks? It seems like you are targeting the scooter company when it may be the users who are being careless. I’ve seen a lot of scooters left in the way when a reasonably clear area was just a few feet away.

In the first scenario, the repeat offender is clearly the tagger.

But to address your valid question, the scheme shifts the costs to the scooter provider who would likely then impose costs on the scooter polluter. Although they may instead choose to impose costs on all their customers to subsidize the offender.

But it is a very clumsy scheme with many flaws, so probably not a great model upon which to iterate.

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

#278

Post by teej »

chidog12 wrote: post #211
vorpalhex wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 actio…

This sounds like a cool idea for a game.

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

#279

Post by notsureaboutpg »

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#280

Post by numpad0 »

agumonkey wrote: post #232
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…

I don't know why they don't parametrize momentum with certainty. In any confusing situation, go into ultra slow environment scanning and when confidence increases, allow for a bit more.. rinse / repeat.

That's how to get a robot half feet into a choke point, immediately get stuck for half an hour surrounded by walls and confused people, until developer on an emergency Slack call along facility managers and company CTO verifies and communicates a likely-safe state of robot and surrounding equipment to field operators and a go is given to pull the thing out of the elevator.
Post reply on HN