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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

#391

Post by npteljes »

soared wrote: post #241
npteljes wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that's something else. Do you remember where you read that? I'd love to know more.

Similarly, people in Venezuela play RuneScape, an mmo, and sell virtual currency as a full time job: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.polygon.com/platform/amp/fe... Venezuelans farm gold and indirectly sell it to wealthy Americans. $0.70 for 1MM gold is nothing for an American, but adds up to meaningful amounts in Venezuela if your monthly salary is $4 USD.

I already knew about these, but thinking about it, it's not less surreal than remote controlling a robot in another country for pennies. Even has a wiki on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming

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

#392

Post by marcosdumay »

munk-a wrote: post #366
nicoco wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying we should implement a smile feature to the delivery bots?

The facial communication is only necessary because we're negotiating as two people who want to go where the other one is. When it comes to bots they can be forever deferential and always yield to humans.

Hum... I'm not sure you got what is being negotiated right.

When people do that it's because both are yielding. They just don't know where to yield.

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

#393

Post by Johnny555 »

nkrisc wrote: post #26

I understand this person is making a judgement on the state of mind of others, so it may not at all be accurate with regards to the people actually clearing the scooters, but I found this interesting nonetheless, that the author assumes this: > I just observed a couple of students clearing a path out of pity for the robots. I understand why people might feel pity for robots. People become attached to all sorts of ina…

I doubt they were helping the robot out of pity for the robot, but more because they knew that the robot was taking some delivery to a human who was waiting for that delivery. Or maybe just to free a path so the robots weren't stacking up in the sidewalk blocking people.

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

#394

Post by balthigor »

MathCodeLove wrote: post #388
rolandog wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's depressing to think that companies have normalized passing "mechanical turks" (exploiting workers from an impoverished country) as AI.

Those "exploited workers" probably made decent money relative to the cost of living in their location, and they got to do it from the comfort of a computer instead of hard labor in the sun, which is what someone in their same socioeconomic bracket would more likely be doing.

How would you know?

Have you ever been in "their" location living in "their" same socioeconomic bracket?

Would it bother you more if "their" was replaced with "our"?

Would you then consider it "decent" money?

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

#395

Post by MathCodeLove »

balthigor wrote: post #394
MathCodeLove wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "exploited workers" probably made decent money relative to the cost of living in their location, and they got to do it from the comfort of a computer instead of hard labor in the sun, which is what someone in their same socioeconomic bracket would more likely be doing.

How would you know? Have you ever been in "their" location living in "their" same socioeconomic bracket? Would it bother you more if "their" was replaced with "our"? Would you then consider it "decent" money?

If it was "our" citizens getting paid near (US) minimum wage to sit at home and monitor a robot all day then yes, I'd still be all for it. Teenage me would have much preferred that to fast food, and even adult me would happily take it as a second or interim job if needed and unable to find better paying work for some reason. And I'm sure it'd be a great opportunity for the physically disabled or other people unable to leave home.

This is a win for everyone involved. A US company gets to outsource easy work at a price below our minimum wage that they can afford to a population which can live happily with those lower wages due to their nations cost of living.

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

#396

Post by derivagral »

mulmen wrote: post #386
derivagral wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complaints like this are typically run through the city or campus that leases operation rights to the fleet. These entities usually get fairly forceful in (competitive) markets. Your local scooter outfit(s) are not going to want to risk a market with a ton of complaints and bad operations feedback. That said: given GPS limitations, the time it takes for a van with humans to arrive (and park!), as well as lagging feed…

The fact that scooter companies are focused on “winning markets” makes me think they are a negative. For this to work the price has to be low. That means competition. In my neighborhood both Comcast and CenturyLink provide service. When the CenturyLink installer showed up he explained the install would take longer than estimated because he couldn’t use the line directly in front of my house. That’s a “Comcast line”.…

I haven't heard of direct antagonism as such, but I do know there've been social media groups dedicated to defacing/destroying property, incl hacking/theft. Unless maybe you're one of the top 2-3, I don't think anyone has time (in eng at least) to do such things. From what I could tell, everyone does use custom software.

To your point about ISP competition, the original company in the space I was at was developing generic operations software. Our main (large) client decided to inhouse instead of continue the contract, and a smaller competitor bought us. Sharing platforms isn't really in the cards; the best you'll get is MDS[0] or GBFS[1], but those initiatives are typically led by municipalities or their vendors. The former is usually restricted to regulators, and the latter isn't always reliably implemented unless the market specifies it. These are also moving specs (markets want different versions, ofc), it was great fun!

As far as "winning" vs other motivations, remember that (afaik) none of these companies are profitable yet and the VCs aren't dong this for fun. The people I worked with cared very much about the mission, but the board doesn't always agree.

[0] https://github.com/openmobilityfoundation/mobility-data-spec...

[1] https://gbfs.mobilitydata.org/

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

#397

Post by marcosdumay »

bluGill wrote: post #237
vorpalhex wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Probably. This seems like a public space so almost certainly. However if this was private space sometimes the rules are different. Once in a while I have to go into our factory (not even once a year, but sometimes), and they always make it clear that forklifts have the right away so watch out. (forklifts have poor visibility, so by giving them the right of way they ensure nobody expects them to stop - in practice a f…

Well, if you invite people over your private space, you can't go and assault them.

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

#398

Post by [deleted] »

marricks wrote: post #54
djohnston wrote: post #2

It would be awesome if delivery robots had a built-in road rage mechanism that turned them into battle bots.

Imagine paying extra for your delivery robot to have a buzz saw or be wedge shaped to tackle other robots. On a college campus that would make a killing!

[deleted]

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

#399

Post by munk-a »

marcosdumay wrote: post #392
munk-a wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The facial communication is only necessary because we're negotiating as two people who want to go where the other one is. When it comes to bots they can be forever deferential and always yield to humans.

Hum... I'm not sure you got what is being negotiated right. When people do that it's because both are yielding. They just don't know where to yield.

I understand yea - when it comes to a robot and a human though the human doesn't need to yield. It'll probably take some time to train it into people but humans should always have the right of way.

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

#400

Post by iancmceachern »

rexpop wrote: post #385
rolandog wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's depressing to think that companies have normalized passing "mechanical turks" (exploiting workers from an impoverished country) as AI.

For more in that depressing vein, check out "Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass" by Mary L. Gray

I will, I liked nickel and dimed so I'll give this a read. One side note, in looking up this book to purchase on Amazon, the hardcover is 2 bucks cheaper than the soft cover. I've seen this kind of thing quite a bit lately. What gives?
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