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Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?

latimes.com

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Re: Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?

#41

Post by thaumasiotes »

seemaze wrote: post #33

I stumbled on the most hilarious cross-walk encounter between one of the these delivery bots and a Waymo in downtown phoenix.. it seems that neither was programmed (probably rightfully so) to take the initiative in the situation, so what ensued was a painfully drawn out exchange of agentic deference.

Interestingly, the solution to this problem in humans is that all humans have different individual aggressiveness levels. That works pretty well, but I would guess it won't be one of the first things that robot fleet operators try.

Re: Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?

#44

Post by pests »

kurtis_reed wrote: post #43
siliconc0w wrote: post #38

I don't get how it's okay to commercialize public side walks. Can I just put a vending machine on wheels, park it in front of people's homes, and raise a 100M to replace convenience stores?

Guess what, human couriers use the sidewalk

A vending machine is not a human tho.

Re: Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?

#45

Post by pests »

olyjohn wrote: post #7
cassepipe wrote: post #5

> The e-bike craze, which is putting many people, including kids, in the hospital at an alarming rate, has thus far defied similar regulatory frameworks. CTRL + f : "suv" 0 matches "truck" ? 0 matches I stopped reading past that. That level of carbrain is intolerable. If you think light vehicles capped at 25km/h is an issue idk what to tell you. At least with delivery robots people don't have to take a one ton metal…

They're not talking about properly regulated e-bikes. They're talking about the huge groups of kids riding around on Surrons and other electric dirt bikes that are actually just motorcycles. They're getting bikes that can do 70mph, wearing no safety gear, and riding them in traffic, and getting hit. That's the e-bike craze the author is talking about. So calm your tits.

A small city near me in the suburbs of Detroit just had to have a town meeting / facebook post / etc about teens driving electric scooters and bikes driving recklessly, causing accidents, injuring themselves and others, etc.

Re: Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?

#46

Post by pests »

meowkit wrote: post #11
olyjohn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not talking about properly regulated e-bikes. They're talking about the huge groups of kids riding around on Surrons and other electric dirt bikes that are actually just motorcycles. They're getting bikes that can do 70mph, wearing no safety gear, and riding them in traffic, and getting hit. That's the e-bike craze the author is talking about. So calm your tits.

What are the fatalities for e-bikes vs SUVs in the US per year? Your comment is irrelevant otherwise because last time I checked cars are the real problem, and concerns over e bikes / delivery bots is just another lame extension of “safetyism” and ignorance around public transport failures that just misses the mark. “Riding in traffic” is half the issue here. Like trying to explain water to fish.

By your logic, heart disease and cancer are the real concern. Why you so worried about cars? Your comment is irrelevant otherwise.

Re: Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?

#48

Post by Markoff »

XorNot wrote: post #36
nixpulvis wrote: post #34

I hate them, but not for perhaps the normal reason. I also hate the way delivery has progressed. Delivery used to be relegated to a few types of food which were designed better for it. Remember when your pizza came hot in an insulated pizza sleeve, not dropped at your entrance cold and sad? We're making it more and more normal to completely avoid interacting with each other and having service be something we cherish,…

I don't know what harm you are imagining happens here. Because the actual environmental harm of normal customer pick up is pretty large - its very inefficient to have hundreds of people converge on one location, rather then a single person or (robot) deliver many orders to the same hundreds of people.

these robots can take only one order at a time (at least here in Prague) since they don't have multiple separated compartments and it takes ages to deliver one order (company claims 14 minutes in 1-2km zone, but I have my doubts about their data, I assume at best they mean delivery time since pick up in restaurant to customer building), so it's much more efficient for people to walk that 1-2km or take public transport to pick up their food

I remember they proudly published their THREE robots delivered successfully 130 orders over 4 months period since trial started in December 2025, even over one month it would be less than two orders per day per robot, over 4 months the number is a bad joke, not even one order or day.

https://www.lupa.cz/aktuality/autonomnich-rozvazkovych-robot...

Though now they are planning sweeping robots which seems like much better use of robots doing something useful beneficial to everyone, not only to bunch of lazy hipsters.

Re: Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?

#49

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

siliconc0w wrote: post #38

I don't get how it's okay to commercialize public side walks. Can I just put a vending machine on wheels, park it in front of people's homes, and raise a 100M to replace convenience stores?

In many jurisdictions you can. The source article is from California, and under California law cities generally must allow street vending.

Re: Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?

#50

Post by SwellJoe »

Kapura wrote: post #30

I think it's important to note that these things don't take jobs from humans; they dislocate the jobs from expensive humans where the vehicles operate to less expensive humans with an internet connection in the global south. This is literally outsourcing physical labour overseas.

I work on delivery robots (not like the ones discussed in the article, they operate in privately owned buildings, not on public streets) and I can assure you the company I work for employs no human drivers overseas, or anywhere else. Of course, the robots have teleoperation capabilities, for demos and testing, but no good way to actually complete deliveries with a human driving. Our teleops feature is literally just a PlayStation controller or clicking arrows in a web app. It's just not a thing we ever developed or considered developing, and not an expense that I think could be justified. The robots I work on operate fully autonomously, so why waste human time on routine deliveries?

I don't know anything about the delivery robots roaming the streets and discussed in this article, but it's possible to build fully autonomous delivery robots. I guess in a robot like these, one might have to have more human monitoring, since they could get stolen or damaged, block traffic or prevent wheelchair users from using curb cuts, etc. But, if any of them are outsourcing the actual routine driving and delivery to people, even people in low-pay locations, they'll eventually be beaten by someone who isn't. There's no reason for a human to be driving robots at this point.

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