'We had to get out of the way': The backlash over delivery robots (bbc.com)

They had these in Berkeley when I was there, my thought was always, why aren't the homeless hunting these for food?

I have a friend who uses a wheelchair and he hates encountering these things in the wild. I know there's a couple different companies making these things and I'm not sure if they all behave like this, but they take up the whole sidewalk and won't backup or turn to get out of the way.

Instead they just sit there blinking and beeping at my friend, and of course in a wheelchair it's not easy (or safe!) to go over the curb or anything to get around them.

Automated delivery sounds cool at first glance but they probably shouldn't be on the sidewalk if they can't accommodate the humans who also need to get around.

They are motorized vehicles, and as such should not operate on sidewalks or other pedestrian areas.

This article captures the problem exactly. In Miami, there are areas where sidewalks are too narrow for a robot (from Serve Robotics) and a human to share simultaneously, so either the robot or the human goes first. If the human wants to go first, they have to step into the street and walk around the robot. The robot and its operator are never courteous enough to back up.

Which raises the question: why should these robots be prioritized over humans? Why can't they use the streets when there are pedestrians? Why should the SAFETY OF HUMANS be compromised for these profit-seeking corporations and their robots?

"because no-one asked us for permission to use the sidewalks for this business enterprise - "

color me surprised that yet another tech start up came in like a bull in a china shop acting like being a "disruptor" is a cool blanket excuse to be an asshole of a company.

I’m really not convinced these serve a genuine purpose at all. Beyond them always being in your way, they seem to be incredibly inefficient. This is something that would work better in a large building like a hospital, a mall, or an airport, rather than city streets.

Seeing this reminds me of a project I delivered in the past. A tram installation was being planned in my city, and a researcher conducting a feasibility study asked me to build a crawler that would submit data for their research materials. As part of the process, they explained the study to me, and I got the sense that a tram and a delivery robot are essentially the same thing in this context.

When I was organizing the results, the personal conclusion I reached was that this kind of design is ultimately about redistributing existing public space. And in that process, the first people to be pushed to the margins are, by and large, the transportation disadvantaged. This delivery robot is consuming the same public resource, public space, and the same dynamic plays out: the weakest end up being pushed out first. I think it's a similar issue.

The argument of proponents used to be that it removes a lot of large vehicles off the street for small local deliveries… yes and onto the sidewalk. Makes no sense.

These robots cover Los Angeles’ walkable areas, because they’re the only places they work for delivery. My understanding is oftentimes they’re piloted by someone overseas for less pay than the local delivery person market rate. To me, this seems like the worst of both worlds:

It takes up public space in the US, but the operator oftentimes doesn’t benefit from actually living and working in the US. At worst, it literally removes gig jobs from the US while still maintaining the physical presence a delivery person here could do, puts downward pressure on labor pay, costs stay the same for the customer, with no improvement (often worse, imo) to the customer delivery experience. So why do we allow it?

Do we really have to outsource something that inherently requires physical and local presence?

There was a trial of starship's robots in the city I live in, and they generally seemed to be well received (of the people I know who used them and just encountered them while walking/cycling around, and I didn't see any reports of trouble with them). But this is a city which has fairly good pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, which I'm sure helps. (they were also designed to be quite cute, which I think is also pretty important).

I am not from the US so I would never encounter one, but what happens if you kick them / hurt them / destroy them? Do they have a recording camera that would show you did it?

One of the first of those systems, Starship, tested in Redwood City for six months, almost a decade ago. A "safety driver" tagged along, about half a block behind, with some kind of controller. Their units were slow, rather dumb, and never reached deployment. Too early.

Sounds like they're now good enough to deploy and be annoying.

What happens if you refuse to yield?

I don't have a problem with autonomous delivery vehicles. We do have a place for vehicles with wheels though. If they aren't safe enough to be on roads, they just aren't ready. Same as a person intentionally blocking my way though, they often end up on their ass when they use the sidewalk.

Someone is going to argue that a public path is open to all including delibery robots but:

- its not really about whether delivery robots are "anyone" who deserves the right to compete for a public good nor

- whether any private entity has the right to make unexpected "efficient" use of a public good.

The robot is closer to litter placed on a sidewalk by someone else than a delivery person working for the same company. Act accordingly.

If you're doordash/waymo/etc it's your job to teach your moving box to respect other people on public paths