Either we let the sidewalk become a free for all or we don’t. I don’t think it’s fair to make exceptions for robots on wheels.
Why? You already demonstrated that we are able to acknowledge scooters and wheelchairs. That shows that exceptions can be made. They were made on some basis that is not all or nothing. Likewise we can review the basis here and decide that robots are not allowed or we can decide that robots are allowed.
It’s a collective space and how we collectively allocate it is useful to consider. I’d happily take wider sidewalks if it meant admitting robots for instance.
There’s no reason to believe this is a walk-or-nothing situation. In SF, for instance, children do not need the sidewalk to travel on their bikes but they are permitted to use it.
FWIW I think it is a big assumption on your part that the allowance of delivery robots is a show of “incompetence”. You may not like them but I think a lot of people find them nifty.
I see people on rented scooters/bikes on the sidewalk all the time. Society at large seems to absolutely accept this. (note that I'm commenting on the current state of affairs, not what I think ought be the case)
From the article it sounds like the Pennsylvania legislature has already considered the case of delivery robots specifically and decided that they should go on the sidewalk, though to what degree that reflects the popular will is unknown to me.
Robots owners got big bucks which means power. They need ROI, not sidewalks (also, guess do they use sidewalks or cars?).
Well at that point you could probably just re-order (no big deal in the grand scheme of things, it's not a widespread issue), send another bot and have that bot just stare them down right?
I really don't get the need for police intervention here. It's the same way you win against an obstinate child in such a scenario. Patience. Who in this delivery company escalated like this? Why? Has this been worth the negative press over just "hey reorder the takeaway and send another bot"?
(This also ignores all the fun things about work culture in the USA, like healthcare being tied to your job.)
I can’t see this going well short term. Long term, maybe.
But my point, as I also said in another related comment, is that I think we should vote more often, voting for people representing us is not enough. One size does not fit all.
Now the story is that the police came and protected an innocent robot by chaining up an old woman. That sure makes them seem like misanthropes.
Its not the robot you have less rights than, but the corporation. Cops' job is to do their bidding.
Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as incentivizing people to have children because accounting for socioeconomic changes (like birth control and affordability), it’s highly likely that industrial pollutants like heavy metals and endocrine disruptors like BPA are likely the main culprits when even developing countries are seeing low fertility.
It is very hard to disentangle plastic from our food and drink
Yes, we're going to quickly come to a head on the issue of robots on sidewalks, much like we have with e-scooters, or Google's ill-fated bikes.
The robots open a new possibility on an existing system (sidewalks), which is going to lead to problems from both sides until the legislature comes up with new rules. This is how free and democratic societies work.
> In the aftermath of her arrest, Marvin has found out more about the legal infrastructure that protects robots. In 2020, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law that classifies autonomous delivery robots — what the law calls “personal delivery devices” — as pedestrians, not vehicles. Democrats, along with labor unions and accessibility advocates, largely opposed the law on the basis that legalizing delivery robots could kill jobs and endanger children and pedestrians; Republicans touted it as an exciting technological advancement.
> The law means that a vehicle must yield to a delivery robot on crosswalks, just as it would to a person
I wonder why children haven't discovered a "block the robot" game yet and score points for the longest blockade. Maybe they aren't allowed to go outside in the US.
But I think we should also make deliberate choices to keep humans and human meaning in many things, even if they are less "efficient" by some chosen metric.
Automation and mechanization is desirable to the point that it serves core human wishes and desires-- and through some kind of global/social metric, not that it serve individual humans at the expense of everyone else.
I'd like to extend this quote from Stephen Jay Gould:
>I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops [and driving cars to deliver burritos]
This would have been unthinkable 200 years ago, during a time we are trained to think of as much more barbaric than the present.
The non-violent aspects of the civil rights movement also featured in so many ways what might be seen as "petty" disruptions of every day life.
...Not to say that blocking a delivery robot is an apt comparison to getting out of nam, or racial equality. Just that petty disruption is a time-honored tradition of protest in the US.
But if she was doing the same thing to humans as she was to the robot, they couldn't move around her (assuming that means re-positioning herself every time they try to go around) - and I think most people would agree that arresting her would be a good thing.
So the next question is, are all users of the sidewalk (as long as they're using it roughly the same way, which is temporary and quick pass through) deserve to have the same rights as a human?
My previous comment doesn't seem to align with this one, but mostly because I'm mixed on this.
I suppose if the robot literally cannot path around someone standing still, it might be a valid excuse? But as soon as you're actively moving to block it, it is obviously obstruction.
Judges get to run off common sense, not programmer logic - the point of the law is that public paths ought to be usable by anyone for lawful purposes, and currently "delivery robot" is a lawful purpose.
If I stand on a train track, do you think the police aren't allowed to ask me to move?
Quote from a lawyer in the article:
> Personal delivery devices must yield to other pedestrians and pedalcyclists in a pedestrian area
Sounds like the robot legally had to yield to her. If so, what lawful basis would the officer have had to make the order?
It's quite possible (and likely!) for you simultaneously to have an obligation to yield and the other party to have an obligation to not block.
dionian•35m ago
everything in her home is made in china because big corps sent our manufacturing jobs overseas where they burn mountains of coal and pollute our environment, all for a higher profit margin. and our politicians say they've reduced their carbon emissions. win win