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Autonomous delivery robots, once the exclusive purview of 1980s sci-fi movies, are coming to a city near you, with promises of reduced labor costs, increased efficiency and the reduction of cars.
But as robot fleets proliferate – Starship robots perform food deliveries for DoorDash and Postmates in Redwood City, California, and Washington DC, while Marble robots will begin making deliveries for Yelp Eat24 in San Francisco on Wednesday – the question none of these companies seems to want to answer is this: are these the sidewalks that we actually want?
Sidewalk-traversing robots are one of several possible solutions to the pesky problem of “last-mile” logistics. Venture capitalists have poured millions into startups employing an army of independent contractors to provide instant gratification to urbanites. But the humans in this equation remain a significant cost, and innovators are looking to obviate them with automated solutions.
Amazon, UPS and Google are all working on an airborne method, which certainly makes for splashy PR stunts. But in cities, ground-based delivery services are a more practical solution.
Somehow the prospect evokes Jawas lurking in the dark, ready to pounce on unsuspecting robots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:44AM (6 children)
If you ever wonder "What will we do with the humans that these robots replace?!", then there are too many humans.
There is a surplus of humans; that is why human life is so cheap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:48AM (4 children)
I was going to rebut you, but then I thought: Who are these replaceable humans? They are humans that can be replaced by frickin' robots; they must not be that valuable to humanity.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:55AM (3 children)
You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @05:28PM (1 child)
That works. May I add:
I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.... We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @11:47PM
In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.—1984
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 19 2017, @01:01AM
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and
skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 18 2017, @10:38AM
Half of the will lurk in the dark and rob the drones - thus have something to eat - the other will be hired as security so they'll have somewhere to sleep. One day...
The next day, they'll just exchange places.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:51AM (10 children)
Delivery robot kicked into street by pedestrian shouting, "Get off my sidewalk!"
Lawyers representing coalition of "tech" companies demand the death penalty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:56AM (9 children)
Society could probably do without the aggressors.*
Society could probably do with a little more of the helpful robots.
-----
* BTW, what was the aggressor's skin color?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:57AM (7 children)
The worst. Angry white man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @07:22AM (6 children)
The aggressor was not a white man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @07:54AM (3 children)
The aggressor was not a white man.
They will be soon enough.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday April 18 2017, @08:15AM (2 children)
No, the bullet/laser/robot-self-defence wounds indicate that the deceased was not white.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 18 2017, @10:45AM (1 child)
A completely charred white was still white to begin with... but that's irrelevant anyway.
MagnaVolt [youtube.com] - no embarrassing alarm noise, no need to call the police and it won't even run down your battery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday April 18 2017, @11:19AM
Always worried me that the seat would smell, after the zap.
Revolting.
Here, have some History:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TYpYs9GBXwY [youtube.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @08:17AM
Court ordered anger management classes are full of white men.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @05:47PM
That's odd. The only times somebody started waving a rifle in my direction because he didn't want me on "his" sidewalk, it was a white man.
I guess what's even more baffling is that I'm white, too.
Must be a midwest thing to assume that anybody who isn't over 6' tall is a teenager up to no good.
Maybe he was worried I'd get in the way of the delivery robot coming from the pharmacy with his legal opium.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @08:25PM
See: US Public Education
(Score: 3, Interesting) by martyb on Tuesday April 18 2017, @08:08AM (5 children)
New Definition of DDoS: Distributed Denial of Sidewalk access
I can just see it now. It's Super-Bowl Sunday. Half-Time. People launch their favorite app. Domino's, Papa John, Pizza Hut, ... you name it [huffingtonpost.com].
Fifteen minutes later, swarms of delivery bots take to sidewalks from all around the city and arrive, en masse, on every high-rise residence in New York City. (And Boston. And San Francisco. And ... ) All of them jostling on the sidewalk for access to the buildings' entrance. Waiting for someone to come down and retrieve their order. Earlier bots unable to return as they are blocked by the onslaught of the newer arrivals. And the newer arrivals unable to reach the buildings because of the swarm of earlier bots attempting to leave.
Gridlock on the sidewalk.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday April 18 2017, @08:17AM
So.. Walk *on* the robots (watch for drones)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3O4IOaKZqU [youtube.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday April 18 2017, @08:50AM (1 child)
I doubt it would ever get that bad, because these machines would be easy pickins for parts harvesters with a taste for pizza or what ever.
Within a week they would all be sledge hammered hulks devoid of batteries and motors, with their tracking unit taped to the bottom of
some random police car.
We've covered this story on SN before about this same time last year [soylentnews.org] then again a few days later [soylentnews.org].
It was impractical then, and hasn't improved with age.
Let it go people...
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 19 2017, @07:36AM
Let it go people...
That's the problem: they never will. And thus they will make it reality, however dangerous or stupid it may be (e.g. iot).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 18 2017, @10:48AM
Ha... a just punishment for the sin of enjoying a stupid game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @03:10PM
You can just use your hoverboard, Marty. Be careful over water though.
(Score: 3, Funny) by kaszz on Tuesday April 18 2017, @01:20PM (1 child)
Roborobb, taking all the stuff that the robot has ;)
Next step, even robbers outsource to technology. Delivery robots that get robbed by.. well, robots.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:31PM
The shadow on the face of the sun is the predator drone waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting wheeled prey and carry it away to its nest to be consumed.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:23PM
Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take this pizza down to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cos I don't.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:29PM
So the first place this will be tried is in very densely populated urban cores. So lets send a very valuable robot loaded with instantly usable products, including hot food with fragrant aromas wafting from it, down streets packed with hungry homeless people, vibrant diversity and police who can be counted on to look the other way and hope for the best. Yea, that will work.
(Score: 1) by RoxTeddy on Tuesday April 18 2017, @07:10PM
Free transportation, just hop on one going your way
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @08:40PM
They walk quite well on two legs, can drive vehicles with full autonomy, have excellent communication skills and dynamic crisis avoidance systems.
Humans!
With the modern day plague of technology I think this quote is more applicable than ever: "Our technological abilities are not apparent because we have chosen not to employ them in our daily lives. We believe that when you create a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from the man."
While I believe some automation is great we should be careful about taking it too far. So much of our automated manufacturing goes into disposable products or stuff designed to fail, I would really like humanity as a whole to start valuing true efficiency and not just economic efficiency that shaves some percentages off the bottom line.