San Francisco is considering a ban on delivery robots, those cute little boxes on wheels that are being tried out in Washington by Starship Industries and now in San Francisco by Marble. A supervisor used the same words I have used on TreeHugger in Sidewalks are for people. Should we let the robots steal them? April Glaser writes in Recode:
"Our streets and our sidewalks are made for people, not robots," said Supervisor Yee in an interview with Recode. "This is consistent with how we operate in the city, where we don't allow bikes or skateboards on sidewalks."... Yee worries that the robots aren't safe, saying that seniors, people with disabilities and children won't be able move out of the way quickly enough as these machines roll down city sidewalks at walking speed.
Representatives for the robots had no comment.
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Robots may soon make your FedEx delivery from Walmart, Target and Pizza Hut
The robotic contraption rolling down the street just might be delivering a FedEx package to your home or office. That's the vision, anyway, behind the FedEx SameDay Bot that the shipping giant unveiled Wednesday. This sub-200-pound autonomous delivery robot was developed by DEKA Development & Research Corp, whose founder is Segway inventor Dean Kamen.
The SameDay Bot is so-named because its mission is to help retailers make same-day, "last mile" deliveries to local customers. FedEx is collaborating with AutoZone, Lowe's, Pizza Hut, Target, Walgreens and Walmart.
FedEx plans to test the bot this summer in select markets and FedEx Office locations, starting in the company's own Memphis hometown, pending final approval by the city. That approval would appear to be likely since it has the backing of Mayor Jim Strickland.
According to FedEx, on average, more than 60 percent of merchants' customers live within three miles of a store location, demonstrating the opportunity for on-demand, hyper-local delivery.
BTW, where's my breakfast? (Pizza in bed, please.)
Also at The Verge and Engadget.
Related: Domino's Trials Pizza Delivery Robot With 12-Mile Range
Self-Driving Robot Might be Future of Home Delivery
Delivery Robots: a Revolutionary Step or Sidewalk-Clogging Nightmare?
San Francisco May Ban Delivery Robots
Kroger Launches Trial of Same-Day Autonomous Grocery Delivery Service in Scottsdale, Arizona
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Friday June 02 2017, @10:47PM (5 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 02 2017, @10:52PM (3 children)
Yeah, exactly. If I saw one of those slowing down foot traffic I'd boot the fucker into the street and watch it get run over by one of San Fran's neat zero-emissions trolley-busses. And if I were one of the many bums there, I'd steal what's inside looking for food or sheckels.
People are bad enough. I call them "slowwalkers," groups who walk side to side and slow as fuck. When I get behind them I start breathing heavily and irregularly and fidgeting and they seem to get the point very quickly and make a hole. The problem is even bigger now because people are becoming increasingly goddamn oblivious.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday June 02 2017, @11:00PM (1 child)
Is there a law in SF against lying down across the sidewalk for a few minutes? Pedestrians can jump over, and you can move your legs for strollers.
I'm sure quite a few bums would partake for a few bucks.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday June 03 2017, @04:48AM
a rentacop tried to claim that the entire sidewalk, including the trees, was the property of the starbucks whose wifi I was stealing late that night.
I refused to move. When the right chap threatened to call the cops I cheerfully said "I'll go peacefully".
The cop didn't even address the rentacop's claim, but told me that one was permitted to sit or lie down on the two feet of sidewalk nearest the street.
That only works if you have a one-man tent. It rains a lot in Portland.
Happily for me I scouted out an awning of a shop that didn't pay for protection.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 03 2017, @02:38AM
To be fair, you're *always* breathing heavily and irregularly, though I'm not sure I'd call those motions "fidgeting" exactly. If Tourette's was a tic disorder that's what it would look like.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @04:10PM
and what if uses "biomass" as fuel? iow, roll right through you and process your carcass for fuel.terminator got it right that the machines would kill people but made them too human when they ascribed mailice in the hunting. it's more likely that they would just "mistake" live humans for the war field carcasses they were built to make use of. nothing personal, meatbag.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @10:48PM (7 children)
http://www.wikihow.com/Build-an-EMP-Generator [wikihow.com]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 02 2017, @10:53PM (6 children)
Why go through all that trouble? Booting one of those fuckers into the street would be a million times more gratifying with 99% less cost and effort.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 02 2017, @11:25PM (1 child)
Or simple add some dog shit to the load compartment.. ;)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday June 03 2017, @04:51AM
by poking your finger in the back of your throat.
Or take a piss on it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday June 03 2017, @12:50AM (3 children)
Look these things are full of cameras and microphones and speakers and antennas and they're always connected and they'll call the cops.
If you think playing games with the cops is fun then sure, EMP the fucker and do your thing and run. Enjoy that adrenalin rush. Don't try to keep doing it or you'll get caught and they'll throw the book at you though.
I wouldn't do that. Maybe I would have when I was much younger, but I'm not even sure of that. Seems a bit over the top.
What I would do is stand my ground though. And absolutely kick this thing out into the street on its side if it gave me an excuse. And not have any fear of talking to the cops about it afterwards if they have the balls to call them. Very different situations, no matter how similar they might look from just the right angle.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Funny) by edIII on Saturday June 03 2017, @01:38AM (2 children)
I'm thinking in the sense of hacking them all, rerouting the delivery addresses, and sending them all to the end of the piers :)
Maybe a robot flash dance in the middle of the street. Maybe have them all hide for awhile. Maybe route all deliveries to a single Chuck E Cheese's.
It's just one zero day away from a couple thousand robots losing their minds in the streets....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 03 2017, @02:44AM
Bonus points if you can get them to sing the Turret Opera from the end of Portal 2 :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @02:26PM
Would the delivery bots be fooled by a fake "Walk/Don't walk" sign/projection that's only visible to video cameras and not the human eye? How about other markings/signs? At what point does it go from "free speech" to illegal speech?
I was wondering about a related thing for those robot cars. Would wearing a t-shirt with speed limit or other traffic signs confuse them? What does it take to fool them, or do they ignore signs? If they ignore signs then it would be dangerous, if they don't then they might be vulnerable to fake signs or even "fake tunnel/road markings" graffiti or similar.
Remember those fake signs don't have to look recognizable to the human eye:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.1897v4 [arxiv.org]
https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/15271874/ai-adversarial-images-fooling-attacks-artificial-intelligence [theverge.com]
https://www.wired.com/2016/07/fool-ai-seeing-something-isnt/ [wired.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @11:50PM
Will be fun pointing to the tolerant sanfran when our robot overlords start culling us for being anti-robot
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Saturday June 03 2017, @01:57AM
Instead, they'll get more trucks and polluting vehicles on their streets. This is a great chance to get them off. I assume these boxes will stay out of the way of people of course.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),- on Saturday June 03 2017, @03:25AM (1 child)
and wrapped in the faux political correctness of defending the rights of senior citizens from being terrorized by sidewalk lording 'bots. First, SF is like fucking Logan's Run: hardly anyone here is over 30. Second, the sidewalks are clogged with sidewalk lording homeless/drug addicted/crazies whom the city has failed to do anything about (despite numerous efforts to effectively ban them via "sit lie" etc. legislation). One estimate has it at 5,000 of these androids clogging up our Senior Citizen friendly paved streets with various mounds of trash/shoppiing carts/trash cans/bicycles/baby strollers, themselves sleeping in sleeping bags or in tents, or just panhandling if they are conscious or sober enough to do so.
Meanwhile, hard working robots get banned because of an unproven fear of a Senior getting tripped up and spraining an ankle over R2D2. Does this make sense? If walking around a sprawled half-naked semi-conscious man on the sidewalk doesn't cause Grand Auntie May to get a broken hip, how does some rolling food cart do so?
I hate tech hipsters as much as the next guy/girl/android but this smacks of cyber-racism. I say, robots have rights and deserve equal treatment before the law.
https://newrepublic.com/article/114112/anonymouth-linguistic-tool-might-have-helped-jk-rowling
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @09:13AM
Ok... senior citizen here.
I had enough of being ankle-nipped with strollers at Disneyland I quit going there. The stroller was an ideal "senior citizen goad" for those behind wanting to hurry the line along... they'd shove it into your ankle... "'scuse me", then repeat. I could not retaliate because there was a baby in there.
The only weapon I found that worked was a large coke. Swing it around carelessly. When they ram the stroller into your ankle, drop the soda into the stroller. Oh "scuse me!" and its supposed to be OK.
Well, its a plausible excuse for them to ankle-nip me, so I leave them a nice sticky mess to clean up. Even if it gets on the baby, it won't hurt it... just makes more of a mess for them to have to clean up. If you are really fed up, make sure the soda is the sugary sticky sort.
Buy paying $5 for "stroller protection" is taking it a bit far. Easiest to quit going.
Now, I am going to have to find some way of getting out of the way all the time for squat little trip-hazards coming up from behind?
Geez, more than once I have tripped up over those advertising signs businesses put out on the sidewalk. Especially if they have legs that stretch out below them.
When one gets older, falls can be disaster, as the bones are more brittle.
My grandma got snarled up in one at a supermarket, and she spent TWENTY-FIVE YEARS in the nursing home because of it. Her hip broke clean off, but all of her biological machinery kept going for quite some time. So did the doctor and nursing home bills. Which the grocery store was on the hook for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @01:54PM
Does that still leave just throwing a blanket or box over an impolite robot.
If you immobolize, but don't damage the thing how is it vandalism?
It's not human, how can you harrass it?
No doubt a creative lawyer could find some other way to go after the thrower, but if the thing was really impolite and no harm was done, it could be an interesting test case.
Videos catching the little buddies causing problems and social media and then the city council meeting is really the best way to fix this if it needs fixing.