cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53250107
Police confirmed they had responded to a report of “criminal mischief involving a robot” on the 1200 block of Filbert Street around 1:16 p.m. on Wednesday. A woman on the scene ignored “multiple commands” to move, they said, resulting in a criminal violation notice for disorderly conduct.
Uber declined to comment.
Marvin, who plans to contest the charge on the grounds of her First Amendment right to protest, has been undeterred by the arrest. She plans to continue blocking Uber Eats robots and chatting with curious passersby who ask what she’s doing.
“It allows me to talk to people about what’s going on,” she said. “It’s always very interesting conversations that we have, and I think it’s good to have those kinds of conversations in public space.”
Should have just built a blocking robot to do it… Or like… A crate.
Next thing to do, put a VR headset on it, and let it take a magical mystery tour!
This is basically the start of the counter to the automation. We still tell fables about people who stood againt the devaluation of workers like this.
All hail forced labor? The only “value” AI strip away is a value stamped on the top of your head derived from capitalism. Flipping burgers at McDonalds has value, but it’s no first choice, and the value isn’t extracted by the burger flipper. It’s extracted by the top as the labor is exploited.
If anything, I’m hoping AI is a fuck you to the current broken, down hill rolling system. The world will never be rid of exploitation, but we can point the harm at machines instead.
You’ve been drinking too much cool aid.
This is the stupidest thing
I wonder what she would have done in the era when accounting clerks started using desktop calculators instead of doing arithmetic by hand. This eliminated tons of jobs by speeding up the process and reducing the need to fix errors. Or in the later era when computerized accounting systems were replacing human bookkeepers. What about when power tools replaced hand tools? I would think a college professor should be able to recognize her own behavior as just another instance of Luddite-ism.
Instead of fighting innovation I think she should be fighting for workers to share its benefits. For example, when automation means less human labor is needed for a task, what if the workers who do that task could benefit by working fewer hours with no cut in pay? In our current system the owners get all the benefits in the form of increased profits - why can’t they be shared? I would think a college professor would be smart enough to see that and work on figuring out how to make it happen, rather than simply standing on the sidewalk.
In a world that worked according to her standard, we would still have armies of bookkeepers doing manual arithmetic and writing numbers in ledgers, because businesses that tried to use computerized accounting systems would have been boycotted. As a result the whole computing industry would have developed much more slowly, and we wouldn’t have forums like lemmy to discuss it on.
It’s fine to not order stuff online yourself. Preventing others from getting what they ordered isn’t.
She should find a hobby which isn’t purely about annoying her environment. Want to be an activist? Well, United Healthcare still exists…Y’all won’t stop supporting fascism otherwise.
My reaction to the accusation and general stance is that I would absolutely not want to defend you if someone steals your stuff.
Btw, I don’t see how making people hate you helps you achieving whatever your actual goal is.I’m tired of people coping themselves out of responsibility, stop feeding the systems that are trying to enslave or discard us. Is that such a difficult thing to do? Stop empower our mutual economic abusers. If you suffering is what to takes to get passed your coping and excuses, so be it.
Do you really think the person whose food doesn’t arrive will regret ordering from a robot and will then elect to stop ordering takeout?
I think they’re more likely to end up being against the people who got in between them and their food.
What she’s doing somewhat parallels protesters who block the freeway. Sure, it creates awareness, but drivers are just trying to get home, get to work, pick up kids, etc. I don’t think it would endear any commuter to their cause.
If you never get your food, I guess you’ll stop, no? Y’all won’t stop otherwise, it seems.
They might complain, they’ll definitely call whoever took their money and demand answers.
They’ll be told their order was held up because someone messed with the robot delivering their order. They’ll maybe ask why a person couldn’t have done that job. Maybe they’ll ask if a person would have just sit there being blocked by some random lady instead of just going around her or taking a different route.
Customer service won’t have an answer for them, and next time they go to order food, they probably won’t use Uber eats.
Has it been set illegal to disobey “multiple commands” of a privately owned robot?
When police say somebody ignored commands, they mean from them. They don’t get paid to enforce robot commands.
But can they order you to move because you are standing in the way of a robot? Disobeying an order is arrestable, fair enough. Blocking a person is probably illegal (depending on how it’s done). So I’m uncertain of the activity necessary to block such a robot. Just standing straight up an down in front of it sounds legal. Actively and continuously stepping in front of it to block it at least sounds worse. But how do you enforce this? What if a dog blocks or attacks a robot? What are robot/corporations rights?
It has nothing to do with robots having rights - which they don’t. It’s about deliberately obstructing what another person is doing. Calling it “just standing straight up an down” doesn’t change that, any more than if you refused to make way for somebody pushing a cumbersome shopping cart. How do you enforce this? Well, in this example the cops tried to tell the woman to move along, and arrested her when she refused. If a dog damages property you can sue the dog owner. If you have more questions please look them up yourself.
Of course it changes that. No where in time or space on earth have there been autonomous deliveries moving about in the same space as you or me. So the interesting philosophical and practical question is “who has the right of way”. And as you say - “deliberately obstructing what another person is doing” when there is no person being obstructed. Someone may if may not be waiting. If I was on the receiving end of that meal, I would expect another drone delivering my food. Just as I expect packages to be rerouted if a delivery truck has a break down.
So the answer is “no one knows right now”. Or to be presice, “no one, and especially not you, knows right now. And I for one will find it interesting when it is solved. Just not from you”.
If you want more answers, please go look them up you yourselves - don’t waste my or others time posting it here.
Police get a lot of leeway when telling people to move. I suspect her blocking the robot, may be considered a public nuisance (like blocking traffic or a sidewalk). Her ingore a lawful command to move = jail.
note: this is not support of the robots, just indicating the fact that they are probably allowed under current laws.
The little nub on the top is a LIDAR module.
I wonder if an upside down cup will fit over it.
They can be remotely piloted from call centers overseas. So this would be a very temporary hurdle.
Me, with an empty takeout soup bowl: “I’m a job creator!”
Large googly eyes slapped onto the cameras. Using suction cups. Or cheap dollar store Christmas lights powred by two AA lightly wrapped around it and over it’s cameras to blind them.
Both would be non destructive and non damaging.
Probably within a year Uber starts building these with extendable cattle prods that shock people to the ground that are in their way and then just crawl over them to finish their delivery.
You know… I’m surprised that no one has… Done more? I’m surprised hunting these things isn’t a trend…
I imagine that the non-violent sport of ‘Robot-hassling’ will emerge from pioneers like this before long. Tying a rope around it and to a tree will only be the start, with championships and awards for the simplest, cleverist and most-effective. Getting one to lose it will be high-ranking. There’ll need to be a special section for electronic tricks and traps, and another for reality-shifting. Getting one to forget it’s job and help you with gardening would be one fine example.
“liberal activism”… What else should we expect from a prof at Penn? Opposing genocide or ICE? No way, just attacking delivery bots…
If you can block bots online, why can’t you block them in the physical world?
Because robots in the physical world are legal, and in this case using public sidewalks. Online bots are violating terms of service as defined by the human owners of websites.
Cars and motorcycles aren’t allowed on sidewalks. What makes those robots so special that you think they should be allowed to occupy an already crowded and very definitely human space?
They don’t have to be special, they just have to be allowed, which depends on local laws that restrict their weight, speed, and other things. This whole line of argument misses my point that giving workers a share of the benefits of innovation would be better than treating the innovations as the enemy.
They don’t have to be special, they just have to be allowed, which depends on local laws that restrict their weight, speed, and other things.
This is your opinion and I disagree. They’re free to sort it out with the heavy machinery on the tarmac, though, if and only if they’re taxed as other vehicles are taxed too.
This whole line of argument misses my point that giving workers a share of the benefits of innovation would be better than treating the innovations as the enemy.
We’re talking about uber eats, do you think they will give any worker a share of any benefit? Get real.
Companies will only give workers a share of the benefits of innovation if they’re forced to - a goal I’d rather try to achieve than call it impossible. People have taken your attitude about all sorts of real things - worker safety rules, food quality standards, the right to unionize… even the idea that people would obey lines painted on the road was originally scoffed at. And yet we have them. So get real yourself.
You’re very wrong if you think I’m being defeatist because I enjoy it. I’m just jaded after a lifetime of enduring the apathy of everyone around me. If you’re not like me yet and don’t want to lose that spark, keep fighting. I’m just too tired to do it myself. Good luck.
Sorry you’re so burned out, and I hope something comes along to reignite your passion - there’s always that chance.
There’s a difference between do and should. They should. That requires regulation.
Of course they should, but they won’t. Regulation means an elected representative would have to propose the law, it would have to be approved, then signed into law. Won’t ever happen because of regulatory capture.
You blocking bots ona platform has nothing to do with ToS. Blocking a robot is just standing in front of it, it’s not human. You are allowed to stand on a public sidewalk. If it stops moving because you stand in front if it, how is that illegal?
That’s the kind of bland rationalization an asshole would make for blocking your car into a parking space. The difference is only in the details.
the “detail” is the fact one is a human and one is a robot. That’s a pretty big detail if you ask me
ignored “multiple commands”
Why would you block them? Are they causing issues or something?
Because you’re a privileged old professor with pale skin and you’re angry at modern technology.
yes
Can you explain? I’ve never had issues with delivery bots, especially compared with delivery drivers
Steal one and inject a virus into it and then make it run into a wall a bunch of times, ensuring the complete destruction of the device… 😜 Call the nearest news outlet and claim that the robot was suicidal-homicidal and was trying to smash you and it into a wall and wait for a news report. The robots get pushed back by skepticism of safety towards humans.
inject a virus into it
And then everyone claps
i see you don’t know how the news works recently…
If there’s people who believe the rogue ai news reports, there’s people who will believe that a delivery drone was trying to kill them.
my point was that the news will happily push a story like the “rogue AI” bullshit, since it is in the best interest of the people who own the media companies, but will completely ignore or actively suppress stories that are afainst their interests…
Well I think the rogue Ai thing was also pushed so that the owners of Ai company’s can have the platform to get people to listen about how we shouldn’t be accelerating the use and expansion of Ai but rather, trying to make more regulations surrounding it.
I think bad news for good publicity, happens more than we think and I think that in this economy, an economy where people are choosing between groceries and medication people can’t afford to lose an opportunity to earn.
I think that making a hacked delivery drone bash into a wall with a person who knows it’s gonna happen move out of the way at the last second while the drone goes at high velocity, could be the bad publicity for good purposes. It’ll make a lot of companies contemplate the roll out, it’ll prolong it from happening and it’ll give more people time to protest.
☝🏻 However, it is a crime to steal, hack and destroy a delivery drone and I do not promote nor condone the actual attempt.
