CNN Warns Food Delivery Robots 'Are Not Our Friends' (cnn.com) 46
The food delivery robots that arrived in Atlanta in June "are not our friends," argues a headline at CNN.
The four-wheeled Serve Robotics machines "get confused at crosswalks. They move with the speed and caution of a first-time driver, stilted and shy, until they suddenly speed up without warning. Their four wheels look like they were made for off-roading, but they still get stuck in the cracks of craggy sidewalks. Most times I see the bots, they aren't moving at all... " Cyclists swerve to avoid them like any other obstacle in the road. Patrons of Shake Shack (a national partner of Serve) weave around the mess of robots parked in front of the restaurant to make their way inside and place orders on iPads... The dawn of everyday, "friendly" robots may be here, but they haven't proven themselves useful — or trustworthy — yet. "People think they are your friends, but they're actually cameras and microphones of corporations," said Joanna Bryson, a longtime AI scholar and professor of ethics and technology at the Hertie School in Berlin. "You're right to be nervous..."
When robots show up in a city, it's often not because the residents of said city actively wanted them there or had a say in their arrival said Edward Ongweso Jr. [a researcher at the Security in Context initiative, a tech journalist and self-proclaimed "decelerationist" urging a slower rollout for Silicon Valley tech pioneers and civic leaders embracing untested and unregulated technology]... "They're being rolled out without any sort of input from people, and as a result, in ways that are annoying and inconvenient," Ongweso Jr. said. "I suspect that people would feel a lot differently if they had a choice ... 'what kind of robots are we interested in rolling out in our homes, in our workplaces, on our college campuses or in our communities?'"
Delivery robots aren't unique to Atlanta. AI-driven companies including Avride and Coco Robotics have sent fleets of delivery robots to big cities like Chicago, Dallas and Jersey City, as well as sleepy college towns... "They're popping up everywhere," Ongweso Jr. continued, "because there's sort of a realization that you have to convince people to view them as inevitable. The way to do that is to just push it into as many places as possible, and have these spectacle demonstrations, get some friendly coverage, try to figure out the ways in which you're selling this as the only alternative.... If you humanize it, you're more willing to entertain it and rationalize it being in your area — 'That's just Jeffrey,' or whatever they name it — instead of seeing it for what it is, which is a bunch of investors privately encroaching on a community or workplace," Ongweso Jr. said. "It's not the future. It's a business model."
Serve Robotics CEO Ali Kashani told CNN their goal in Atlanta was reducing traffic — and that the robots' average delivery distance there was under a mile, taking about 18 minutes per delivery.
Serve Robotics has also launched their robots in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta, according to the site Robotics 247, as part of an ongoing collaboration with Uber Eats. (Although after the robots launched in Los Angeles, a man in a mobility scooter complained the slow-moving robot swerved in front of him.) And "residents of other cities have had to rescue them when they've been felled by weather," reports CNN.
CNN also spoke to Dylan Losey, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech who studies human-robot interaction, who notes that the robots' AI algorithms are "completely unregulated... We don't know if a third party has checked the hardware and software and deemed the system 'safe' — in part because what it means for these systems to be 'safe' is not fully understood or standardized." (CNN's reporter adds that "the last time I got close to a bot, to peer down at a flier someone left on top of it, it revved at me loudly. Perhaps they can sense a hater.")
But Serve's CEO says there's one crucial way robot delivery will be cheaper than humans. "You don't have to tip the robots."
The four-wheeled Serve Robotics machines "get confused at crosswalks. They move with the speed and caution of a first-time driver, stilted and shy, until they suddenly speed up without warning. Their four wheels look like they were made for off-roading, but they still get stuck in the cracks of craggy sidewalks. Most times I see the bots, they aren't moving at all... " Cyclists swerve to avoid them like any other obstacle in the road. Patrons of Shake Shack (a national partner of Serve) weave around the mess of robots parked in front of the restaurant to make their way inside and place orders on iPads... The dawn of everyday, "friendly" robots may be here, but they haven't proven themselves useful — or trustworthy — yet. "People think they are your friends, but they're actually cameras and microphones of corporations," said Joanna Bryson, a longtime AI scholar and professor of ethics and technology at the Hertie School in Berlin. "You're right to be nervous..."
When robots show up in a city, it's often not because the residents of said city actively wanted them there or had a say in their arrival said Edward Ongweso Jr. [a researcher at the Security in Context initiative, a tech journalist and self-proclaimed "decelerationist" urging a slower rollout for Silicon Valley tech pioneers and civic leaders embracing untested and unregulated technology]... "They're being rolled out without any sort of input from people, and as a result, in ways that are annoying and inconvenient," Ongweso Jr. said. "I suspect that people would feel a lot differently if they had a choice ... 'what kind of robots are we interested in rolling out in our homes, in our workplaces, on our college campuses or in our communities?'"
Delivery robots aren't unique to Atlanta. AI-driven companies including Avride and Coco Robotics have sent fleets of delivery robots to big cities like Chicago, Dallas and Jersey City, as well as sleepy college towns... "They're popping up everywhere," Ongweso Jr. continued, "because there's sort of a realization that you have to convince people to view them as inevitable. The way to do that is to just push it into as many places as possible, and have these spectacle demonstrations, get some friendly coverage, try to figure out the ways in which you're selling this as the only alternative.... If you humanize it, you're more willing to entertain it and rationalize it being in your area — 'That's just Jeffrey,' or whatever they name it — instead of seeing it for what it is, which is a bunch of investors privately encroaching on a community or workplace," Ongweso Jr. said. "It's not the future. It's a business model."
Serve Robotics CEO Ali Kashani told CNN their goal in Atlanta was reducing traffic — and that the robots' average delivery distance there was under a mile, taking about 18 minutes per delivery.
Serve Robotics has also launched their robots in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta, according to the site Robotics 247, as part of an ongoing collaboration with Uber Eats. (Although after the robots launched in Los Angeles, a man in a mobility scooter complained the slow-moving robot swerved in front of him.) And "residents of other cities have had to rescue them when they've been felled by weather," reports CNN.
CNN also spoke to Dylan Losey, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech who studies human-robot interaction, who notes that the robots' AI algorithms are "completely unregulated... We don't know if a third party has checked the hardware and software and deemed the system 'safe' — in part because what it means for these systems to be 'safe' is not fully understood or standardized." (CNN's reporter adds that "the last time I got close to a bot, to peer down at a flier someone left on top of it, it revved at me loudly. Perhaps they can sense a hater.")
But Serve's CEO says there's one crucial way robot delivery will be cheaper than humans. "You don't have to tip the robots."
Someone really hates these things (Score:4, Insightful)
Think of it this way: each of these robots is one less delivery van on the road. Personally, I'm looking forward to less traffic, less noise and less pollution.
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Sidewalks are for walking, not for some gizmo to bump into.
These don't replace delivery vans (Score:2)
These things don't move fast enough to replace an actual delivery van or have enough capacity.
The problem is as the article points out as annoying as those cyclists can be if you're in a car trying to avoid them these are worse. At walking speeds they still move really fast and they are heavier than a cyclist and even more erratic.
Remember when those electric scooters were all ov
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CNN pushed pretty hard for the $15 an hour minimum wage in their editorial content. They're probably not happy with the results of it, with many entry level jobs getting replaced with kiosks and robots.
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CNN pushed pretty hard for the $15 an hour minimum wage in their editorial content. They're probably not happy with the results of it, with many entry level jobs getting replaced with kiosks and robots.
So your solution is what? Allow corporations to continue to exploit human beings by paying them unlivable wages? You think Shake Shack, with their $3.91 billion net value, can't afford to pay delivery people more and just had to turn to robots instead? They absolutely can, they simply don't want to because then their C-suite assholes will get a slightly smaller bonus each year. This is corporate greed, plain and simple. Try again, corporate shill.
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Shake Shack, with their $3.91 billion net value, can't afford to pay delivery people more
I've said this a few times, but if the leaders of these corporations were moderately intelligent, they'd pay people more to attract higher quality employees, who do a better job of serving the customer, and happy customers a) come back more frequently; and b) tell their friends about their awesome experience at Shake Shack, driving more customers. So instead of being valued at $3.91 billion, they could be $4.5 billion, or better. I don't know how this logic escapes the smart people who run these business
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It is certainly a plausible idea, and could well be desirable. The key is the implementation which must take into account the constraints of reality (what are the sidewalk conditions?). Some of the problems - like knowing bad sidewalk spots - could be handled by developing delivery maps, which could be applied to these robots I expect. Unpredictable unexpected motion is a problem but could probably be fixed with motion control algorithms. Of course not all ideas that seem plausible actually work out in prac
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Is by-land the answer? (Score:2)
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Air-delivery can be faster for small items, but land-delivery is much more energy-efficient, since you don't have to support the weight of the robot and the payload for the duration of the trip.
That means that the wheeled bot can have a larger range, carry larger payloads, and needs to be recharged less often. OTOH it has to wait for stoplights, can only go 5-10 miles per hour, etc.
spelling (Score:5, Funny)
So are you saying that Serve Robotics forgot the "w" in their name?
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To S(w)erve (into) Man
Re: spelling (Score:1)
What the... (Score:4, Insightful)
Have we redefined the "S" in the term "TFS" to mean the entire article?
Apparently summarizing a story is a lost art around these parts...
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I'd give you mod points, if I had 'em...
Tipping (Score:2)
Re: Tipping (Score:2)
Re: Tipping (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no issue with people in the service industry getting a living wage. I think it's great. But it should be built into the price of the product. Right now you just have managers trying to fake their actual costs of business. The people performing those service jobs spend the same amount of time doing the task whether the customer is a tipper or a skinflint. Why should their income be dependent on how big a twat their customer is?
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No, I think this'll increase tipping. Teenagers don't have access to cows like they once had.
But I was told that ... (Score:1)
... Robots Are Our Friends [albinoblacksheep.com]
a hater? Not working for CNN... (Score:2)
Why would a professional journalist exhude hate at a robot?
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It's CNN. They think businesses exist to provide jobs and by using a robot to do delivery, they are skipping out on the base of why business exist.
Of course, that's completely backwards and makes no sense.
Businesses exist to generate income for the person that owns the business. You do this by provide a service that other people find valuable and are willing to pay for. No part of that has anything to do with providing jobs. The only reason a business hires a person for a job is to extract value out of that
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I wouldn't be able to acquire personal wealth with a business if my business wasn't producing something that people would find value in. Also, plenty of businesses provide services that your average adult could do themselves, but have decided to outsource.
The restaurant industry is the first to come to mind. It's clearly there so I can choose to not cook to feed myself but most of us could just buy food from a grocer and cook at home. We'd save money and eat better food. It does take time though.
I can't eve
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Once these robots get better at their designed purpose, it will free up human labor for some other activity that cannot yet be performed by a machine.
What's the end-game there, once there are no activities left that cannot be performed better by a machine? No more jobs for humans, and then everyone retires (in the optimistic scenario) or starves/riots (in the pessimistic scenario)?
When no one has a job (Score:2)
who will buy your products?
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Robots can .. they click purchase can't they?
Others who will buy products: People who own shares or tax the companies. Go look up how UBI works.
your innovations can get shit on (Score:1)
Uniquely fuckmerican problems everyone else has figured out: Guns, health care, the proper place for tipping, the whole jerkoff manifest destiny dogma. Always making up your own childish rules and then hanging yourselves with them, dangling there refusing to admit you screwed up. Gotta protect that fragile worldview that cannot survive actual contact with reality...
news flash guys, "I Did It My Way" is the anthem of a wanker who spends his life continually trying and failing to reinvent the wheel. No pro
News for Luddites (Score:3, Insightful)
Every nerd here is pushing some tech they work on and want the rest of us to embrace, while they push back on all other tech. How the heck are there so many luddites on here? FFS. we need delivery robots. They can make the robots more visible by making them a bit taller or putting a light structure on top. It's not in the delivery robot's interest to get stuck in a sidewalk crack. Allow the tech some time to develop, they'll figure out these issues. If you look at the background of people running campaigns against these robots, most of them are communists. "a bunch of investors privately encroaching on a community or workplace" .. that phraseology right there is how Marxists talk. They don't like anyone trying to provide a useful service and make money.
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That phraseology is how someone concerned about surveillance bots patrolling their neighborhood talks. Are you just whole-hog on the police state now? It's OK as long as someone's making money on it?
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We're talking about delivery bots, not surveillance bots. Though actually surveillance bots in public areas may not be a bad idea. That will reduce the need for police patrols and actually reduce "police state". We can make it a crime to use surveillance data for illegal purposes or even for solving minor crimes/misdemeanors.
News Media is not our friend (Score:2)
Also, this article seems like such lazy writing. Like maybe if the writer got off their phone, they would have no trouble dodging robots
They should be directing this hate towards AI, which will soon take over their job
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what kind of robots are we interested in? (Score:2)
They will suck mightily... (Score:2)
...in the beginning
I suspect that they will improve over time, but it will be interesting to see how it goes
I can easily imagine vandals setting them on fire for laughs, or stealing them and throwing them in the river
Are they a good idea? Duh, Idunno, but I lean toward skepticism
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For laughs? They could probably get at least $40 at the scrap yard. Several hundred, if the components can be resold.
Are human food delivery people our friends? (Score:2)
I've seen enough posts on Reddit about someone getting their Doordash minus part of the food to not trust a third-party to deliver anything to me. At least when the delivery person is employed by the restaurant directly this seems to be taken more seriously, because it directly impacts that business's reputation.
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Maybe it's me, but.. (Score:2)
You don't have to tip robots (Score:2)
Street crime (Score:2)