🐱 People kicking these delivery robots is an early insight into how cruel humans could be to robots

https://www.sfgate.com/technology/b...these-food-delivery-robots-is-an-12980712.php

The company behind tiny food delivery robots has admitted that people are kicking its machines — and it's an early insight into how cruel humans could be to robots.

Starship Technologies was launched in 2014 by Skype cofounders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis. It makes 22-inch tall robots that roll along the pavement at 4mph delivering food to people.

Starship is just getting started and this week raised $25 million and appointed Airbnb veteran Lex Bayer as its new CEO. The ambition is to scale up and bring the robots to millions of people around the world.

Heinla told Business Insider that while most people like the robots, there are a few who take exception.

"Some people pass our robot and kick the robot a little bit," Heinla said. "That’s not really a problem I think, if people have such anger management techniques that’s fine by us, our robot just drives on."

It's not the first time Starship robots have encountered antipathy. A source told Business Insider in 2016 that a member of the public once attempted to rip the flag from one of the robots that was out on a delivery.


But Heinla is relaxed about the idea that people might seriously damage the machines. If anyone were to try to give one a real kicking, they are equipped with nine cameras, sirens, and tracking to within an inch.

The good news is that the vast majority of people respond positively to the machines. A spokesperson for Starship Technologies told Business Insider that out of the 15 million people the robots have encountered so far, 80% of people just ignored it, and the majority of the interactions were "extremely positive."


YOU KNOW THE ONES: Boston Dynamics, maker of creepy robots, lightens up

People abusing robots is not new. A 2015 study which a placed a robot in a Japanese shopping mall found that when few people were around, children displayed "anti-social behavior" towards the robot by "blocking its way, calling it names or even acting violently toward it."

Amid all the controversy about Google weaponising AI and fears over Boston Dynamics' door-opening robot dogs, perhaps we should actually be worried about how humans treat tech, rather than the other way around? Besides, after the AI revolution, our little mechanical friends might remember who was doing the kicking.

 

[Ravenor]

But only bad man harm the children of the Machine God!

Call it butthead to its face... well butt plate.

I've always called that particular image "Deadpool Admech Edition".

 

[BlessedVeggie]

And of course there are people on Twitter that think that kicking someone else’s property is a grand and significative protest against The Man. Of course.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

Don't get that either but how about just leaving it alone? Unless you're one of those dudes angry that robots took his job or the robot is in charge of keeping away homeless people, there's no real reason to really abuse it. Maybe it speaks to the true nature of people that some will fuck with other things if they believe they can get away with it

Leaving what alone? Are you talking about the delivery robots (which I agree because they're private property), or are you talking about not fucking with my Amazon Echo (which is my property)?

 

[drtoboggan]

Do these people want Cylons? Because this is how you get Cylons.

 

[frozenrunner]

Also anyone who wants to create robots/AI that can feel and feel pain in particular should be regarded as a monster. There is no reason to create an artificial sentience that can suffer other than a narcissistic need to replicate our own image.

But if robots aren't made to feel, how will they enjoy it when we fuck them?

Checkmate!

 

[A Hot Potato]

But if robots aren't made to feel, how will they enjoy it when we fuck them?

Checkmate!

Rape victims aren't supposed to enjoy it.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

Why is this an article? It's a machine, no different than beating the microwave or the lawnmower, it's not like they can feel pain, what is with people wanting to humanize machines?

I wondered the same question and as if wasn't enough, there was that robot featuring in an tv ad aired a decade ago as a Super Bowl commercial.

 

[Red Hood]

Start treating robots like people now and this is how things are gonna end up:

 

[Forever Train Engineer]

This is why the Institute wants to kill all of you nibbas

 

[Lunete]

Pretty soon our news reports will look like this:

 

[heathercho]

I can't believe that the youtube fringe conspiracy theorists were right about the agenda to be kind to this subhuman and that subhuman, so we are forced to be kind to robots.
First it was the gay frogs, now it is the robots.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Didn’t these plebs learn anything from the Outer Limits?

Let us hope that no technology will ever exist that can replace human warmth and compassion. For when such a technology does exist, will we cease to be human?

 

[polonium]

I don't understand this movement to "be nice to technology". I have people even chastise me for being mean to my Amazon Echo. I refuse to call it a "she" because it's not a human and doesn't deserve to be treated like one, especially since it constantly fucks up.

sounds to me like it passes for female better than most trannies.

 

[Super Collie]

You don't really hear about people being mean to Roombas and Echo/Alexas. Maybe snarky or sarcastic, but not intentionally mean or physically violent. I think it probably has something to do with a conflicted resistance to automation in our lives. That dumb delivery robot is some expensive gadget funded by socially disconnected and wealthy venture capitalists that's taking someone's job. Yeah, it's the "illegal Mexicans argument" but that's true. Somebody could be paid a paltry wage to take that food order to the person who ordered it. It's the same thing as replacing people with kiosks in fast food restaurants instead of paying them $15 an hour (which is still too much, but minimum wage is also too little).

I'm not really surprised that people are mean to the delivery robots. Automation is a societal problem that has been creeping up on us for several decades now. I feel like to a certain degree we accept automation as a good thing, like when it comes to assembling cars or other very complex/dangerous tasks, but there's a limit to how willing people are to see drones and stuff encroach on their day to day lives.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Robots should be treated like this:

Or maybe like this:

 

[polonium]

Automation is a societal problem that has been creeping up on us for several decades now

We've been automating everything we can for many hundreds of years now and there are more people employed now than ever before in human history. It's a stone cold dumb argument to say automations causes job loss, and if you hate it I suggest you go back to subsistence farming and see how you like it. Automation never takes away work, it frees valuable human labour up for more important tasks - welfare and minimum wage causes more unemployment.

I can feel someone itching to tell me about all those poor people that just can't improve themselves and do work that a retarded person or an AI can't do. That's a stupid argument too. If it's stubbornness then they need to move with the times, I don't owe them a living, which is what I'm paying when I have to pay higher prices so some slack jawed tard does a minimum wage job a robot can do, and if they're truly so impaired they lack the basic human capacity to learn a skill then they're someone society can do without.

 

[CWCissey]

Are these dickheads not watching Humans?

 

[Male Idiot]

I don't understand this movement to "be nice to technology". I have people even chastise me for being mean to my Amazon Echo. I refuse to call it a "she" because it's not a human and doesn't deserve to be treated like one, especially since it constantly fucks up.

It ain't that hard, especially if you are from the second world.

In the first world, such technologically advanced and hard to make machines are easy to replace.
In the second world, we know what they are and know the value the expensive gadget has.
In the third world, it is considered metal god ugga-wugga and they either hit it or run screaming from it.

Tl,dr, it is a valuable equipment which takes a lot of tech, expertise and materials to build, therefore it should be used with care.
Even if rich places like the US can afford to mistreat technology, it is still objectively a waste of resources and work hours.

If you want to kick the log of wood you sit on in your backyard, sure. You can make another with an axe in ten minutes. Modern electronic goods you can't make from scratch like that.

I do agree on all these voice activated buy bots though. But I cringe every time I see a rich tourist throw an expensive one year old mobile phone onto tables like its a piece of rock. It takes a special kind of stupid to be careless with their own money or with equipment they are liable in damages for.

We've been automating everything we can for many hundreds of years now and there are more people employed now than ever before in human history. It's a stone cold dumb argument to say automations causes job loss, and if you hate it I suggest you go back to subsistence farming and see how you like it. Automation never takes away work, it frees valuable human labour up for more important tasks - welfare and minimum wage causes more unemployment.

I can feel someone itching to tell me about all those poor people that just can't improve themselves and do work that a exceptional person or an AI can't do. That's a stupid argument too. If it's stubbornness then they need to move with the times, I don't owe them a living, which is what I'm paying when I have to pay higher prices so some slack jawed tard does a minimum wage job a robot can do, and if they're truly so impaired they lack the basic human capacity to learn a skill then they're someone society can do without.

Plus most of the manual labour that was replaced by machines went into service sectors and all that. I mean being a bartender or a waiter does not require markedly more intelligence or endurance than being a worker standing next in line to the conveyor belt.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

It ain't that hard, especially if you are from the second world.

In the first world, such technologically advanced and hard to make machines are easy to replace.
In the second world, we know what they are and know the value the expensive gadget has.
In the third world, it is considered metal god ugga-wugga and they either hit it or run screaming from it.

Tl,dr, it is a valuable equipment which takes a lot of tech, expertise and materials to build, therefore it should be used with care.
Even if rich places like the US can afford to mistreat technology, it is still objectively a waste of resources and work hours.

If you want to kick the log of wood you sit on in your backyard, sure. You can make another with an axe in ten minutes. Modern electronic goods you can't make from scratch like that.

I do agree on all these voice activated buy bots though. But I cringe every time I see a rich tourist throw an expensive one year old mobile phone onto tables like its a piece of rock. It takes a special kind of stupid to be careless with their own money or with equipment they are liable in damages for.



Plus most of the manual labour that was replaced by machines went into service sectors and all that. I mean being a bartender or a waiter does not require markedly more intelligence or endurance than being a worker standing next in line to the conveyor belt.

Were you listening to what I said? I never once said I endorse kicking these robots, especially when it's somebody else's property. What I don't understand and won't do is feel obligated to be nice to them verbally.

Also, I love seeing people destroy their expensive personal property in a fit of rage because it's some of the funniest shit out there.

 

[Male Idiot]

Were you listening to what I said? I never once said I endorse kicking these robots, especially when it's somebody else's property. What I don't understand and won't do is feel obligated to be nice to them verbally.

Also, I love seeing people destroy their expensive personal property in a fit of rage because it's some of the funniest shit out there.

Talkin to dem machines ain't how you repair them unless you be the warhammer nerd. Otherwise ya do it by pressing the button things over there and not talkifying unless dem a phone!

It is still a stupid waste of resources. What's really funny is seeing a hobo with his pants ripped just around his arse so he is mooning everybody while laying face down in his own thrown up cheapo booze. He was so drunk he did not even wake to my loud laughing!