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.”

  • AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
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    3 hours ago

    “I know they’re taking the jobs of human delivery workers and so, I have been protesting them whenever I saw them by standing in front of them and preventing them from going forward,” Marvin said.

    I mean fuck. Do we want people working as delivery drones? Really? The other post in fuckai about this doesn’t even mention she’s been doing this for month which obscures why she’s been arrested.

    And climate change is real you know? A small robot takes little energy compared to a full sized car.

    Ideally delivery robots should be state owned and accountable to democratic processes. They are a valuable and useful innovation to solve logistic problems. A way to reshape how neighborhoods are build and planned and make them more energy efficient.

    This dogmatic opposition to anything AI is really becoming more and more irrational, less and less grounded in facts and rational arguments. AI needs to be regulated. Like China currently does AI regulations best, but we can’t even imagine things like that any more because people just accept neoliberalism as the new world order and screaming is the only thing left to do apparently instead of demanding regulations or nationalization of certain AI infrastructure. Maybe this is linked to some kind of anti-democracy propaganda campaign. Divide and conquer, and don’t even let talk about regulation enter the public discussion.

      • AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
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        2 hours ago

        You should dream bigger. We have the technology to not need delivery drivers any more, but you want to keep them? Why? Because you think neoliberal capitalism can’t be replaced with something more just and socialist? That is my charge against this whole critique. Why the fuck do you want people working crappy delivery jobs?

        All of this should be replaced by a national post office type of delivery service.

  • DoctorWhoDMC@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Broke: “Uber should hire real humans, not robots!”

    Woke: “Uber is a complete rip-off with a deceptive pricing model that is doing nothing but fueling obesity rates, regardless. Never use it.”

  • bthest@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    It really pisses me off how pristine and undamaged that piece of shit looks.

  • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz
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    14 hours ago

    If she was not touching the thing then why didn’t it try and get out of her way? It should not be on the sidewalk in the first place, and should not have right of way.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      12 hours ago

      That’s always one of the tricks these companies pull. They take some communally-owned thing that used to have a clear purpose and start using it for their different for-profit use.

      Take sidewalks. They’re surprisingly expensive to build, but they’re built from community tax money so that people walking don’t have to walk on the road. Now Uber is using them as a place where they can drive their robots. Are they paying anything? I assume not. Sidewalks have also become a favourite parking spot for rental scooters. Do the scooter companies pay for that? Of course not. Even when they’re parked well they reduce the space available for walking, and when they’re parked badly they can force pedestrians out into the street.

      • stickyprimer@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Ugh the rental scooters. Thankfully I’ve seen this dying down. A more common sight in my city now is parking spaces getting turned into bike rental stations. I’m all for that.

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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          11 hours ago

          The scooters are so much better though? Just park near where you need to go, not where the bike station is. Just take photos of the poorly parked ones and whoever last parked it gets a fine.

          • stickyprimer@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            Better only for the person who drops it right where they arrives at their destination. That is almost never also a sensible place for these things to be. What if everyone just got out do their car the second they were in front of the building they want to go to? That would be so much “better” for them!

              • Darkonion@lemmy.world
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                10 hours ago

                Yeah, it sucks when I get out of a taxi and the driver just gets out and leaves their car there.

              • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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                9 hours ago

                I don’t need to repeat dark onions response but did you even think for a moment before commenting?

    • stickyprimer@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      I found myself wondering about this. If you stand blocking the entrance to a building, and won’t move when the police tell you to, I guess I can see them turning that into a disorderly conduct charge. Of course we are solely debating whether blocking a robot is a crime, but their rationale iin court is probably going to be more based around obstructing a place of public accommodation or something like that.