The robot tried to cross the street against a Don’t Walk signal it should have obeyed. That behavior is a defect, which the manufacturer should be responsible for. Whether the robot “fled the scene” is only an issue if the robot is smart enough to recognize that it caused a problem, and left to avoid the consequences - which I srsly doubt. I mean if the robot were a live dog we wouldn’t expect it to understand the situation enough to flee, we would assume it just ran off because it’s a dog.
Is it run remotely ny a human?
Edit: the ‘ny’ said ‘by’ for 2 days before some mod or software agent decided to modify my post and change the spelling. WTF ?
Dunno - it’s assigned a destination, which could be done by a human, then it seems to navigate there autonomously.
These techs are seemingly developed with minimal coordination between companies let alone governments. With serious effort and planning, this could’ve been avoided with software providing both real time info or direct link with the city traffic system.
If a delivery robot can’t reliably distinguish traffic lights from advertising, it’s clearly not ready for public roads. Urban environments are unpredictable by nature, not exceptional circumstances. And a software failure could affect an entire fleet, not just one robot. Autonomous delivery may have real benefits, but public safety cannot become collateral damage in the race to automate everything.
Soon we may be able to ban these finally
deleted by creator
Wheres the proof its not reliable? I think there’s about a hundred of them operating in the city since at least 2022 based on what I can see. So just based on the information here I’d have to assume each one causes an accident once every (100*365*(2026-2022)) = 146000 days which seems pretty okay to me, even if its a tenth of that.
There’s a substantial difference between mitigating for errors by human drivers and accepting a percentage of undesirable behaviour as part of a system run by logic.
“Don’t worry about those other 99 time bombs! Only one has gone off so far. So if we multiply the number of days they’ve been ticking by the total number of bombs, it is clear that their explosions only happen once every four centuries!”
Idiot.[admittedly uncalled for]Well, you do need to consider things in context, right?
Captain_solanum is right about how math works. The thing to consider is the safety of these delivery bots relative to the alternatives. How often do delivery drivers get into/cause accidents? It’s not never, but without the actual numbers we can’t really say if these bots are more problematic.
It’s difficult to compare these two delivery methods because they’re inherently quite different, but ultimately that is what we have to do if we want to figure out which is actually more of a danger.
But accountability is really important here. If companies want to keep using tech this way, they need to be accountable for the actions of their technology. Because these devices exist in a physical world with real consequences. You cannot be allowed to get off the hook by saying “oops, just a glitch, it won’t happen again”.
Also, you called him an idiot, but you may have also missed his point. We could just not outright insult each other.
Yeah, accountability is the entire point. Are the corporations, executives, and shareholders going to be held responsible for this?
Also, every human driver is different. So it’s up to each driver as an individual to ensure they’re following traffic rules and driving safely. Human minds are also complex and capable of adapting to evolving circumstances, even at a moment’s notice, to deal with unexpected situations when they arise, such as near-miss emergencies.
Machines don’t have that; they’re algorithmic and deterministic, which means there will always be some possibility of events outside the scope of their programming.
Also, comparing the robots to human drivers isn’t a good comparison, because as far as we’re concerned the hardware and software are nearly identical between each robot. So if one of them was capable of causing a multi-vehicle accident, that means they all are.
So calculating probability using something similar to the manhours of each robot on the road is foolish. What they did was (incidents) ÷ (robots × time), to make it look like a comically small chance of having an accident.
A more accurate formula would be (1 – (incidents ÷ time))^(number of robots)^
And that gives you the probability of (time) elapsing without incident. The more robots there are, the smaller that number gets, meaning the likelihood of an accident increases with each additional robot. Not decreases.
So for example (1 – (1 accident ÷ 4 years))^(100 robots)^ = 0.75100
In other words, without a software update requiring significant technological improvements, with 100 of these robots on the road, the chances of going another 4 years without an accident is on the magnitude of 3.207 × 10^(-13)
I’ll leave you to determine what that makes the likelihood of x number of incidents per year.
You’re right that I didn’t have to call them an idiot though, I apologize for that. My temper was a bit spun up from arguing with trolls in a different thread, but I shouldn’t have let that seep out here.
Hold upper management criminally liable
Don’t shift the blame to bright ad boards or similar external factors. If the device can’t deal with it, it does not belong in that environment.
But also, remove bright ad boards…not for the robots though, but for the people.
No no, let’s put the blame on bright ad boards, and require cities to remove that form of advertisement. You know, for safety.
That’s the same reasoning that forced pedestrians out of basically every roadway
Have we considered modern urban design is terrible for pedestrians? Humans make this same mistake with regularity. We’re only able to cross roads at specific places and times that are solely designed around cars
But no, we’ll keep blaming all the people who get hit for it, as well as all the robots. Couldn’t possibly be bad design that neither humans nor robots can consistently safely cross
As the spokesperson put it, the robot’s actions may legally constitute fleeing the scene of a traffic incident, meaning Starship Technologies could very well be on the hook for the incident.
I don’t understand. It darted into a moving bus regardless, even if it hadn’t fled. The bus sure as hell isn’t responsible…
Yes, the real issue is that it disobeyed a Don’t Walk signal, which is clearly a defect for a robot allowed on public streets. People saying it “fled the scene” are just making noise.
Defense: But it wasn’t walking, it was rolling.
They saw it rollin’. They hatin’
According to OP it was waltzing.
“The fault lies with one of our subcontractors, one of the janitors is to blame, send him to prison. Anyway, we will keep doing business as we are a corporation and therefore a person and therefore none of us who own the company are at fault whatsoever.”
There was no actual collision
The injuries were from hitting the brakes. I’ve certainly has to brake for people and animals in the roadway before, never considered it an incident. Guess it’s different because there were injuries in the bus, which I wouldn’t have expected from just braking
Ok, but that’s still the robot’s fault. I’m sure the driver thought it was an animal or child at first. People don’t get to just wander into the road against a light.
Guess it’s different because there were injuries in the bus, which I wouldn’t have expected from just braking
I would have. When you slam on your brakes what happens? You go forward in your seat. In your car you’re restricted to how far you go by the seatbelt which locks to prevent you going too far. People travelling in buses tend to not wear seatbelts so they’d have flown forward and directly in front of their faces would be the metal bars of the row of seats in front.
Oh nooo the robot was blinded by traffic lights says the company.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
I hope they told their bus drivers to not brake for those robots next time. If stopping in time means putting the passengers at risk of injury, run the damn clanker over.
In split second decisions, you don’t want to run the risk that the driver thought for a moment it’s a robot and not a small kid. Safety first. Let the robot go and sue the company.
Just asking for them to hit a runaway stroller they mistook for a delivery robot
The robot was heard yelling “Bite my shiny metal ass!” as it ran away.
Whomever allowed that robot outside is to blame. If they have grievances, they can sue whomever wrote the software or built the device. Keep sending the buck up until it reaches the top.
If i put a rock into traffic then it’s my fault. I see no difference.
The responsibility should lie with the company that decided the robot was safe enough to deploy. How it distributes liability among its developers, manufacturers and suppliers is its problem, not the public’s.
When it’s a criminal matter, the assigment of blame is absolutely a public matter. If you or I caused a car accident with irresponsible use of an RC car or a consumer drone, we would be facing criminal prosecution. The fact that no one is likely to face charges in this case is a huge failure of public policy.
💯 That’s an important distinction: Civil liability determines who pays for the damage, while criminal responsibility addresses whether someone’s negligence was serious enough to constitute a crime. And that question absolutely deserves public scrutiny. Automation must not become a shield against criminal accountability.
Who pays for the damage is also a civil matter. Fine everyone in the chain of responsibility, up to and including board members and stockholders, scaling the fines in proportion to their wealth.
Need to fine the parasites on top billions so that they’ll feel it as much as the engineer who is fined hundreds? So be it, fuck them, they’re just as responsible if not more, and should have been taxed to the point of not being able to accumulate those billions anyway.
No, fuck the company, assessing responsibility should be a public matter.
The law should be designed to make sure that no worker is more afraid of their boss than of breaking it, and to ensure that the executives, board members, and stackholders making the company’s decisions (or implicitly endorsing them) are held responsible for their consequences.
you know how to solve this in the most effective way?
same way we solve for gun violence.
arrest and charge the person who ordered the food.
I promise after the third time, people will stop ordering food from places that use these delivery bots, eventually the companies that support them will go out of business, and nobody will ever do this again.
is it ethical? no. is it morally dubious? absolutely. will it work? 100%
downvoters can’t tell satire
I would usually say fuck cars but the headline is misleading as it was a single bus and buses are good, therefore fuck this robot in particular. And maybe the bus driver if they braked intentionally and not out of panic.
A bus driver should be able to brake without risk of mass injury. They need to review rider safety to minimize injuries
It’s stupid robots are in traffic, but that could just as easily be a small child running out
They also need to review fucking robots causing accidents in traffic.
FREE Carolyn Marvin!
The robot was programmed to flee.
The bigger issue here is 9 people being injured from a bus having to slam on the brakes
Seems like there is a safety review that should happen
Seriously, I don’t care what anyone says, busses should have seat belts.
We have them here in Scandinavia, and they’re technically mandatory. Nobody uses them but they’re there and encouraged to use.
What are you gonna do?
People in city buses don’t usually put on the seatbelt. If you’re going to start doling out fines for that, you’ll have a literal revolt. Though it’s been mandated for years and years.
The driver should’ve just driven over the robot without stopping though. A robot is not a human being or even an animal that there’s a moral imperative to save. Maybe it’ll teach starship to program it to not cross a pedestrian crossing when there’s a red light for pedestrians. Though I suspect there could’ve been damage to the bus’s front bumper so perhaps that would’ve been a bigger danger to his job than a few injuries.
Meh they said that about smoking too, and people stopped smoking outside. There was a revolt, then people got used to it, then they realized that yeah this is actually much better for everyone.
