Am I the only one who hates delivery robots? | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?

latimes.com

67 pointsrobotlaunch75 comments

I stumbled on the most hilarious cross-walk encounter between one of the these delivery bots and a Waymo in downtown phoenix.. it seems that neither was programmed (probably rightfully so) to take the initiative in the situation, so what ensued was a painfully drawn out exchange of agentic deference.

Delivery robots aren't programmed. They're all remotely controlled in real-time AFAIK.

Interestingly, the solution to this problem in humans is that all humans have different individual aggressiveness levels. That works pretty well, but I would guess it won't be one of the first things that robot fleet operators try.

The standard way to do it with machines is to use a bit of randomisation along with exponential backoff. It's been used for collision avoidance in network protocols for a long time.

Makes me think of https://www.thecut.com/2015/01/manslamming-manspreading-micr...

I'm vibe coding a "rock-paper-scissors" protocol for robots to be able to negotiate situations just such as this.

I don't get how it's okay to commercialize public side walks.

Can I just put a vending machine on wheels, park it in front of people's homes, and raise a 100M to replace convenience stores?

In many jurisdictions you can. The source article is from California, and under California law cities generally must allow street vending.

Guess what, human couriers use the sidewalk

A vending machine is not a human tho.

Human couriers also walk on the sidewalk.

Public in capitalism means only "up for grabs".

Do you think roads are somehow commercial property?

> Labor-saving devices are rarely that — instead labor is shifted, from one department to another, from the body to the brain, or standards are raised — when laundry is done by a machine, its operator must ensure that all clothing is bright, soft, sweet smelling and stain-free

What? The washing machine was so effective at saving labor that it's widely considered a major driver of gender equality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_machine

Two things can be true. In this case, both are. Laundry machines were a massive improvement, but it did raise expectations around clothing.

Who would ever have thought filling up the few places you have to walk with more cars was a bad idea?

This isn't a problem with "robots", it's the problem with cars. People like to drive their own cars, but everyone hates other people's cars. It's universal. It just takes different things to cause people to see the problem. For me it was walking and cycling to get around, for the author is delivery robots.

If they didn't use sidewalks, bike paths, pedestrian crossing or roads obstructing mostly pedestrians I think I wouldn't have problem with them, butt that's not the case so I dislike them very much, though I like the use of technology.

But overall they support unhealthy lifestyle, they deliver food (at least here in Europe they seem to be used only for food) only over short distance where client could easily and faster just pick up their own food, if they don't wanna dine in or prepare their food at home (in advance).

We have already problems with stupid drivers parking their cars or even driving their cars on sidewalk, we don't need another obstruction.

Counterpoint (though I agree there is often a problem with them sharing often already insufficient pedestrian infrastructure): Many people can't walk to pick up their food.

Pervasive delivery service is a huge quality of life improvement for a variety of disabled folks and folks who are homebound for whatever reason.

And, the alternative to these robots is exactly this:

"We have already problems with stupid drivers parking their cars or even driving their cars on sidewalk"

The alternative is not, actually, that everyone will walk to go pick up their food. It's either a gig worker, almost certainly in a car, probably a gas-driven car, or a little electric robot. It's usually a choice between more cars on the road or more robots on the sidewalk. I used to get deliveries by bike, sometimes, and that's also cool, but pretty rare outside of particularly dense cities.

I don't actually have any objection to their use being limited/regulated in some areas if they're disruptive for pedestrians. But, consider what they replace, and whether they're worse or better. (You may come down on the side of "worse", and I won't argue with you. In some places, they probably are.)

that works only in theory, these robots deliver the food only on the street, so they might as well leave in restaurant since they make no difference for someone on 2nd or higher floor, most of the people in areas where they operate don't live in villas, but they either deliver to companies or to residential multi floor buildings

plus disabled people have already their carers to take care of the food and can't rely on unreliable robot which will get stuck even on simple pedestrian crossing

so yes, human delivery service to the door is improvement to disabled people's lives, robot delivery to the street sidewalk certainly isn't

counterpoint to the cars - they are much more efficient, they can delivery many orders at once, they are faster and they can deliver food to the door for disabled people, so these delivery robots are completely useless alternative besides companies saving money on human workers

btw I'd rather prefer police doing their actual work when car park on the sidewalk rather than robot alternative, I think the best compromise which is already used here would be ebike/motorbike delivery not taking any significant space

personally I don't order any food so I don't really have horse in this race, I think I've made two food orders over like 3-4 years, one for my birthday and other was wife's online team building paid by her company, both were for like 5-6km distance robot would take hours to deliver

"counterpoint to the cars - they are much more efficient, they can delivery many orders at once"

I'd like to see the math before I agree cars are more efficient, at all. Little electric robots produce a lot less emissions than a gaming PC. Cars...well, they produce a lot more emissions than a gaming PC. And, gig workers are usually carrying two or three orders, not a big stack. In the old days when the only delivery was pizza and Chinese, they could stack them up and make it efficient. These days, it's three different stops at three different restaurants.

"plus disabled people have already their carers to take care of the food"

You have imagined a specific type of disabled person living in a specific type of world, and it is unlike anything that exists in the real world.

Most disabled people do not have in-home carers, at all, much less 24/7. Many disabled people can meet a delivery at the door or sidewalk, but can't easily travel to pick something up.

Sure, most regular folks should walk more, rather than order a burrito taxi. But, that's not where we are, and I don't know how we get somewhere else. Certainly outlawing little electric robots doesn't stop people from ordering food delivery. Based on what I know (which is not exhaustive, but isn't nothing, I work on delivery robots in a different space), I prefer the robots to the cars. But, the robots should absolutely be held accountable for disrupting pedestrian and wheelchair access to sidewalks.

> The e-bike craze, which is putting many people, including kids, in the hospital at an alarming rate, has thus far defied similar regulatory frameworks.

CTRL + f : "suv"

0 matches

"truck" ?

0 matches

I stopped reading past that. That level of carbrain is intolerable. If you think light vehicles capped at 25km/h is an issue idk what to tell you. At least with delivery robots people don't have to take a one ton metal box everywhere with them just to get groceries because they live in a poorly designed car-centric city.

They're not talking about properly regulated e-bikes. They're talking about the huge groups of kids riding around on Surrons and other electric dirt bikes that are actually just motorcycles. They're getting bikes that can do 70mph, wearing no safety gear, and riding them in traffic, and getting hit. That's the e-bike craze the author is talking about.

So calm your tits.

What are the fatalities for e-bikes vs SUVs in the US per year?

Your comment is irrelevant otherwise because last time I checked cars are the real problem, and concerns over e bikes / delivery bots is just another lame extension of “safetyism” and ignorance around public transport failures that just misses the mark.

“Riding in traffic” is half the issue here. Like trying to explain water to fish.

I'd like to think I'm about as car-skeptical as your average person with no driver license who just got back from taking three forms of transit home from an all-day recreational road cycling event. But I'm a bit nervous about the speeds of some e-bikes.

A friend of mine spent a week in the hospital recently after crashing his new e-bike almost immediately after buying it. One interpretation of his accident is that he didn't have some of the right instincts for riding a bicycle at that speed.

I don't actually have a clear sense of the breakdown of risk attributable to the different factors of lack of appropriate cycling infrastructure, lack of appropriate rider training or experience, lack of appropriate rider expectations, or inherent safety or stability problems of some designs. My friend whom I mentioned above said his doctors told him that they had been seeing a lot of patients who'd crashed e-bikes (as well as electric mopeds and electric skateboards) at speeds that produced fairly serious injuries.

That is a regulatory issue and a name issue. Those are actually motorcycles. In Europe e-bikes are capped at 25 km/h (the electric assistance stops at that speed).

So your problem is (electric) motorcycles that are (legally?) accessible without a motorcycle license and motorcycle equipement. For safety what matters is the speed and the weight of the vehicle, the faster and heavier, the more dangerous.

I am also noting that unlike with SUV accidents, your friend put a lot less people in danger if not only himself.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, and hope they recover well.

Something I think a lot about when it comes to e-bikes, is the level of protective gear people feel they ought to wear on "a bike". Not all cyclists even wear helmets (obviously bad), but in addition to a helmet, on an e-bike you really ought to be wearing elbow and knee protection, purely because of the speed involved.

However, my sense is that people (a) don't think about that at all because they think of it as just like a bicycle, or (b) don't want travel with all of that extra gear. They want to treat an e-bike like a bicycle, when it is something much more.

I say all of this as a cyclist (non-e-bike) and rollerblader. On my bicycle I will just wear a helmet, but because of the particulars of rollerblading, I always wear elbow-pads and knee-pads. Differing circumstances require different adaptations.

> they ought to wear on "a bike"

Indeed, if it's going above 50 km/h, it's not a bike it's a motorbike. Protective gear should match the speed and weight of your vehicle. To drive a motorbike, you should have motorbike license and equipment. It feels like a regulatory issue frankly.

They can both be a problem. I saw a kid hitting a dike like a ramp with one of these electric dirt bikes. I've seen kids too small for these cruising around way too fast with no helmet.

Big trucks and SUVs are a much bigger problem. But that doesn't mean kids riding around on motorcycles isn't a problem either.

The point of contentions is calling them e-bikes instead mopeds or e-motos or motorcyles, which you did, but the article didn't. And they are a journalist so I hold them to higher standard.

By your logic, heart disease and cancer are the real concern. Why you so worried about cars? Your comment is irrelevant otherwise.

I think we can tackle different issues at the same time

For heart issues, it is a bit hard to fix. You need a healthy lifestyle is general is something you need the correct environment for and a good education about. Still, it's not impossible and any sane country has food labeling requirements and education around it as well as promotion of physical exercise. It's being done.

Similarly car-centric city design is not easy at first but it can be done and has been done:

Relax zoning and parking requirements, provide good fast collective transport alternatives,that is with dedicated lanes and safety staff. The general idea is that you shouldn't be forced to have a car if you don't want one. Even people who do want to keep their cars will be happier because there will be less people on the road overall: Imagine that traffic jam you're stuck into if half the people vanish because they are using a bike or a subway, woosh, no more traffic jam.

In case anyone has trouble visualizing that, try picturing this many cars moving so quickly and efficiently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEpjPRs4Iio

Also, the woman with the roller bag.

I think you're right, but journalists have gotta stop calling them ebikes. We already have a widely used term that fits them perfectly and is legally accurate - moped.

They're not mopeds. They have no pedals, only stationary foot pegs. They are full on motorcycles capable of freeway speeds. Kids are riding motorcycles with no licenses, helmets or training.

A small city near me in the suburbs of Detroit just had to have a town meeting / facebook post / etc about teens driving electric scooters and bikes driving recklessly, causing accidents, injuring themselves and others, etc.

Your caveat makes sense, and I agree those are a serious issue. However, the article doesn't say "illegal e-bikes", "e-motos", "suped-up e-bikes", "dirt bikes", or anything like that. It only says "e-bikes". Even their link to another article is discussing 20-to-28-mph e-bikes, and refers to the faster categories as "e-motos".

If that is truly what McNamara meant, it is very sloppy that they failed to say so.

EDIT: For anyone downvoting me, I am respecting the text of the article, because that is what most people will read. Most people will not see olyjohn's caveats and context (which again, I agree represent the real problem).

I generally agree, though ...

> At least with delivery robots people don't have to take a one ton metal box everywhere with them just to get groceries because they live in a poorly designed car-centric city.

Robots are not needed and do not enhance grocery delivery. The ones I've seen aren't large enough for a grocery order. I suppose it would be entertaining to see a line of them proceeding to a delivery.

Okay but if they're delivering take out the benefit is even greater - mobilizing the 1 ton metal box to get a take out order is even worse economics.

I’d like to think I would destroy them wherever I encountered one, like a highly specialized Zorro. But I’m probably a coward.

They take local human jobs, get in the way, and seem extremely "accidentally" kickable if you ask me.

I think it's important to note that these things don't take jobs from humans; they dislocate the jobs from expensive humans where the vehicles operate to less expensive humans with an internet connection in the global south. This is literally outsourcing physical labour overseas.

I work on delivery robots (not like the ones discussed in the article, they operate in privately owned buildings, not on public streets) and I can assure you the company I work for employs no human drivers overseas, or anywhere else. Of course, the robots have teleoperation capabilities, for demos and testing, but no good way to actually complete deliveries with a human driving. Our teleops feature is literally just a PlayStation controller or clicking arrows in a web app. It's just not a thing we ever developed or considered developing, and not an expense that I think could be justified. The robots I work on operate fully autonomously, so why waste human time on routine deliveries?

I don't know anything about the delivery robots roaming the streets and discussed in this article, but it's possible to build fully autonomous delivery robots. I guess in a robot like these, one might have to have more human monitoring, since they could get stolen or damaged, block traffic or prevent wheelchair users from using curb cuts, etc. But, if any of them are outsourcing the actual routine driving and delivery to people, even people in low-pay locations, they'll eventually be beaten by someone who isn't. There's no reason for a human to be driving robots at this point.

That will apply to only a smaller percentage, even in early days. It's very typical for one human operator to remotely oversee many robots.

so, many jobs in a high paying country are being replaced by a single employee overseas. Do you see how this is not a better outcome?

my 4-year old daughter likes them and is sad whenever they seem to get stuck in random places for no reason.

Even a bit of cardboard can do surprising tasks with a bit of help. Maybe a fun project. =3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn1tSPP0VF8

http://www.tweenbots.com/

we have these all over chicago and everyone hates them. I thought i hate it because they take up public sidewalks ( possibly illegaly) or that they are hurting delivery drivers or that some guy in india is watching me through the creepy camera on the robot.

But those are posthoc rationalizations i just seem to hate them and i cant really explain why.

I think it's very rational to hate them for taking up public infrastructure for pedestrians, which already is often neglected in NA cities.

Our cities already deemphasize people being out and about in public spaces, so car-centric, and this is an entirely intolerable insult to injury.

They further alienate folks from jobs in their community, they exacerbate the already artificial friction of just walking to a restaurant and being present in your community.

It represents an impressive amount of awful in a tiny cube.

> so car-centric

Isn't this a solution to that though as the delivery would otherwise be made by a human in a car. I don't have these robots in my area, but I do have the Walmart delivery drones. Those are interesting to watch. A neighbor recently had a delivery by two drones where one approached within seconds of the first recovering the cradle before moving into the same spot. To the point that I was left wondering if the drones have self co-ordination abilities to know a fellow drone is already in place, or if the timing of the system was just right to avoid collision. Either way, I find the constant drone sound of them zipping by annoying. I'm a 10 minute walk from their base, so they are pretty constant.

> Isn't this a solution to that though as the delivery would otherwise be made by a human in a car.

No, it does the direct opposite. It makes it worse for humans to walk. It actually makes it better for non-delivery humans to take a car, because there's less delivery drivers on the road.

Improving car-centrism would be the exact opposite. It would improve the human walking experience and degrade the human driving experience.

Yeah, pedestrians are already an afterthought, getting this tiny sliver of walk space next to the massive road.

And now you have to share it with someone’s private burrito transport.

Well maybe if all the space was not given to cars there could be some little space for those small lightweight vehicles which is much more efficient than those stupid fat trucks (EDIT: by which I meant SUVs and the likes)

Edit: I misunderstood what OP meant by trucks. NVM

How are light weight vehicles more efficient than trucks? That’s such a broad statement with absolutely no data provided to back it up. Efficiency matters a lot depending on the context. Delivering 40,000 kg of good cross country? Even a diesel truck is going to be more efficient than 10k little robot. Last mile delivery? Yes, obviously it’s not good to send a semi trailer to deliver a pizza.

The point is, those big fat trucks aren’t just there to annoy you, they are doing something pretty useful.

I don't think OP's upset with the actual delivery trucks (though NYC banned them from city center for very good reasons). It's those F150 and Cybertruck pavement princesses and massive SUVs that are problematic.

Nobody is using semis to deliver pizzas and nobody is using sidewalk RC coolers to deliver pallets, what are you on about

Well that’s exactly my point, big trucks exist and are used for good reasons.

Agreed, bicycle paths for bike delivery would be more efficient

They're an anthropomorphic avatar of everything that is wrong with the business of technology. They're the broken promises of technology with a face. The promise of technology that we've all bought into is a better world, a world that lifts people up, instead we've got these dumb little robots that drive around making it even harder for people to survive. If we lived in a world where everyone's basic needs were met, these little robots would make you feel different.

Two of them have somehow crashed into bus shelters, smashing the glass, most recently on Lawrence iirc. That's good enough reason for me. I use those bus shelters, especially on Lawrence!

Wait until you see the track record of actual delivery drivers.

Well zero delivery drivers have smashed that bus shelter in the 4 years I've lived here but one RC cooler has

People tend to hate everything that moves or produces sound and go far to rationalize it.

If this were true, car-centrism would not be the dominant kool-aid.

I hate them, but not for perhaps the normal reason. I also hate the way delivery has progressed. Delivery used to be relegated to a few types of food which were designed better for it. Remember when your pizza came hot in an insulated pizza sleeve, not dropped at your entrance cold and sad?

We're making it more and more normal to completely avoid interacting with each other and having service be something we cherish, I think this is hugely detrimental to society.

I don't know what harm you are imagining happens here. Because the actual environmental harm of normal customer pick up is pretty large - its very inefficient to have hundreds of people converge on one location, rather then a single person or (robot) deliver many orders to the same hundreds of people.

these robots can take only one order at a time (at least here in Prague) since they don't have multiple separated compartments and it takes ages to deliver one order (company claims 14 minutes in 1-2km zone, but I have my doubts about their data, I assume at best they mean delivery time since pick up in restaurant to customer building), so it's much more efficient for people to walk that 1-2km or take public transport to pick up their food

I remember they proudly published their THREE robots delivered successfully 130 orders over 4 months period since trial started in December 2025, even over one month it would be less than two orders per day per robot, over 4 months the number is a bad joke, not even one order or day.

https://www.lupa.cz/aktuality/autonomnich-rozvazkovych-robot...

Though now they are planning sweeping robots which seems like much better use of robots doing something useful beneficial to everyone, not only to bunch of lazy hipsters.

> Because the actual environmental harm of normal customer pick up is pretty large - its very inefficient to have hundreds of people converge on one location, rather then a single person or (robot) deliver many orders to the same hundreds of people.

A few months ago, this was the reasoning that tipped me into looking into grocery delivery options.

Unfortunately, I'm not really interested in services using instacart/doordash/etc., but they've been driving the in-house delivery services out of the market. Of the ~5 grocery services here, 2 were always instacart/doordash, the formerly 2 best options abandoned their in-house services within the past year, and the remaining option is expensive enough that I'm not really motivated away from just driving over to the closest store myself. (The store with delivery is notably further away.)

I guess maybe that's just the cost of delivery outside of the gig model, and the dis-efficiencies of everyone driving to the store are externalized away...

This isn't true. The grocery distribution model is incredibly efficient in terms of transportation cost even if you drive there.

A delivery usually only transports a limited number of items and has to come from a far away hub. With grocery stores, the hub is less than 2km away and you usually buy more than half a shopping cart of goods.

Not the original commenter, but I share the same sentiment.

The harm done is that there is less human interaction outside one's bubble. Before deliver-anything-at-home you were forced to be in environments where you'd interact with people you'd normally not see.

At some level you're also building a connection if you're interacting with the same service employee or bump into a neighbor.

Strong communities is a massive boost to public health. It reduces loneliness and prevents all kinds of deceases (heart stuff, dementia, etc). It also builds a safety net so people don't have to rely so much on official healthcare.

Now obviously just some food delivery is not destroying community by itself. There's probably worse offenders out there. However, society becomes more and more parallel and robots do contribute to it. Unfortunately it's not something that's discussed a lot.

How much did you really interact with the pizza guy? Lack of interaction is probably mostly tangential to this.

Technology is progressing to the point of making a formerly luxury service widely accessible. Why is that a bad thing?

I saw a video of one in a bike lane the other day, zero percent chance that I won't kick it over if I see one doing that. Absolutely fucking not.

There are people that don't hate them?

People who don’t have to set foot on public sidewalks don’t mind them.

I prefer them to delivery drivers that damage your packages, get overworked/underpaid and get subjected to safety/crime issues.

You must not use sidewalks

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