Crime Vandals, thieves attacking L.A. food delivery robots - Why we can't have nice things

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by: Will Conybeare, Rachel Menitoff
Posted: Aug 7, 2023 / 06:55 PM PDT
Updated: Aug 8, 2023 / 07:23 AM PDT

The popularity of remote food delivery skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the trend has continued to help businesses thrive years later.

Unfortunately, some of the autonomous delivery vehicles are taking a beating, with several viral videos showing people kicking the robots over and even stealing the products inside.

Businesses who use self-driving delivery technology are starting to be affected by the prevalence of vandals and thieves disrupting the delivery process.

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Unfortunately, some of the robotic delivery vehicles are taking a beating, with several viral videos showing people kicking the autonomous bots over and even stealing the products inside. (TikTok/@filmtherobotsla)

“We have to remake the food, but luckily we still get reimbursed for that,” said Steve Avila, general manager of Blu Jam Café in Hollywood. “I can see how [delivery companies] can be hurting from it, especially because it seems like [the delivery robots] are pretty expensive.”

Serve Robots, which operates many of the autonomous delivery vehicles in West Hollywood said that despite the technology being targeted at times, they still complete 99.9 percent of their deliveries successfully.

Another company outlined the measures they have in place to help prevent and respond to vandalism.

“If someone tries to block the robots, the robots will attempt to maneuver around them or politely ask them to move,” read a statement from Starship Technologies. “If the situation escalates or the robot is tampered with, the robots have loud sirens, and any incidents are reported. Our robots are locked at all times and have 12 cameras.”

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Unfortunately, some of the robotic delivery vehicles are taking a beating, with several viral videos showing people kicking the autonomous bots over and even stealing the products inside. (TikTok/@filmtherobotsla)

Ultimately, customers of local small businesses remain hopeful that people will stop tampering with the robots.

“They are helping small businesses and they’re not causing any harm,” said Clark Childers, a customer of a small business in West Hollywood. “I think people are just looking for attention.”

Source (Archive)
 
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I don't understand how they thought this was never going to happen?

They're lucky that the 'people' doing this are too dumb to realise that the robot itself is worth more than the food inside. Shit, strip those fuckers down, put the parts on Aliexpress or Ebay and sell them as parts back to the manufacturer. Easy money.
 
Wall-e would have been a very short movie if it were made realistic.
The little robot would have been almost immediately swarmed by niggers, destroyed, and the credits would roll.


Bog-standard Poster said:
They're lucky that the 'people' doing this are too dumb to realise that the robot itself is worth more than the food inside
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The nature of these things mean they have redundant GPS.
Give more credit to the intelligence of criminals.
 
This is pretty funny. Not as good as footage of rednecks shooting down drones but the socioeconomically challenged version is acceptable.
 
This was 100% predictable. Only the biggest fool would have thought people who will laugh while they beat a delivery person would leave robots alone.
 
Bog-standard Poster said:
They're lucky that the 'people' doing this are too dumb to realise that the robot itself is worth more than the food inside. Shit, strip those fuckers down, put the parts on Aliexpress or Ebay and sell them as parts back to the manufacturer. Easy money.
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Would require more thought than "take and eat what I see."
 
dustbuster said:
The nature of these things mean they have redundant GPS.
Give more credit to the intelligence of criminals.
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A wet towel worked in Total Recall. You could even put the GPS in a sandwich and feed it to a hobo.
 
Bog-standard Poster said:
A wet towel worked in Total Recall. You could even put the GPS in a sandwich and feed it to a hobo.
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Unfortunately live rats aren't so available in broad daylight to slip chipped candy bars.
I somehow doubt we'd be seeing these kind of incidents with the robots if the "total recall" solution to unauthorized tampering (death squads with automatic weapons) were utilized by corporations.

Why the fuck don't we ever get the GOOD parts of cyberpunk dystopias?
 
General Emílio Médici said:
The fact they expected a city where crime is de-facto legal to not have the robot deliveries ransacked...
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Nobody at the higher decision making levels of this are acutely aware of the problem. Sure, they're aware of it in a statistical sense, but they're too disconnected from normal living that they're blissfully unaware of the degradation on the streets. They could never envision themselves stooping to the point of robbing a robot in broad daylight in front of people, so they project that onto everyone else - not realizing that these kinds of people don't give a fuck, don't have any sense of social reputation to uphold, and do whatever they want.
 
Nogs or not this was always going to happen. Low level automation like this especially if you arent like within 5 minutes of the thing, this is inevitable, its like porch piracy if you leave it out for like 5 hours. Its why amazon doesnt fuck with drones, immediately people are going to start shooting at them, and that whole 'cashierless pay' thing they tried rolling out too, fell apart.
 
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