Pennsylvania's 2020 robot delivery statute was poorly written because it failed to contemplate the meaning and consequence of traffic code when pedestrians are not humans, are not even necessarily people, and have no will.
Consider:
When the police officer gave the human an order to disburse, and the person willfully refused, they then went to jail. Perhaps they are vindicated. Perhaps not. (even if vindicated the process is the punishment.)
However, if a police officer also gives the robot a verbal order to disburse, and the lidar just sits there are spins, who goes to jail? And if willfulness is a component to the crime, and the engineers did not design a system capable of understanding police orders, then did a crime even occur?
In PA statute, "pedestrian" confers mostly protection, not obligation. The corresponding obligations imposed on human pedestrians in PA code are mostly downstream of willfulnes and/or personhood. I.e., you need to be a person or act willfully to be bound by the typical obligations of a pedestrian.
The law worked well to-date because all pedestrians were human persons, so you didn't end up in a weird edge case of having a pedestrian's protections without a human person's obligations. But if the robot gets all the protections but few of the obligations of pedestrianhood, well, that violates my moral intuition.
In the spirit of intellectual curiosity regarding this fascinating legal situation, the next officer facing a similar situation should issue a disbursal order to the robot and the human, and the DA should pursue criminal charges against any party that willfully refuses that order. Which, to be fair, is probably what would happen if two humans were engaged in a similar standoff.
What happens if you place something on the top of one of these things? I'm imagining a second robot that sits atop and sprays silly sting at pedestrians it detects. Or one with an air horn that goes of randomly. or one that attaches to the side at the bottom and uses a series of spray chalk guns to dot matrix messages into the sidewalk. :p
the robot will continue to try to get past her as long as it has a charge. when its charge runs out, it will cease. if these robots are anything like instagram users' phones, typically the charge will be less than 20%.
The food delivery vehicle was on the pedestrian path where the pedestrian wanted to be. Why didn’t it turn around and go another way? That is what peole do when sidewalks are jammed up by whatever event might be happening. Was she following it around and blocking it from every direction? Making contact in any way? Go back across the street and get on with it.
These things are pretty big and Philly sidewalks are narrow enough with just regular pedestrian traffic. Incidentally, I’ve only seen these things in relatively high-foot traffic areas too. This is just tech companies seeing what they can get away with, as usual.
You might support it if you were a food delivery worker, or someone else whose jobs are at immediate risk from automation. Or if you had any empathy for those people.
Arrested for refusing to yield to a motor vehicle on a public sidewalk? Curious to see if they can find any jury in the land that won’t laugh this one out…
No, she was arrested for disobeying police orders. But whether they're lawful orders or not is a different matter; strongly suspect that if this went to trial, she'd have a decent 1st amendment argument, which is why it won't go to trial. (ACAB, but also this is a pretty standard part of civil disobedience -- getting arrested is just part and parcel, for better and worse.)
I don’t know why you think she’d have a 1st amendment case; intentionally obstructing public passages is a crime in PA. Time, use, and manner restrictions are widely understood to be constitutional as long as they are content neutral and do not restrict expression. If she was following behind or in front of the robot with a sign, that would be one thing, but intentionally blocking someone or something almost certainly does not constitute protected speech in itself.
ACAB & ACAC both span multiple english speaking countries, predate BLM days by at least three or four decades, and are hardly idiotic in the face of documented abuses of power by rotten apples, coupled with tacit acceptance of the bad ones by their wider fraternity.
> ignored multiple commands from officers to move.
> She was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
The fact that it was a robot doesn’t really matter. Blocking traffic on a sidewalk and refusing to stop after police intervened was the basis for the charge.
Pennsylvania's 2020 robot delivery statute was poorly written because it failed to contemplate the meaning and consequence of traffic code when pedestrians are not humans, are not even necessarily people, and have no will.
Consider:
When the police officer gave the human an order to disburse, and the person willfully refused, they then went to jail. Perhaps they are vindicated. Perhaps not. (even if vindicated the process is the punishment.)
However, if a police officer also gives the robot a verbal order to disburse, and the lidar just sits there are spins, who goes to jail? And if willfulness is a component to the crime, and the engineers did not design a system capable of understanding police orders, then did a crime even occur?
In PA statute, "pedestrian" confers mostly protection, not obligation. The corresponding obligations imposed on human pedestrians in PA code are mostly downstream of willfulnes and/or personhood. I.e., you need to be a person or act willfully to be bound by the typical obligations of a pedestrian.
The law worked well to-date because all pedestrians were human persons, so you didn't end up in a weird edge case of having a pedestrian's protections without a human person's obligations. But if the robot gets all the protections but few of the obligations of pedestrianhood, well, that violates my moral intuition.
In the spirit of intellectual curiosity regarding this fascinating legal situation, the next officer facing a similar situation should issue a disbursal order to the robot and the human, and the DA should pursue criminal charges against any party that willfully refuses that order. Which, to be fair, is probably what would happen if two humans were engaged in a similar standoff.
(They're homophones, but the one you want is "disperse" (cognate of "sparse"), rather than "disburse" (cognate of "purse")).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disperse#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disburse#English
That word you keep using, I do not think it means what you think it means.
What happens if you place something on the top of one of these things? I'm imagining a second robot that sits atop and sprays silly sting at pedestrians it detects. Or one with an air horn that goes of randomly. or one that attaches to the side at the bottom and uses a series of spray chalk guns to dot matrix messages into the sidewalk. :p
Never change Philly... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitchBOT
I have to wonder if in the long term this bot is an uber product or a restaurant owned product.
What is the charge?
Obstructing the delivery of A Succulent Chinese Meal
Well done.
>What is the charge?
the robot will continue to try to get past her as long as it has a charge. when its charge runs out, it will cease. if these robots are anything like instagram users' phones, typically the charge will be less than 20%.
I would be surprised if these robots were taking many jobs. Aren't they mostly piloted by people?
Second-hand info, but: I've heard humans only take control when the system flags that they're stuck.
Stuck or blocked by some first amendment disorderly protestor type
what I have heard is that they also summon the human operator input at all intersections / crosswalks / traffic signals.
Yes, by offshore teleop pilots from low wage countries. They are still taking local jobs.
Those kinds of robots should never be allowed on sidewalks.
> Aren't they mostly piloted by people?
In which country? People normally consider outsourcing to a cheaper country as taking jobs.
So, she is protesting against People having their food delivered to them?
FTA:
> ... she was protesting the use of delivery robots because she believes they are replacing human workers.
Is this the new "dog bites man"?
Civil disobedience
"disorderly conduct"
the robots are carrying an order, not disorder
The police only helped her cause by arresting her I imagine.
Her "cause" of making everyone's lives worse by delaying food delivery? Why would I ever support this?
The food delivery vehicle was on the pedestrian path where the pedestrian wanted to be. Why didn’t it turn around and go another way? That is what peole do when sidewalks are jammed up by whatever event might be happening. Was she following it around and blocking it from every direction? Making contact in any way? Go back across the street and get on with it.
"Was she following it around and blocking it from every direction?"
According to the article, yes.
These things are pretty big and Philly sidewalks are narrow enough with just regular pedestrian traffic. Incidentally, I’ve only seen these things in relatively high-foot traffic areas too. This is just tech companies seeing what they can get away with, as usual.
Regardless of whether you or I think it’s a worthy cause, I’m just pointing out that the police amplified her voice.
You might support it if you were a food delivery worker, or someone else whose jobs are at immediate risk from automation. Or if you had any empathy for those people.
Arrested for refusing to yield to a motor vehicle on a public sidewalk? Curious to see if they can find any jury in the land that won’t laugh this one out…
No, she was arrested for disobeying police orders. But whether they're lawful orders or not is a different matter; strongly suspect that if this went to trial, she'd have a decent 1st amendment argument, which is why it won't go to trial. (ACAB, but also this is a pretty standard part of civil disobedience -- getting arrested is just part and parcel, for better and worse.)
I don’t know why you think she’d have a 1st amendment case; intentionally obstructing public passages is a crime in PA. Time, use, and manner restrictions are widely understood to be constitutional as long as they are content neutral and do not restrict expression. If she was following behind or in front of the robot with a sign, that would be one thing, but intentionally blocking someone or something almost certainly does not constitute protected speech in itself.
This being a motorized vehicle on a pedestrian sidewalk, that "widely understood to be constitutional[ly protected]" is a stretch.
"ACAB" - "All Cops Are Bastards"
(Not endorsing this view, just spelling it out bc I had to look it up.)
> But whether they're lawful orders or not is a different matter; strongly suspect that if this went to trial
Right: you win arguments against cops in court, not on the street.
Unless you're in your home, and they don't have a warrant.
“…now let’s sprinkle some crack on this [homeowner], and get out of here.”
ACAB?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAB
All Cats Are Beautiful
"all cops are bad cops" - an idiotic leftist acronym, a remnant from the BLM days
That's not actually what it stands for...
you sure about that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAB
Did you read your link? Literal first 8 words:
> ACAB, an acronym for all cops are bastards
ACAB & ACAC both span multiple english speaking countries, predate BLM days by at least three or four decades, and are hardly idiotic in the face of documented abuses of power by rotten apples, coupled with tacit acceptance of the bad ones by their wider fraternity.
Interestingly, it isn't strictly "leftist". In fact it was used by both racist and anti-racist skinheads.
No, it was for this:
> ignored multiple commands from officers to move.
> She was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
The fact that it was a robot doesn’t really matter. Blocking traffic on a sidewalk and refusing to stop after police intervened was the basis for the charge.
there is not traffic on the sidewalk :)
> there is not traffic on the sidewalk
"Foot traffic" is a thing, and is typically (AFAIK) the only type of "traffic" strictly legal on sidewalks in many (most/all?) places in the USA.
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