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Saturday, December 09, 2017


San Francisco to restrict goods delivery robots.

From The BBC

7 December 2017

San Francisco officials have voted to restrict where delivery robots can go in the city, in a blow for the burgeoning industry. Start-ups will have to get permits to use such bots, which will be restricted to less crowded urban areas. Opponents are concerned about the safety of pedestrians, particularly elderly people and children. Walk San Francisco, a group that campaigns for pedestrian safety, wanted a complete ban. A range of companies have begun trialling small robots that can deliver food and other goods. They use sensors and lasers in a similar way to self-driving cars in order to navigate their routes.

Robotics company Marble - which describes its machines as "friendly, neighbourhood robots" - began testing in San Francisco earlier this year. Other companies, such as Starship and Postmates, are also keen to use pavements for robot deliveries. San Francisco supervisor Norman Yee, who originally proposed a ban on such robots, has previously said that the city's streets "are for people, not robots". Despite its proximity to Silicon Valley, San Francisco is falling behind other states such as Virginia and Idaho where there are already laws permitting delivery robots to operate. The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce lobbied against an all-out ban of such robots, saying that "could create a massive barrier to future innovation in the industry". In October the legislation was reframed to look at regulation rather than a ban.

[OK, this is the first I’d heard of this although it seems pretty much like a no-brainer with the development of driverless cars forging ahead. I guess that driverless ‘street robots’ (like that pictured above) would be a lot easier to develop and distribute than the road version. Of course they’re also easier to mess with – you can easily imagine kids building obstacles on known robot routes – and they’re going to be very easy to rob or hi-hack {I may have just created a new word there (an updated version of hi-jack but using computers to gain access to autonomous vehicles) so you saw it here first OK!} so I’m not 100% sure of their utility in the real world. Plus you can imagine faux robots made up to look like legit ones delivering drugs or, being the world we unfortunately live in, bombs to locations in the city. With potentially thousands of these things even in a medium sized city how are they going to be controlled, regulated or monitored. It’s, to be honest, a security nightmare – so good luck with that!]

5 comments:

Fred said...

Unbelievable. I hadn't heard of this before, but I'm not surprised.
As usual, the chance to increase profits outweighs everything else. Profits before People--the new motto.

Mudpuddle said...

it's fascinating how tech innovation carries it's own drawbacks... almost like time branching off in new directions with new possibilities for disaster... i can hear it now: "but we didn't think that would happen!"...

Stephen said...

Hi-hack or...hack-jacking. I understand in some places that have employed (er, wrong word there) land rovers as security, they can call for help. Assumedely they'd have cameras, too, but that would make then more expensive..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/attention-humans-i-am-rosie-your-new-robot-security-guard/2017/09/26/675f996e-98b4-11e7-87fc-c3f7ee4035c9_story.html?utm_term=.f0a89a331175

^ "Security guard" robot.

CyberKitten said...

@ Fred: Profits before People? It has ever been thus.

@ Mudpuddle: I still find it amazing that all of this whizzy stuff keeps coming out and it seems that no one has thought of the security angle. Come on guys, it's pretty fundamental!

@ Steven: Mobile Robot Security? Are they called: ED-209?

Brian Joseph said...

The problems that you envision with robots are interesting, and potentially big ones. Some will inevitably be solved. Others will limit the use of robots. You have gotten me to thinking about all of the mischief that adolescents could wreak with these things :)