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…
It’s not “the robot fled”, it’s “a company put a unsafe robot onto a public street and should not be allowed to operate them at least until they’ve proven that their robots are really safe and will not flee from further accidents”
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.
So, a hit-and-run.
I think the legal principle of liability is that a company is fully liable for the damage that their products cause. “It was an automation” or “it was a robot” is not an excuse.
So, maybe the consequence should be the permanent cancellation of the driving license of the responsible persons? If nobody else, the CEO of that company?
They caused an accident and then fled the scene, jail time seems most appropriate for the CEO and everyone underneath him who agreed this robot was fit to be out and crossing roads.
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
Oh nooo the robot was blinded by traffic lights says the company.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
I’m not saying the robot is “right”, but the number of people crusing around with their high beams on as a matter of corse, is as they saying goes, too damn high. So I can absolutely believe that a vehicle’s high beams limited its “vision” because that regularly happens to me driving and as a pedestrian.
Now if the robot fled the scene that’s a completely different issue for which it’s operators are responsible.
I’m not saying that you’re “wrong”, but the idea of giving the benefit of the doubt to a piece of technology in service of a corporation is, as the saying goes, bonkers.
It cannot be blinded. What an incredibly bold statement, unless they aim to go bankrupt soon anyway
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.
No no, let’s put the blame on bright ad boards, and require cities to remove that form of advertisement. You know, for safety.
But also, remove bright ad boards…not for the robots though, but for the people.
and whoever decided it did needs to be made an example of. too many people are harmed by half baked autonomous shit every day.
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.
It’s not that easy. Running the thing over is also dangerous for the people in the bus. The driver must decide.
What ass backwards timeline we’re living in that we got Asimov’s three laws on backwards? That a human being cannot harm a robot? 🤬
The entire damn point of the three laws is that they don’t work and cause more harm then good… The paradox of the laws is the whole point!
What paradox? I thought the rules were considered a good idea in the stories.
If you’ve ever actually read any of the books you’d know that using these laws as actual laws is a dumb move. The paradoxes caused by them are a pretty central theme.
Yeah like one of the stories in i Robot, the people were going die because the robot couldn’t break one of the three rules and went haywire. Think that was the issue in most of the stories.
also robots are pratically blameless, thats why they are made, so it obfuscates the true owners.
But the owner isn’t blameless. What, are robot crashes handled as natural disasters? Is this idiocracy?
Time to give every robot a license plate
people get really angry at me when I flip these things.
Hold upper management criminally liable
Removed by mod
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
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.
“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.
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.
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.
AI slop ass comment
only resolvable by bathing the courts in their least favorite thing; the blood of the wicked.
The robot was heard yelling “Bite my shiny metal ass!” as it ran away.
along with “I am fast asf boi”
robot fled 😂😂
fled
robot hit and run.
FREE Carolyn Marvin!
