College campuses across the country will no longer be swarming with tiny rolling robots.
Starship Technologies, a leading delivery bot company, announced earlier this month that it was ending its university operations and redeploying over a thousand of its meal machines. But the news is just starting to sink in, as various partnered universities all issue official communications mourning the program’s end like obituaries for a celebrity’s passing.
The time has come for the takeout drones to hit the big leagues, as the company intends to focus on doing deliveries for grocery chains and restaurants in cities instead. And shut-in, no-tipping undergrads from coast to coast weep.
You must log in or register to comment.
2 monthsAnd shut-in, no-tipping undergrads from coast to coast weep.
Are you expected to tip the fucking robot?
- MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish2 months
expected to tip the fucking robot?
I think that’s more commonly like a sheep.
- CADmonkey@lemmy.worldEnglish2 months
Yes.
Once it is tipped on its side, its easier to remove the batteries and motors.
- jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish2 months
I think that’s why they will miss this type of delivery, as you do not tip?
- GamingChairModel@lemmy.worldEnglish2 months
No, the article is saying that it is why these robots were popular. Because unlike a human delivery person, there was no tip expected for the robots.
- AlteredEgo@lemmy.mlEnglish2 months
Would be nice if you could tip the actual cook. Like the food preparation chain is visible on the receipt with boxes for sending a small tip. But only after the meal turned out to be amazing.
But overall it’s cool that delivery robots will probably mean an end to tipping culture.
As long as it doesn’t become expected, but seeing how tips already work, it’ll become expected no matter what. I’d probably see reviews complaining about the food tasting like shit but the reviewer leaving the chef “just the standard 20%” and vowing never to eat from there again.
- MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish2 months
The world really needs transparency like that - tip your cook, tip the farmer that grew the amazing tomatoes, or stiff 'em all but at least know who they really were. Before placing your order, get a readout of where the fish was caught, and when… identify how close the chocolate’s cocoa was grown to toxic lead contamination sites - before you take it off the shelf.
- MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish2 months
That would be my future, if you make me king. Since the offers for absolute unflinching loyalty are a bit thin on the ground for the past couple of decades, I’ll assume it’s probably not the future we’re getting.
- EliteCloneMike@lemmy.zipEnglish2 months
Right?! That’d be insane to tip it. Like do people tip autonomous vehicles when they use them? I guess if there is really a human operator, like what Waymo did with having human drivers take over from time to time, all while claiming to be autonomous. I guess in that case, tipping might make sense, so long at the tip went to the driver of the vehicle. I don’t know if driver control these small robots ever or not.
I mean waymo never claimed they would not use human operators from time to time, they in fact disclosed that fact. But people skim over things like that and make statements like yours. Just like I’m positive these delivery bots have the same disclosures.
- 2 months
Yeah they literally have people remote in and fix random things because obviously random things can go wrong and still require human intervention.
- 2 months
Yeah they literally have people remote in and fix random things because obviously random things can go wrong and still require human intervention.
A company put these on the campus in town, the robotics engineers built a robot to rob the delivery bots.
I figured that a good percentage of the delivery robots would simply “disappear” from the map and be rebirthed as battle bots in some arena with chainsaw accessories.
Not sure how they expect to roll these out by the thousands without completely clogging up sidewalks and bike lanes…
Zipline is where it’s at…
- prole@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish2 months
When will they set up the catapults to fling deliveries like in Death Stranding?
- Airowird@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish2 months
Clearly, the superior
siegedelivery engine is a trebuchet.
- doingthestuff@lemy.lolEnglish2 months
They won’t be in my area. We don’t have sidewalks or bike lanes.
- Rioting Pacifist@lemmy.worldEnglish2 months
burrito bomber ftw https://www.darwinaerospace.com/burritobomber
- MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish2 months
These are the kind of things that could run on a lane built over the sidewalk…
- allywilson@lemmy.mlEnglish2 months
I think they’ve been running around in Milton Keynes, UK for a few years now.
- CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.worldEnglish2 months
I wish… but no just broke college kids trying to eat cheaper
- credo@lemmy.worldEnglish2 months
Not the same story, but I followed a related story about another bot crashing a SWAT scene:
Dot is a bit different than most food delivery bots. It’s taller and roomier, and zooms around at a zippy 20 miles per hour, the company claims. That’s because it’s built to travel on roadways and bike lanes, leaving its fellow sidewalk crawlers in the dust.
WTF
- fruitycoder@sh.itjust.worksEnglish2 months
Every time is see one of these fuckers: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5o1c1MJb_Oc
- BradleyUffner@lemmy.worldEnglish2 months
I had a booth at a craft show on a college campus a few months back. The little bastards kept trying to route through the show and were constantly bumping in to tables. They even knocked over a couple of tables at a few vendor stalls, damaging some of the items.
- MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish2 months
This sounds like a real application for Doctrow’s “Chuffie” from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom… scan the “how’s my driving?” QR code on the lid of the bot and downvote… company’s bots gets enough downvotes it gets restricted out of the places it’s receiving the downvotes from.
With all due respect, that sounds like it should and could have been solved in a way other than banning a popular service.
- BradleyUffner@lemmy.worldEnglish2 months
Sure, but even if it could, they probably shouldn’t just keep running in to stuff and routing through areas where there are known collisions. If those are problems they can’t seem to solve, then maybe it’s a product that shouldn’t exist.
- Rioting Pacifist@lemmy.worldEnglish2 months
Except the tragedy of the commons was a lie made up by Landlords to justify the enclosure of the commons so that people would be forced to work for them under capitalism, and this is the capitalists ruining the commons.
- rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish2 months
They block sidewalks, they destroy bus stops, they hurt workers
