Three weeks after arriving in Philadelphia, Uber Eats delivery robots have been vandalised, leading researchers to ask the question whether vandalism of robots and other tech is a Philly thing, or whether it’s something that extends far and wide across the US.
Videos of Local Aggression Towards Robots
Videos recently surfaced of people sitting on Uber Eats delivery robots that were just trying to do their job in Philadelphia, as well as people spray-painting them – and even kicking the androids over.
Lindsay Ouellette, who teaches statistics at Temple University, has written a dissertation to find out what compels people to attack robots they see in their streets. In the past, she conducted doctoral research on robot interactions at Temple University, and she expressed surprise at her own reaction when she came across her first delivery robot in the city.
“I was actually taken by how surprised and a little taken off guard I was,” she said, despite her academic background studying autonomous vehicles.
Robot Abuse Beyond Philadelphia
The question on everyone’s lips after the recent spate of vandalism against delivery robots in the city is whether such expressions of violence towards tech is strictly a Philly thing.
The incidents sparked memories of a Canadian robot called hitchBOT, whose purpose was to hitchhike to the US. Its journey was cut short after it was destroyed near Old City’s Elfreth’s Alley in 2015, losing its head in the process. As such, Temple University researchers Donald Hantula and Ouellette argue that robot abuse extends far beyond Philadelphia’s borders.
“I think the perverse pride is a Philly thing. We see places outside of Philadelphia where technologies are vandalized like crazy,” Hantula said. The psychology and neuroscience faculty member supervised Ouellette’s work with Temple’s Robot Social Navigation Amongst Pedestrians research team.
Their research challenges the stereotype that Philadelphia is uniquely hostile to technological innovation. “There’s a baseline amount of that that goes on no matter what the target is,” Hantula noted, pointing to documented cases of robot attacks across the country.
Design Factors in Robot Safety
The Temple research revealed counterintuitive findings about robot design and public interaction. Ouellette discovered that making robots appear more human-like does not necessarily protect them from abuse. “One of the things that I found is that actually humanizing these robots doesn’t actually act as a protective factor,” she explained.
Her studies showed that “people were willing to harm the robot [with human design features] about the same as one without human design features.” This finding contradicts conventional wisdom about anthropomorphic design serving as protection for autonomous devices.
Hantula emphasized the psychological principles behind aggression toward artificial entities. “One of the most profound drivers of aggression, cruelty, everything, is the idea of dehumanization, where we take people and we create ways to see them as not human, as less than human,” he said.
The researchers suggest a different approach to robot design based on their findings. “With the Uber Eats robots, let them be rectangles on wheels. Don’t try to turn them all into something like a C-3PO from Star Wars,” Hantula recommended.
Robots Fight Back
While humans committing violence against robots is apparently symptomatic of the modern era, what’s perhaps even more symptomatic of an era that is increasingly tech-reliant is the fact that robots are starting to fight back.
A dancing robot has previously been spotted in a California restaurant, where it had to be held back after its moves became too hot to handle. Over in Chicago, there have been numerous reports of delivery robots crashing through bus stops, breaking the glass.
Whether or not locals in Philly will see the Uber Eats delivery robots fighting back remains to be seen but Hantula points out that – for now – attacking robots “is the new cool thing on the block,” suggesting that it might not be long before the novelty fades, the fad dies and people move on, allowing the robots to quietly get on with their jobs.
Image sourced from Pexels
