\n October 14 wasn\u2019t the first time Carolyn Marvin put herself in front of an autonomous delivery robot. It had become, since the wheeled little food vessels were unleashed upon certain parts of Philadelphia, a habit for the 78-year-old: standing in front of one of the robots when she encountered it rolling on the sidewalk, delaying it for a few minutes from delivering its precious lunchtime cargo.\n <\/p>\n
\n But it was the first time that Marvin, a retired University of Pennsylvania communications professor, was arrested for doing it \u2014 in a case that she says raises profound questions about public space and the legal protections extended to robots in our increasingly tech-dominated world.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI was under the impression that I had more rights than the robot did,\u201d Marvin said, laughing.\n <\/p>\n
\n Uber Eats launched its self-driving robot delivery fleet<\/a> in Philly in March, making it the fourth city where meals can be delivered via robot. Not everyone welcomed the heart-eyed little machines: In Philadelphia and elsewhere, videos show people sitting on, vandalizing or kicking the robots.\n <\/p>\n \n Marvin says the impact of her one-woman protest is limited. \u201cI have a life, so I don\u2019t have tons of time to stand in front of robots,\u201d she said. If she comes across a robot, and it\u2019s \u201cconvenient and possible\u201d for her, she might spend 10 or 15 minutes blocking it, moving as it does, to delay it on its journey.\n <\/p>\n \n The only harm that comes from her hobby is that an office worker\u2019s lunchtime bowl \u201cmight be delayed for about 15 minutes at the most,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n \n She views her actions as a symbolic protest against the problems posed by delivery robots: the displacement of low-income delivery workers; the physical hazard the robots pose on the sidewalk; and the privacy concerns posed by the robots\u2019 embedded cameras.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI also think that I have a First Amendment right to protest the abuses of corporations in public space, in the same public space that the robots are occupying,\u201d she said. In the past, she had protested in favor of civil rights, abortion rights, Black Lives Matters, and for ending the Gulf and Vietnam wars. She views her robot mission as an extension of the same impulse: \u201cIt\u2019s what we need to do to make sure the government hears the will of the people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Stopping in front of the robots, Marvin said, led to productive conversations with other passersby who asked what she was doing. Most were supportive, or curious. She never considered that she might be arrested, since, as she said, \u201cI wasn\u2019t impeding any persons. I was impeding a machine.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n That\u2019s until the 14th. On the way home from getting her flu shot, Marvin, a jar of enchilada sauce in one hand and chicken biryani takeout in the other, encountered one of the robots and stopped in front of it, per usual. It was in a busy part of the city, and a larger-than-normal crowd began to gather around her. Some were supportive; some were critical. She suspects, she said, that a member of the crowd eventually called the police, who handcuffed her and put her in the back of a squad car, giving her a citation for disorderly conduct.\n <\/p>\n \n Marvin said one of her friends put it thusly: \u201cWell, you got a disorderly conduct charge for impeding capitalism.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Philadelphia police said that they had responded to a report of \u201ccriminal mischief involving a delivery robot.\u201d When they arrived, \u201cofficers encountered a female who was refusing to allow a delivery robot to pass,\u201d they wrote in an email. \u201cPolice issued multiple commands directing the female to move; however, she refused to comply.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In the aftermath of her arrest, Marvin has found out more about the legal infrastructure that protects robots. In 2020, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law<\/a> that classifies autonomous delivery robots \u2014 what the law calls \u201cpersonal delivery devices\u201d \u2014 as pedestrians, not vehicles. Democrats, along with labor unions and accessibility advocates, largely opposed<\/a> the law on the basis that legalizing delivery robots could kill jobs and endanger children and pedestrians; Republicans touted it as an exciting technological advancement.\n <\/p>\n \n The law means that a vehicle must yield to a delivery robot on crosswalks, just as it would to a person, said John Mattiacci, a Philadelphia personal injury attorney. Still, in theory humans are at the top of the hierarchy: \u201cPersonal delivery devices must yield to other pedestrians and pedalcyclists in a pedestrian area,\u201d he said. Uber Eats didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.\n <\/p>\n \n Marvin sees the proliferation of delivery robots \u2014 and the legal protections of them \u2014 as another case of machinery and technology infiltrating everyday life. \u201cThere\u2019s a way in which we\u2019ve surrendered the streets to cars long ago, and I don\u2019t think we should surrender the sidewalks to machines,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMachines in general encroach on our lives,\u201d she went on. \u201cPublic space is the most visible place where they\u2019re encroaching on our lives, but they\u2019re going right up the ladder, and lots of people are interested in making that happen.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Most of the technology people encounter day to day is less tangible: the overwhelming adoption of AI, the mysterious social media algorithms that determine the images and narratives the public consumes. The robots, on the other hand, are a clear and visible symbol of the tech takeover, an easy target for anti-tech rage. Her protest, she said, \u201cmakes it visible to people and presents the issue in a way that it might not otherwise be presented.\u201d Asked if she plans to get back to blocking robots post-arrest, Marvin was succinct: \u201cOh yeah.\u201d But now she\u2019ll keep an eye out for the cops.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"October 14 wasn\u2019t the first time Carolyn Marvin put herself in front of an autonomous delivery robot. 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