An emeritus Penn professor was arrested last week after blocking an Uber Eats robot in Center City.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Carolyn Marvin, a professor emeritus at the Annenberg School of Communication, was approached by police<\/a> on Oct. 14 after repeatedly standing in the path of one of the food delivery company\u2019s sidewalk robots. Marvin described the act, which resulted in a criminal violation notice for disorderly conduct, as an exercise of her First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n \u201cI oppose ruthless corporations casting aside human workers they don\u2019t want to pay \u2014 in this case delivery folks at the bottom of the wage pile \u2014 to enrich their bottom line,\u201d Marvin wrote in a statement to the Daily Pennsylvanian. \u201cThese real people are workers with no defense against these corporations except our care for their situation.\u201d<\/p>\n She criticized the \u201ccute little robots flashing googly hearts,\u201d writing that they \u201cdistract us from thinking about the real people they displace.\u201d<\/p>\n A request for comment was left with Uber.<\/p>\n Get the DP delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n Sign Up<\/a><\/p>\n Connecting the robots to broader concerns about the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, Marvin characterized the technology as \u201cmultipurpose offenders\u201d that also collect personal information.<\/p>\n Uber launched<\/a> its fleet of delivery robots in Philadelphia in March.<\/p>\n She emphasized the importance of being able to \u201cprotest these abuses in the same public space the robots are occupying.\u201d Police arrested Marvin on the 1200 block of Filbert Street after receiving a report<\/a> of criminal mischief involving a robot.<\/p>\n Marvin told Philly Voice<\/a> that she plans to contest the charge on First Amendment grounds. At Penn, she taught a class at the Annenberg School titled \u201cHistory and Theory of Freedom of Expression\u201d. The course examined<\/a> \u201cwhat gap, if any, exists between speech and action.\u201d<\/p>\n She wrote in a statement that understanding the \u201ctradition\u201d of free expression is \u201ccritically important for the civic education of undergraduates.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI loved teaching it and the students who took it,\u201d Marvin added. \u201cI like imagining that some of them would have been out there with me.\u201d<\/p>\n Marvin stated that she hopes students will stop using Uber Eats and \u201cinstead patronize companies that use human delivery workers.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Marvin criticized<\/a> the University\u2019s approach to open expression in a guest column for the DP.<\/p>\n Senior reporter Lavanya Mani covers legal affairs and can be reached at mani@thedp.com<\/a>. At Penn, she studies comparative literature. Follow her on X @LavanyaMani_<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An emeritus Penn professor was arrested last week after blocking an Uber Eats robot in Center City.\u00a0 Carolyn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-651783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}