“As a chemical engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh who uses a power wheelchair, I figured it wouldn’t be long before I met one of these bots in a frustrating face-off on a narrow sidewalk. What I didn’t realize was how dangerous, and dehumanizing, that scenario might be.
The robot was sitting motionless on the curb cut on the other side of Forbes Avenue. It wasn’t crossing with the rest of the pedestrians, and when I reached the curb, it didn’t move as the walk signal was ending. I found myself sitting in the street as the traffic light turned green, blocked by a non-sentient being incapable of understanding the consequences of its actions.”
-Emily Ackerman
The article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-19/why-tech-needs-more-designers-with-disabilities
A life-threatening encounter with AI technology convinced me that the needs of people with disabilities need to be engineered into our auton
[ID: three screenshots. The first is a perspective article by CityLab. It’s headline reads “My fight with a sidewalk robot.” The paragraph below reads “A life threatening encounter with AI technology convinced me that the needs of people with disabilities need to be engineered into our autonomous future.” Below the paragraph is a picture of a small rectangular sidewalk robot moving along a sidewalk.
The second screenshot is a tweeted picture by an unknown user of six sidewalk robots going down the side of the street, with a car trying to pull between two of them. There are two replies below it, the first reply is by Adrian Lopez @PaladinZilch and reads “Wow. Imagine being in a wheelchair and seeing that.” The second reply is by I [flaming heart emoji] You @IAm444x and reads “oh god the tech bros made car traffic for sidewalks [crying emoji].”
The third screenshot is a reply tweet by Will Jackson @geologywill that reads “A few weeks ago… it took 5 minutes for their sensors to figure out how to get out of the standoff… Enjoyed every second of it.” Below is a picture of three sidewalk robots caught in a circle at an outdoor bus stop, presumably stuck in their circle. End ID.]
@a-square-6-28-496 here's a reblog with image IDs
The logic of these devices being "allowed" on the sidewalk, whether they've found a technical legal loophole for it or not, is complete nonsense.
Motorized vehicles aren't allowed on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is for pedestrians. Power chair users are considered pedestrians by specific exemption (and for good reason - that is a single human, using the most minimally disruptive means of locomotion available to them.)
This thing isn't a pedestrian. It's a miniaturized delivery van. They should be banned from the sidewalk. They might already be in most places under existing laws, and nobody is enforcing it.
