Josh DuBose, KTLA5; Food delivery robot goes rogue, causes property damage at L.A. home
[Kip Currier: This news story highlights the kinds of negative consequences that can occur from delivery robots, also called Personal Delivery Devices (PDDs) in communities. My 2025 book Ethics, Information, and Technology examines the pros and cons of deploying PDDs to courier an array of items, such as a pilot program in Pittsburgh in which robots delivered books from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (CLP).]
[Excerpt]
"“We’ve got the Cocos, the Waymos and they’re coming for us,” Henson said, laughing.
What concerns Reel, Henson and others is that this was not the first time there have been problems with food delivery robots. In a separate incident, a Coco robot was caught on camera running into an ambulance, while robot from another company was seen knocking over a parked motorcycle.
Even more problematic was the time one of the autonomous robots came to an abrupt stop in front of man using a mobility scooter.
“I think the part that worries me is that these companies can come in and dump their technology in our community and there’s no sense of accountability,” Reel said. “It just feels like an accident waiting to happen.”
The East Hollywood resident said she’s now documenting all the robots in her neighborhood and that after reaching out to the company that runs the Coco robots, she’s going to get reimbursed for her garden, with a company official telling her that internal measures will be taken to ensure incidents like this do not happen again."
