If you’ve taken a walk through Todos Santos Plaza recently, you might’ve spotted something new on the sidewalks—sleek, snack-toting robots quietly making their rounds. These are autonomous delivery bots from Polar Labs, now gliding through downtown Concord as part of a pilot program in partnership with the City of Concord. During this early phase, the electric-powered robots are picking up orders from spots around the plaza and dropping them off at designated locations. Designed for safety and efficiency, the compact robots can navigate sidewalks, crosswalks, and even bike lanes with ease. Following a successful trial run, the service is expanding to support point-to-point deliveries in more parts of downtown Concord.
Yeah!! No tipping!!!!!!
Guess time will tell, if software is truly intelligent enough
to handle, the real world.
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Are they smart enough to recognize and OBEY Red Lights ? ? ?
Will self driving vehicles play nice ? ? ?
https://tinyurl.com/278a4uec
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At least Plaza will have mobile entertainment.
Am not going to mention a problem I see in the picture.
I like how this is framed as “giving up on legs” as opposed to simply acknowledging that pure capitalism encourages “innovation” that eliminates the working class. Typical.
You can couch it however you like but you cannot put the technology Genie back in the bottle once it has escaped. That is a Fool’s errand.
The use of robotics was foreseeable and inevitable. It just became more attractive and will be more widely adopted due to the artificial manipulation of the cost of labor and the consumer’s demand that they pay the lowest prices for goods and services.
Just as iceman, milkman, wheelwright and typesetters became obsolete so to will a lot of unskilled labor jobs just for a different reason. They will not be pushed out because technology made them obsolete but because technology made it cost affective to replace them.
I’m thinking of funding a bounty
$500 for every CPU ripped out of
one of those you bring me.
Like scalps.
Little fellows be a never ending source of entertainment for
impetus young people. Do wonder, if computer freezes up,
will it Turn Blue ? ? ?
What’s to keep them from being mugged for the goodies?
They turn into ED-209 when provoked.
A lot of people who feel that they are owed $20 or even $50 per hour are discovering that the minimum wage is actually $0.
That’s actually good point! The very high minimum wage will cause more automation to become in and then the wage will be zero.
The future: you’ll be hooked up to tubes which send nutrition to you when needed and tubes which take waste away from you when needed. You’ll be seated on a exercise bike when when you need exercise and recline back when you need to sleep. Screens for entertainment, education and work (whatever that will be). You will spend your entire life in just one place so not even 15 minute cities will be needed. This is the dream of the elite who don’t like to see the rest of us around. The elite can go to hell.
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So how soon will the clowns who run shops in the Plaza going to learn that this robotic deliverer will cost more and take more maintenance than just hiring a human to do same? Obviously a novelty item. Wait until it runs over your foot. 🤣
One step closer…pardon me while I check my watch for how many steps I took today.
Sorry, didn’t hear you through my earbuds, say again?
Just remember to be human. Your heart needs you, and so does the rest of the world.
This is a Joke and will never work as planned, but don’t be a Luddite!
This makes me think of those green bikes that were place all around the area, where you would rent the bike. Stories of them ending up in creeks or ditches, etc. Whether true or not, I do not see the plethora of those bikes around anymore. I am unsure how much these machines will catch on after the initial experience/novelty. I guess we’ll see. This certainly seems to be a result of ridiculously high minimum wage mandated by our rulers. My mind also goes to the story of the Waymo cars in their “parking lot” driving in circles honking at each other during the night. What screwed up actions will these take. Could be amusing, hopefully not harmful.
Cow Tipping comes to mind.
I saw one crossing Concord Blvd. at Parkside last week,,, The Big Eyes and funny face on the front of the Robot really get your attention!