Pennsylvania's 2020 robot delivery statute was poorly written because it failed to contemplate the meaning and consequence of traffic code when pedestrians are not humans, are not even necessarily people, and have no will.
Consider:
When the police officer gave the human an order to disburse, and the person willfully refused, they then went to jail. Perhaps they are vindicated. Perhaps not. (even if vindicated the process is the punishment.)
However, if a police officer also gives the robot a verbal order to disburse, and the lidar just sits there are spins, who goes to jail? And if willfulness is a component to the crime, and the engineers did not design a system capable of understanding police orders, then did a crime even occur?!
I suspect the robot is not just de facto but also de jure privileged. The protections for the robot('s owners) stem from the statute recognizing it as a pedestrian. Traffic code works because one party's criminal/civil culpability creates the other party's privilege.
But in PA statute "pedestrian" confers mostly protection, not obligation. The corresponding obligations imposed on human pedestrians in PA code all require willfulnes and/or personhood.
So if the robot is a "pedestrian" but does not have "will" or "personhood" then it gets all the protection with none of the obligation.
Personhood is complicated, of course. But I don't think that the courts have contemplated whether these robots have will required for criminal culpability. If not, then these robots are de jure the most privileged people on the sidewalks (if they are people, which I assume they are, by way of their owners' personhood, but I'm actually not sure!).
I the robot gets all the protections but few of the obligations of pedestrianhood, well, that violates my moral intuition.
In the spirit of intellectual curiosity regarding this fascinating legal situation, the next officer facing a similar situation should issue a disbursal order to the robot and the human, and the DA should pursue criminal charges against any party that willfully refuses that order. Which, to be fair, is probably what would happen if two humans were engaged in a similar standoff.
What happens if you place something on the top of one of these things? I'm imagining a second robot that sits atop and sprays silly sting at pedestrians it detects. Or one with an air horn that goes of randomly. or one that attaches to the side at the bottom and uses a series of spray chalk guns to dot matrix messages into the sidewalk. :p
the robot will continue to try to get past her as long as it has a charge. when its charge runs out, it will cease. if these robots are anything like instagram users' phones, typically the charge will be less than 20%.
Arrested for refusing to yield to a motor vehicle on a public sidewalk? Curious to see if they can find any jury in the land that won’t laugh this one out…
No, she was arrested for disobeying police orders. But whether they're lawful orders or not is a different matter; strongly suspect that if this went to trial, she'd have a decent 1st amendment argument, which is why it won't go to trial. (ACAB, but also this is a pretty standard part of civil disobedience -- getting arrested is just part and parcel, for better and worse.)
I don’t know why you think she’d have a 1st amendment case; intentionally obstructing public passages is a crime in PA. Time, use, and manner restrictions are widely understood to be constitutional as long as they are content neutral and do not restrict expression. If she was following behind or in front of the robot with a sign, that would be one thing, but intentionally blocking someone or something almost certainly does not constitute protected speech in itself.
ACAB & ACAC both span multiple english speaking countries, predate BLM days by at least three or four decades, and are hardly idiotic in the face of documented abuses of power by rotten apples, coupled with tacit acceptance of the bad ones by their wider fraternity.
> ignored multiple commands from officers to move.
> She was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
The fact that it was a robot doesn’t really matter. Blocking traffic on a sidewalk and refusing to stop after police intervened was the basis for the charge.
The food delivery vehicle was on the pedestrian path where the pedestrian wanted to be. Why didn’t it turn around and go another way? That is what peole do when sidewalks are jammed up by whatever event might be happening. Was she following it around and blocking it from every direction? Making contact in any way? Go back across the street and get on with it.
These things are pretty big and Philly sidewalks are narrow enough with just regular pedestrian traffic. Incidentally, I’ve only seen these things in relatively high-foot traffic areas too. This is just tech companies seeing what they can get away with, as usual.
You might support it if you were a food delivery worker, or someone else whose jobs are at immediate risk from automation. Or if you had any empathy for those people.
Consider:
When the police officer gave the human an order to disburse, and the person willfully refused, they then went to jail. Perhaps they are vindicated. Perhaps not. (even if vindicated the process is the punishment.)
However, if a police officer also gives the robot a verbal order to disburse, and the lidar just sits there are spins, who goes to jail? And if willfulness is a component to the crime, and the engineers did not design a system capable of understanding police orders, then did a crime even occur?!
I suspect the robot is not just de facto but also de jure privileged. The protections for the robot('s owners) stem from the statute recognizing it as a pedestrian. Traffic code works because one party's criminal/civil culpability creates the other party's privilege.
But in PA statute "pedestrian" confers mostly protection, not obligation. The corresponding obligations imposed on human pedestrians in PA code all require willfulnes and/or personhood.
So if the robot is a "pedestrian" but does not have "will" or "personhood" then it gets all the protection with none of the obligation.
Personhood is complicated, of course. But I don't think that the courts have contemplated whether these robots have will required for criminal culpability. If not, then these robots are de jure the most privileged people on the sidewalks (if they are people, which I assume they are, by way of their owners' personhood, but I'm actually not sure!).
I the robot gets all the protections but few of the obligations of pedestrianhood, well, that violates my moral intuition.
In the spirit of intellectual curiosity regarding this fascinating legal situation, the next officer facing a similar situation should issue a disbursal order to the robot and the human, and the DA should pursue criminal charges against any party that willfully refuses that order. Which, to be fair, is probably what would happen if two humans were engaged in a similar standoff.
the robot will continue to try to get past her as long as it has a charge. when its charge runs out, it will cease. if these robots are anything like instagram users' phones, typically the charge will be less than 20%.
I have to wonder if in the long term this bot is an uber product or a restaurant owned product.
> ... she was protesting the use of delivery robots because she believes they are replacing human workers.
Those kinds of robots should never be allowed on sidewalks.
In which country? People normally consider outsourcing to a cheaper country as taking jobs.
Right: you win arguments against cops in court, not on the street.
Unless you're in your home, and they don't have a warrant.
> ACAB, an acronym for all cops are bastards
> ignored multiple commands from officers to move.
> She was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
The fact that it was a robot doesn’t really matter. Blocking traffic on a sidewalk and refusing to stop after police intervened was the basis for the charge.
"Foot traffic" is a thing, and is typically (AFAIK) the only type of "traffic" strictly legal on sidewalks in many (most/all?) places in the USA.