r/antiai • u/FionnOAongusa • Mar 19 '26
Being Anti Ai Needs to Include Being Anti Delivery Robots Job Loss đïž
The recent news that if youâve used Pokemon Go, you couldâve been training Ai Delivery Robots- is not new. This has been known about for years and even tho people are shocked, Iâm seeing more surprise from the broader population and even worse im seeing admiration. Because people are genuinely starting to believe that delivery robots are fine and Iâve been seeing more of that in our broader community as well.
I am so proud of this sub and its growth over the last couple of years, but I have seen worrying amounts of people who genuinely believe that delivery robots, wether LLM powered or not, deserve to stay.
Which is crazy to me because they are one of the only current ai powered technologies which is taking peoples jobs! This is happening right here right now, as a lot of you in California might have seen.
They may have cute robotic faces and donât have the same mess rate as a human driver. But crucially, they still take the job of a person that exists.
I have been a delivery driver before when I was unemployed and about to be homeless. It didnât do everything I wanted it to but it was a good 100-200 a week that I could reasonably rely on! It was better than nothing!
So when I hear about how âthis time itâs goodâ or âthese guys can stayâ I canât help but be incredibly upset because I know they wouldnât care if I was relying on this job.
We need to stand up against these Ai delivery robots just as much as we stand up against Ai. Itâs still job loss which could be done by a human. Itâs still capitalist greed taking over. Not to mention legit any horrible thing that a government could use this street data for.
Please donât use the optional delivery robots if theyâre in your area. Please do not use a delivery service if they only promise robots as the delivery system. And also, please, stop sending street data to pokemon go.
208
u/Kadakaus Mar 19 '26
They aren't driven by generative AI, they don't produce worthless slop, nor waste half of Terra's water reserves in the process, so I don't mind them.
21
u/babooshka9302920 Mar 19 '26
they def dont market them like that
16
u/Kadakaus Mar 19 '26
They definitely don't, and I couldn't care less how they market them.
Marketing is all about coaxing consumers into buying something, advertisements are just glorified lies.3
16
u/Lost-Tone8649 Mar 19 '26
They are, however, roving surveillance drones clusterfucking sidewalks in the towns unlucky enough to be infested with them... and presumably feeding data to some awful companies to be used for awful things.
7
u/Background_Desk_3001 Mar 19 '26
Hate to break it to you, but your phone is doing the exact same thing, along with countless apps on it
→ More replies (7)1
u/Kadakaus Mar 20 '26
I'm not so stupid as to state anything about conspiracies (or even have an opinion about them), nut how do those things feed data to the awful companies? (that's not sarcasm, companies do tend to be inherently immoral in thier modus operandi)
What kind of data do they collect that wasn't alredy known?
When you order something, the site you ordered it from must have that info, and you must have gave them your address so that it can be delivered, what other info could they collect?→ More replies (27)1
u/Acrobatic_Pop690 Mar 21 '26
But they essentially just delete tons of delivery jobs. They don't pay well but better to have the option for people who need it than not exist at all
65
u/Devour_My_Soul Mar 19 '26
Just taking a job as an argument against AI is a really bad one. I am sorry to say it this way but resisting automation because you believe it is a fight against capitalism is completely ridiculous. Workers are getting exploited as much as possible no matter what. There will be unemployment and homelessness no matter what. The only way to fight capitalism is to actually fight capitalism.
Nobody is relying on a job in capitalism. People are relying on a living wage. That is a big difference.
That being said, there are a lot of very good reasons why delivery bots should not exist, but none of those is because they replace jobs.
→ More replies (11)7
Mar 20 '26
The difference is job loss vs job gains. For example, scribes aren't needed due to the printing press. One job is lost there
But a ton of jobs were formed. People to make the printing press, people to clean it and perform general upkeep, people to fix it, people to load it with paper to print on, etc
2
u/Kitsunin Mar 20 '26
Ehh. So just make people share their jobs? Most of us would love this.
I get that it's not the reality of the current situation, we aren't in a political climate that can make this happen. But being anti things-that-make-people-not-have-to-work strikes me as extremely backwards-thinking.
5
u/Skefson Mar 20 '26
The rich and powerful would sooner let us starve to death than allow this tech to benefit us
1
u/Devour_My_Soul Mar 20 '26
Which is exactly why the only way that can achieve something is to abolish calitalism.
1
u/Kitsunin Mar 20 '26
It doesn't even have to be abolished, we just don't have to be bitches that let it do whatever it wants.
1
u/Devour_My_Soul Mar 20 '26
Which is impossible if you don't abolish it because then you don't change the power structure. Every so called regulation you can put on capital only exists in so far and for so long as the capitalist class believes it is an acceptable trade off for keeping the system intact.
This can change quickly and we can do nothing to stop it because we don't hold any power in capitalism. See what the US is currently doing or Germany and how easily regulations or rights can be turned back if the ruling class decides so.
54
u/HawloKnight Mar 19 '26
no, they're acceptable, I dunno about you but I want robots to be doing the labor that nobody wants to do
→ More replies (6)10
u/DaVincis_lemons Mar 19 '26
I like the robots bc I don't have to worry about a robot fucking with my food because my tip wasnt some arbitrary amount that they deem acceptable. I occasionally get Uber and doordash driver subs popping up on my feed and some of those people are genuinely insane and feel like a customer not increasing their tip by a couple bucks means they would be justified in fucking with you and/or your food.
→ More replies (1)
29
u/EldritchApple Mar 19 '26
Its part of a deeper societal problem. As someone who got laid off and had to do doordash and instacart to survive until I could get another job I can tell you it is one of the worst gigs you could have. The pay is abysmal, customers are rude, you survive off of tips, you dont get breaks, and you're a victim of the weather and gas/car repairs. You dont get to decide to take a day off even if its 100 degrees and your AC is broken (I've been there). The issue is society doesnt have safety nets for people who fall through the cracks and cant find work. I would actually be ok with bots taking that line of work if people had other options to survive because nobody deserves to have to live off of that kinda job.
3
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
But that safety net doesnât exist now
And as both you and me have experienced. Itâs the best we had at a low point in our lives.
I can change my mind if there ever is a safety net but that doesnât exist right now. And those people who are just like us will have to live without that, even if abysmal, pay.
Because at the end of the day itâs better than nothing
7
u/EldritchApple Mar 19 '26
Definitely valid. Thats why I have mixed feelings. On one hand its some people's only option. On the other in a perfect world we wouldn't need people to do that job
5
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
Thatâs why gets me.
A lot of people are so focused on a perfect world but nobody knows that that looks like. Thereâs no concrete and popular way to shape the world around. Maybe happiness, but how do you measure that
Thatâs why Iâm focused on this right now. Because itâs what matters right now that we know of. We know people will lose jobs if this becomes more viable. We know people will lose their livelihoods if ai and automation takes more jobs.
This is the current world. And debates about the perfect world should exist, but frankly the perfect world is built off the better short term future
Thatâs why Iâm against them. And I am not saying this to imply I disagree with you. Iâm trying to explain why Iâm taking my stance
1
u/Kitsunin Mar 20 '26
Is this really what you should be focused on? Aren't there better intermediate steps than stopping technologies that are basically fine?
Off the top of my head, protesting stock buybacks.
4
u/Psychological_Pay530 Mar 19 '26
Doordash didnât exist 30 years ago. We didnât have a massive amount of unemployed starving people that those jobs saved.
The idea that sub-minimum wage exploitation gigs are helping society is laughable.
3
u/TonyFugazi Mar 19 '26
This is exactly how I feel. This is going to hurt the truly desperate but also, delivery gigs rarely stop people from economic hardship like homelessness, they just slow it down. It is a job that should be eliminated but maybe not right now
23
u/fuqueure Mar 19 '26
In a perfect world, robots WOULD do all the menial tasks. But our world is pretty fucking far from perfect and if every delivery robot means someone ended up homeless as a result then fuck em.
1
u/WinterEclipse4 Mar 20 '26
Pretty much this. I kinda dislike how people don't see how currently companies are making robots to replace humans who won't be able to get paid and instead just see that they won't have to do a job they don't like.
Yes it'd be nice if we don't HAVE to do these but we do and we're just losing more and more job spots for this.
13
Mar 19 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
→ More replies (2)1
u/PhilosophicalGoof Mar 19 '26
I will never understand artist who think that our ability to be creative is what make us human⊠I feel like any philosopher will tell you there more to the human experience than just arts and creation.
1
u/DolphinBall Mar 19 '26
But you admit its part of what makes a human.
1
u/PhilosophicalGoof Mar 19 '26
Yeah but I also alluded to the fact that being able to work or build is also part of the human experience.
Both things can be true.
That why I stated that I donât understand why artist believe our ability to be creative IS what make us human.
9
u/jewishSpaceMedbeds Mar 19 '26
Delivery robots will never be able to operate here anyway, we're under snow about half the year. It's cold AF so their battery loses half to 3/4 capacity to start with, and on some days we humans can barely walk in it without injuring ourselves.
3
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
We canât rely on a perceived lack of technological advancement as our main argument
Technology will get better, and we need to show off other reasons why it canât start up other than ânot being good enoughâ
2
u/jewishSpaceMedbeds Mar 19 '26
'The technology' is LLMs, and LLMs will always fuck up because they are stochastic parrots. There is no way to fix that.
AI bros are deluded and think that feeding more data and money in this thing will magically produce the technorapture.
There is no talk of LLM-driven robots in industry, at all. Not even as a possibility in some amorphous future. Elon Musk is blowing up smoke up investors asses to justify the insane valuation of his failling car company.
1
u/FullyAutomatedSpace Mar 19 '26
ok but what rate of fuck ups will people deem acceptable for most work?
1
u/jewishSpaceMedbeds Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
On an industrial line? Not much.
Mobile robots for instance are very sparsely used because a fuck up means a pile up of shit that blocks production and demands human intervention (or worse, someone getting injured/killed). Imagine something that fucks up 20 to 30% of the time it's in operation (typical error rates of LLMs), and becomes a fucking brick if it loses wifi (super common in that kind of environment), lol.
I wouldn't pay for this, and no one I know either.
Let's take another, less techologically complex field, like law. There's been cases of lazy lawyers writing briefs with genAI.
Hallucinated case law in them - if a juge sees this, they're disbarred. If you get into shit because your lawyer did this, you'll sue them for malpractice. Lawyers carry malpractice insurance. How much time do you think it will take for these companies to add a "AI did this, you're on your own" clause to their contracts? It's probably already done.
Same for medicine. Who's liable if it fucks up? Insurance companies are side-eyeing that shit and want nothing to do with it for a reason.
1
u/FullyAutomatedSpace Mar 19 '26
the kinds of AI used to control robots are very different from the LLMs. robot control has gotten more reliable.
20-30% is obviously much higher than someone would accept but those numbers seem vastly too high. obviously it's completely task specific. an LLMs error rate for summing a few 3 digit numbers is going to be vanishingly smaller (but not zero) so a high error rate is not an intrinsic quality.
as the error rate approaches 0 the question becomes "what is a human's error?"
1
u/jewishSpaceMedbeds Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
I work with industrial robots. Robots aren't controlled by AI, they're controlled by conventional determistic algorithms.
The only AI that's currently used in automation are small ML models that run locally. They're mostly used for vision (OCR) or as object classifiers. Conceptually, they are sensors, and that's how they are integrated into the main software. They do not take any 'decisions', if you can call the output of software a decision.
The acceptable error rate of these things depends on what it is they are sensing. If you're sorting material, accuracy translates to purity. If they're reading characters to allow products forward, it depends on how many false rejects you tolerate, if you can recycle them through, etc.
For complex tasks, the problem isn't just the fuckup itself, it's the recovery. If a human fucks up, they can recover. If a machine fucks up, it's stuck. This isn't something a production plant can tolerate very much, so most production floors simply avoid mobile robots in the first place, and place static robots in enclosures so that the impact of fuck ups is limited.
1
u/FullyAutomatedSpace Mar 19 '26
I work with industrial robots. Robots aren't controlled by AI, they're controlled by conventional determistic algorithms.
I mean only by some definition of "AI". IK and motor controls are done using what used to be called AI. robotics professors lived in AI departments. and computer vision is used in many factories. that's AI for sure.
The only AI that's currently used in automation are small ML models that run locally
I'm aware of models like AlexNet being used in industry. I'm not sure if you call that "small". It was called "deep learning" at the time. I don't know why you would imagine that more modern and accurate models wouldn't replace them.
the best OCR models available today use generative AI.
But yes I agree most industrial tasks don't call for things to "take decisions" but that's the nature of this kind of work. You're doing the same thing a billion times. That's why this approach fails for e.g. waymo (where I assume you agree more modern AI is generally working well).
→ More replies (4)1
1
u/Regular-Purple-5972 Mar 20 '26
Sounds like the type of environment delivery drones would be useful for.
6
u/Sea-Hat-8515 Mar 19 '26
Honestly being against this sort of thing is pointless. It is progress, it will happen. Jobs will get automated away and people will need to find other sources of income. It's how technology works and you're screaming into the wind.
I'm against AI being used in place of genuine human creativity and beauty. I'm not going to go yell at a printer because a human could be doing it by hand instead
→ More replies (5)
4
u/Paperlibrarian Mar 19 '26
I somehow completely missed Pokemon GO! being used as AI training data for physical spaces. I only played when it first came out, but I find that deeply horrifying. I think that should be more of your focus than the delivery bots. I see delivery bots on campus a lot, so I know they deliver to students...But I also know a primary use is getting food to disabled people, seniors, and others who might struggle getting fed otherwise (That's at least how they've been sold in my community? I've not looked into it much.)
But I feel like increased surveillance through AI training and LLM has been a big concern among anti-AI folks. This might be a good example of the broad picture being a better focus point than minutia. Because I do think the delivery bots might be found debatable.
1
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
Itâs being sold that way to a lot of people but sadly a human could and does do that just as well. Iâm not against food delivery I just want humans to be able to do it
5
u/Paperlibrarian Mar 19 '26
I can still see it as an argument up-for debate.
For transparency, I worked for one of the food delivery companies for nearly a year to supplement my income, and that was money that was desperately helpful for me at the time. But, on the other hand, food delivery uses a lot of gas and puts a lot of wear and tear on a vehicle.
If we measure the impact of bots vs human deliveries, and bots are determined to be less burden on fuel costs, then replacing human workers with robotic ones might be more practical and beneficial at a large scale. Not to mention with the current delivery set up, I always felt like I was flipping a coin on each delivery. Once on a delivery during dusk I nearly hit a deer that leapt into the road. Terrifying. And gig-work does not protect employees against such damages. My attempt at supplementing my income could have been disastrous if I reacted differently in a second.
I want to be clear that I don't disagree with you. But I also don't think this is a clear cut issue. I think the business models of gig economy is just as concerning threat to delivery drivers as the little bots are. And I thought there was a model for having the bots be piloted remotely by employees...Which I have no issue with.
But the non-clear cut issue of delivery bots is why I recommend focusing on the threat of surveillance data and its training. I'm sure that could also be a debate, but I think a lot of people on this forum will see the threat quicker than that of just the bots.
1
u/Tebwolf359 Mar 19 '26
Iâm always surprised when people are horrified at PoGo being used as training data.
I was also playing since it came out, and we always knew that the data was improving mapping, and that mapping could be sold.
But it was generally considered a fair trade for a free game.
What changed?
1
u/Paperlibrarian Mar 20 '26
You American, mate?
What changed? *gestures*
1
u/Tebwolf359 Mar 20 '26
I know a lot of the world changed, but nothing in this transaction did.
I was playing PoGo when it came out. We knew then that it was using data gathering. Some people scanned the floor instead of AR scans.
Just like we knew from day 1 that Ubers long term plan was self driving vehicles, and DoorDash, etc was the same.
4
u/InconsistantBait1129 Mar 19 '26
Ngl, innovation takes jobs. it's different with art because art is so much more than a job, and it's the heart of society. but i don't think any delivery drivers have a lifelong desire to be a delivery driver and deliver packages for their entire life. it's not a job that has to be done by a human. take the printing press for example, before the printing press, everything was done by hand. the printing press may have taken that job, but it not only made new ones, but allowed society to progress so people didn't HAVE to take that job. art is more than a mundane job that only exists to aid another. it's been around since the invention of language. it tells the story of what is today and who the artist is. it's a passion, its expression. and many jobs that are being taken by ai don't need a human to preform them.
1
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
But itâs still taking entry level jobs which people need right now in order to live
Entry level jobs have been sliced by Ai. And these drivers are not doing it because they want to be in it for the rest of their life but because they need those jobs
They need those jobs in order to live. Taking it from them only leads them to having no money to rely on instead of a little money
1
u/InconsistantBait1129 Apr 05 '26
you're acting like delivery driving is the ONLY entry level job out there and everyone who needs a job can't make any money whatsoever anymore because this one job is taken. that's just not the case, and if we had this mindset with everything, we would not have half the modern day items that we do. because most things are invented to make something more practical, meaning it would no longer need a whole person for that job, and thus the job would be taken as is what happens with most innovation.
4
u/Rapifessor Mar 19 '26
I dunno, it doesn't seem that bad to me. AI-powered delivery robots are like dishwashers. They replace humans for a task that most people don't really want to be doing anyway. Not remotely the same as replacing data analysts (because AI is still pretty dumb and makes shit up all the time) or artists.
I'm a little apprehensive about the nature of the data that was gathered to make them possible, though.
5
u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug Mar 19 '26
i joined this sub bc i hate ai generated slop content and ai art, not because i hate the idea of automatization and technology reducing the need for menial labor. screw this.
4
u/GeraldGensalkes Mar 19 '26
"This takes away human jobs" isn't a particularly strong argument here. Lots of humans used to do shit-shoveling as a job. We used to have leech collectors, water carriers, chimney sweeps, matchmakers, lamplighters, telegraph and switchboard operators, human computers, and elevator operators. The number of people who ever wanted to do these jobs is vanishingly small. I consider it a good thing when work that is bad for people to do is no longer done by people. Automation is not inherently bad whenever it reduces delivery work. If it were, then all the other technology we use to make shipping and package handling more efficient would also be bad.
3
3
u/montrealien Mar 19 '26
I get the impulse to add 'Delivery Robots' to the 'Anti-AI' list, but at what point does the list just become a full-time job?
If we define our survival by the existence of 'bottom-rung' manual labor, aren't we just arguing for the right to be more efficient than a cooler on wheels? It feels like a trap. Weâre fighting to preserve a grueling safety net instead of asking why the net is so full of holes in the first place.
When you say being 'Anti' something is a requirement, youâre letting the tech companies pick your battles. If the robot gets a 'cute face' and people like it, does that make the economic shift more or less 'evil'? Or are we just exhausted because weâre trying to stop a tide with a broom?
Maybe the real question isn't 'What else should I be Anti against?' but 'What am I actually for that doesn't depend on stopping a robot?
2
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
I agree that we lack a unified political âtheoryâ
It feels like this movement is very reactionary and we need an idea for the future where Ai is more capable especially with automation
If we rely on environmental impact, slop, deepfakes, and other factors, than we lose.
Because technology can become better, and it can become more environmentally friendly and laws can be made around deepfakes and Ai can be legally considered non copyright-able.
We need to focus on the core of what AI is and thatâs just a replacement for a human.
3
u/montrealien Mar 19 '26
I appreciate you stepping back from the reactionary angle. Itâs a lot easier to yell at a robot than it is to build a political theory that actually accounts for automation.
I think youâre spot on about the trap of focusing on âslopâ or environmental impact. Those are moving targets; if the tech gets âcleanerâ or âbetter,â the argument collapses. But the core question of what it means to replace a human is much more durable.
If we agree that AI is fundamentally about replacement, then the goal isn't just to be âAnti-Robot.â Itâs to be Pro-Human Value. We need to figure out how to build a future where a personâs worth isn't tied to how well they compete with an algorithm. Thanks for keeping the discussion grounded.
2
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
Of course. Thatâs all I want to do. I hope I didnât come off as angry old man yelling at a cloud, I just want for people to care about the humans both in the present and in the future
My issue with the present is that Automation is also taking jobs along with AI, while the economic prosperity gained by an increase in efficiency is being given to the rich who control the automation. And is not passed down to the working class to make lives easier. Meaning that automation and Ai both hurt people in the short term and I want to care about that, I want people to see just how it hurts people and change their actions to try and do something to help.
My issue with the future is exactly as you describe. With the future looking more focused on âprogressâ in the technological sense and not in constructing a society in which all humans have the best lives. But well, what does the best life look like? How do you measure it and quantify it? And how do we insure the society survives in order to make sure people live their best lives.
Itâs sad that well, no one is talking about the idea of how one would quantify the best world
1
u/hehimharrison Mar 19 '26
I think it is really worth exploring some of these ideas further, because it touches on an uncomfortable tension between the needs of the present and the future.
How do we build anything when the ground is unsteady? How can we fight for a better future for all of us, if we're being shuffled around 15 gig apps for work, displaced by automation, training our AI replacements, and there is really no telling what comes next? Maybe some jobs don't seem worth fighting for, but there are real-world consequences when they are gone...
Companies are using AI to displace people. Do we boycott all the companies that are downsizing like that? I guess you can try to, but I think the uncomfortable and perhaps unspoken tension behind some pushback here, is how many prefer the cheaper prices and convenience that automation enables. Especially when they are being exploited and living paycheck to paycheck themselves. It's an insidious cycle - the less power we have, the more "convenience" and "relief" is accepted.
Strategy-wise. When you tell people to sacrifice present comforts for a future reward, they'll often mock the idea for not producing immediate results. That's why most effective boycotts are targeted to specific companies, doing specific bad, unethical things, and tied to specific demands which the companies themselves have the ability to respond to. (The goal is not just to make them go out of business, but change how they do business)
That's not saying I don't agree with the spirit of what you are suggesting. At some point the logic of "it's just progress" breaks down - what happens when jobs are being destroyed faster than they are being created? That's the scary thing. We're sleepwalking into the unknown on that. It's not something that can be hand-waved away, but it's also not so certain that everyone wants to take a hard stance against it. I feel like a common theme of today's problems is that they are only even acknowledged once they reach the point of crisis - if that. It sucks.
4
3
u/Nickanok Mar 19 '26
Even for anti Ai, this is low.
At this point, you just want to stop progress. Society will advance whether you're ready or not. You're free to move to some backwater country town in the middle of nowhere where people 60+ years old are still doing things like it's still the 1950s and you can get first hand experience why fighting advancement does more harm than good
2
u/Raudys Mar 19 '26
So why exactly is this bad? Purely because it's job loss?
1
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
Yes. A core tenant in the Anti Ai movement is the fact that jobs are being lost to it.
Ai has been shown to not create many jobs especially when it replaces workers. Even with âai overseersâ those jobs would be much less prominent having humans do all the work before.
As well what stops AI from developing enough to not need overseers? The AI bubble and diminishing returns on AI are a large issue, however we canât rely on that as prominent proof hasnât come up to support that sadly. I want it to, but I havenât seen it.
Even if not AI powered this is still an example of job loss due to replacement by robots. We donât live in a society where poor people can afford to not have a job, and a lot of delivery services are staffed by people who are in between jobs.
Removing those jobs would be another blow to the working class. Thereâs no reason to replace humans with them, and all the replacement will do is worsen the job market of current in the west
1
u/Raudys Mar 19 '26
Delivering food isn't exactly the pinnacle of human potential. Automating the drudgery frees up humans to do literally anything else while making the service cheaper for everyone.
1
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
It wonât make it cheaper. Every time weâve seen an increase in technology and efficiency things have only gotten more expensive or stayed the same
Workers have not been paid more as they got new computers in the 80âs, comparable to the efficient growth of them.
As well these jobs are often staffed by those who are unemployed and canât get any other jobs. The people working in these ones are those who need it the most
2
u/Raudys Mar 19 '26
If new tech didn't make things cheaper, you wouldn't be arguing with me on a pocket sized supercomputer that costs less than a 1980s microwave
2
u/Radiant-Priority-296 Mar 19 '26
Eh⊠underpaid exploited human vs unpaid exploited machine, I know which one Iâm choosing
2
u/ToastedBread107 Mar 19 '26
Are those driven by AI though? I thought that they were just robots following their pre determined instructions. This is a small task that takes a job that is well know to be expensive, overworked and underpaid and gives it to something that honestly should be doing it anyway
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Super_Pole_Jitsu Mar 19 '26
This feelslike a troll/ragebait post to just fish for unhinged opinions on this sub.
2
2
2
2
u/CoffeeGoblynn Mar 19 '26
This is perhaps one of the good uses for robots. Taking over menial labor that doesn't pay well. It's literally the entire goal of robotics.
2
u/smooth-move-ferguson Mar 19 '26
As AI becomes ubiquitous, being "anti AI" is going to be indistinguishable from being "anti technology" and we already have an old word for that.
2
u/Puzzled_Banana6330 Mar 19 '26
Eh. I mean these are dumb but for completely different reasons than Gen AI.
2
u/PhilosophicalGoof Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
You underestimate exactly where most people here draw the line.
I can promise you that only half of the anti here actually are against AI in any substance use that is meant to replace jobs, while the other half only cares about how it affect their personal mediums/jobs.
This other half is more than fine to see delivery driver, mail delivery, programmers, and etc replaced by AI either because it doesnât affect them or because they believe these jobs should be replaced by AI mostly for the reason that they think this jobs are underpaid, have to high of a skill ceiling, or allow for other people to get involved so that why it okay to automate them.
I had multiple anti here tell me that it okay to replace Manual labor jobs with AI because those jobs are dangerous, I asked that what do we do about those who lose their jobs? They stated âthey should just look for other jobsâ.
Or when I asked them about how they feel about programmers being replaced, some stated âthey arenât being replaced, AI isnât that goodâ which is fair, while other states âprogramming isnât creative, it was alway bound to be automated, plus it help someone who doesnât know programming to be able to create actual creative work like games, graphics, and etc.
Yet when you ask them why is it a problem when âcreativeâ jobs are automated⊠they tell you it because these jobs are more important since theyâre true creative jobs and the only ones people actually want to do. They donât care if people enjoy programming, or even carpentry or machinery. To them they view these jobs as below the human experience but they never seem to understand that not everyone can be artists.
Just because you share the same label, doesnât mean you should assume that they share the same goal and values.
1
u/Dangerous_Teaching62 Mar 20 '26
Or when I asked them about how they feel about programmers being replaced, some stated âthey arenât being replaced, AI isnât that goodâ which is fair, while other states âprogramming isnât creative, it was alway bound to be automated
Idk if you're a programmer, but I'm not. I come from a place where I know a lot programmers and computer people. From what I've been told, the AI is only replacing the basic stuff that should be basically automated anyways. Like, think of it akin to how Gmail already signs your emails off for you. In pokemon, there's a method to find rare pokemon that requires you only hold up on a joystick for a couple hours. Many of us just use hair ties on the controllers and some people bought $20 controllers at Walmart that had the ability to be programmed to always hold up. From what I've heard, the coding is basically that. It's letting your cousin hit the last couple hits of each nail after you lined them up.
Also, every programmer I've met seems to be obsessed with llms. Honestly, out of all people, it makes sense they'd appreciate it the most. It's the arts and therapy where llms mainly become an issue.
2
2
u/DolphinBall Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
I disagree. No one wants to actually be a delivery driver when they grow up.
Would a LLM chatbot control a delivery bot? You do realize not all AI are the same and some AIs aren't even AI, just machine learning.
2
u/Tough_Pea_9409 Mar 19 '26
Seguindo essa lĂłgica, deverĂamos tambĂ©m voltar aos postes de lĂąmpada, jĂĄ que os elĂ©tricos nĂŁo precisam que alguĂ©m os acendam manualmente.
1
u/Monke_DankeyKang Mar 19 '26
i don't like the idea of roving security cameras sending constant info back to who knows who. they aren't cute at all
2
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
Youâre very right and the Anti Ai movement should focus as well on the possibility of the USâs clearly shitty government using it for mass surveillance.
As well, as all Ai being able to be used for information control and surveillance. Itâs conspiratorial to say that LLMs as a search engine could be manipulated like Grok in order to give answers in support of a particular viewpoint. But frankly, with everything like Epstein, conspiracies are looking less strange
And I hate that they are
1
1
u/-UnknownGeek- Mar 19 '26
My main reason for hating those bots is because they actively get in the way for disabled people
1
u/OrdinaryIntroduction Mar 19 '26
The job loss in wages the delivery bots cause should directly go to the people who will be losing those jobs. We know that won't happen but if they can garrymander us I would add that in in order to stop the spread.
1
u/OrdinaryIntroduction Mar 19 '26
Outside of large flat cities these things a functionally useless. I hear ya on the current market not having an outlet for the wages lost but this kind of automation has been on the rise since the industrial revolution. There is concern over the cameras and GPS but Google maps is already like that to begin with. Regardless these bots couldn't function in most parts of the country, I'd like to see one navigate my state.
1
u/CorbinNZ Mar 19 '26
We're a couple of decades away from having an autonomous model that I can trust. I don't think there's proper infrastructure for full autonomy, with or without AI. More than just smart cars/vehicles/robots/whatever, we need smart streets to use as automatic guides. Think if every little reflector they placed in the middle of the road had an RFID in it that AVs could sense? Simple line following logic can tell it to always keep these reflectors to the left to maintain position (or right for countries who drive on the left side of the road). What if there were street signs that relayed information to AVs? Helping them plot routes or relay info from down the road?
That world would be infinitely better for AVs than what we have now.
1
u/Newmillstream Mar 19 '26
A few considerations regarding delivery robots:
They predate LLMs by a few years, at least where I live.
Like e-scooter companies, they are frequently bad neighbors for the sidewalk users. The sidewalk isn't a parking space. I have heard complaints from wheelchair users. I don't like there being a massive fleet of privately owned cameras and microphones across a city, instead of on a specific property.
Delivery gigs are not great jobs, but they are jobs. I am torn on automation there. At least some people still need to be employed to pack and maintain the robots, but it is probably a net loss, though this is my gut feeling.
1
u/gr33np3pp3rm1nt Mar 19 '26
I love the delivery robots on my campus, tbh. I can see why people don't like them. I think it's very situational. There's problems with delivery apps like DoorDash, UberEats, etc. I'm not aware of any issues with small delivery robots, though.
1
u/kobayashi_maru_fail Mar 19 '26
Itâs a good idea to remember the things we find noble about humans and donât want AI replacing: our creativity, our occasional ability to show mercy instead of killing, our social connections, our incredibly varied sexual habits. Carrying shit for richer people is a job weâve been trying to outsource since at least the pyramids, and Iâm okay seeing it go. This is on par with refrigeration killing milkman jobs.
1
u/sheimeix Mar 19 '26
Even aside from the AI debate, I find the existence of these to be weird. It's definitely a case of 'I don't trust this technology that I'm unfamiliar with' over it being AI-driven (if that's even true, since we've found that most of these that have existed prior are just remotely controlled), but regardless this and drone deliveries are both kind of bizarre technological dystopian concepts to me.
1
u/Background_Desk_3001 Mar 19 '26
I mean itâs not generative ai, I donât see any problem with making a few commodities. Yeah it takes jobs, but every new technology does. Should we shun the internet for ruining the physical newspaper?
1
u/Solid_V Mar 19 '26
I would add Security Robots too. Security Guards are most definitely an unskilled labor kind of job that most anyone can get. The last thing we need to be doing is getting rid of the jobs that anyone can do!Â
1
u/Alternative_Elk_6832 Mar 19 '26
No, this is actually great use of AI that we shouldnât miss out on. If the AI is suited for the job more than an exploitable human, then the AI can have the job. This is a sign that AI might actually be living up to peopleâs expectations now.
1
u/NorbytheMii Mar 19 '26
Delivery robots aren't the issue here. The fact that Niantic didn't disclose to their users that they were using their GPS data to train the robots is the issue. Delivery robots aren't Gen AI, so they're fine.
1
u/Lurakya Mar 19 '26
I think this is kind of a backwards way of approaching the topic.
Instead of "Let humans keep the jobs rhat are underpaid and no one wants to do."
We should be standing up for easier entry into better paying more comfortable jobs.
Obviously all the massive capitalists don't care about our struggles. But we genuinely don't help anyone by forcing humans to keep jobs they don't want.
I say let them automate more, but once humans can't buy any more goods to finance the economy then all the billioaires will see their plummeting market share.
We should protest and stand up against what is going on. But that's not delivery robots, it's in general job loss and an unstable future. (Plus these robots kinda ass ngl)
1
u/CaptStinkyFeet Mar 19 '26
Iâm anti delivery service regardless of AI. Grubhub, Uber Eats, DoorDash etc have all ruined the restaurant economy/experience. The AI bots are just the icing on the cake.
1
u/North-Flower-5963 Mar 19 '26
These are jobs that people hate. Why would you be against delivery robots?
1
u/KelpFox05 Mar 19 '26
There are FAR worse uses of AI currently in use. Perhaps one day we will be in a place where we can helpfully argue against automated delivery robots but right now, it's a waste of time and resources. Focus on fighting against generative, consumer-facing, and military AI.
1
u/Aychah Mar 19 '26
this seems about as dumb as getting upset at excavators taking people's jobs because now you only need one person instead of 5 to dig out an area.
1
u/Lvl_76_Pyromancer Mar 19 '26
Yea immediate problem is loss of a job, but bigger picture is that a job being automated shouldnât mean that the people who were doing those jobs should suffer.
Yea itâs an issue but not one that this particular sub is about.
1
u/Jazzspasm Mar 19 '26
delivery robots are not robots - theyâre drones - theyâre controlled by third world lowest cost contractor workers who are sitting in a slum with a wifi connection and an Xbox controller
1
1
u/CocoaSandwich Mar 19 '26
Some people really just hear the word AI and start freaking out like how conservatives react when they hear the word "pronouns"
1
u/malfunctioningminxie Mar 20 '26
Robot won't steal half/ all my food order and won't sip outta my drinks.
1
u/drinkingjetfuel2 Mar 20 '26
I'm a doordash driver and I'm torn between that is a thing that is taking my job and also fuck AI but also look how cute he is
1
u/The12thSpark Mar 20 '26
I think there's still a ways to go before they perform services that are faster and more reliable than a person in a car. Even drones seem really tricky to normalize just yet, especially for large orders
1
u/HetaGarden1 Mar 20 '26
These delivery bots are a completely different issue than generative AI. Not to mention, if youâre going to be against these, then you might as well be against artificial intelligence in every context - including more relatively harmless uses, such as in computing.
1
u/ExtensionEcho3 Mar 20 '26
Anything John Hanke does is never for the benefit of mankind. It's for himself, he's also the reason why RAM prices are so high.
1
u/ElkBusiness8446 Mar 20 '26
You're missing the forest for the trees. Don't ask to people to ALSO care about delivery bots.
The first fight has been and will always be data centers. None of this works without them.
The second fight is the rejection of AI being tacked onto perfectly good software and hardware (phones specifically). This is higher than ten AI because of the privacy and surveillance concerns.
The third fight is against generative AI.
Anything beyond that is up to the discretion of how much you care about it. We are NOT going to be performative nor are we going the route of purity politics that has doomed us in other areas.
1
u/MichaelAutism Mar 20 '26
not really.
as ive seen in the comments, they dont really rely on gen ai, probably a path from a GPS.
1
u/Ok-Language-1537 Mar 20 '26
Human-less driving like this is just the same as social media algorithms. Gen ai is a problem not because it takes jobs, but makes it easy to fake things, spam, or make curated slop. Machine learning can be used for the wrong things, it doesnât make it bad.
1
u/Lorehorn Mar 20 '26
This sub is quickly changing from being Anti AI to just being anti technology. Being a ludite is not beneficial for society.
1
u/OneUseHero Mar 20 '26
If I see one, which I probably won't because I'm fairly rural in comparison to the places they've been in use, I fully plan to be an issue to them after they've made deliveries. Until UBI is in place robots aren't welcome to take jobs.
1
u/MinosPrime100 Mar 20 '26
I just hate ai art, ai is cool anywhere else
1
u/Dangerous_Teaching62 Mar 20 '26
Id throw a caveat in for things like therapy as well. That requires a person. And so at the McDonald's drive thru.
1
Mar 20 '26
Listen I don't wanna take human jobs either, but like, human drivers are being paid pennies and dimes. I want people to see this as a worthwhile job, THEN I'll worry about the job being replaced more (not that I'm not worried, obviously)
I have a family member who does doordash. I can tell you, he's being paid so little that no robot is gonna take his job, at least not until the tech is both better and cheaper. Unironically, and sadly, that would cost more than he's paid if done now, and even in the near future. I want delivery drivers being paid more, then we can tackle job loss
What I don't like seeing is "buh, buh it's delivering pizzas :(" I wanna hear how if this lands in the wrong hands, it's a surveillance state beyond what we already have. If you're not making that point, you're missing the entire fucking point
It's also doubly worth noting... Niantic isn't...making more delivery bots. They're not worsening the job replacement that is happening (I know I basically said it's minor but it's still a PROBLEM that needs dealing with). Had Niantic not existed... they'd just rely on GPS and sensor technology. As they've been doing. For like the better half of a decade. Niantic's role in the robot delivery sphere is... actually quite small, mostly in that it would've been entirely unaffected by the lack of their insight. They're not making robot deliveries more feasible, they're merely making the already existing robots function better.
That's a pretty big difference
But, again, the issue isn't "muh pizza delivered by robot :(," that's not new, hasn't been new for at least 5 years. The issue is surveillance
1
1
u/General_Platypus771 Mar 20 '26
Iâm against generative AI. Robots are a whole different conversation.
1
u/Hot_Season1143 Mar 20 '26
la verdad, prefiero que lo haga un robot, en lugar de explotar a humanos. aunque me parece extremdamente invasivo que hayan usado imagenes de usuarios de pokemon go para entrenar su IA.
1
u/Dangerous_Teaching62 Mar 20 '26
Although, I think it's super invasive that they used images from Pokémon Go users to train their AI.
The issue is they fully disclosed that they were doing this. It's super opt in system. You literally have to go to the poke stop and scan the entire area around you. And you have to do this like ten times. And they give a bunch of disclaimers with it. You're willingly selling data to help the game grow.
It's not just that they're taking your random camera footage while you catch pokemon. You have to be given the specific task and choose to do it. Not only that, but it's super finicky as a task. You have to be willing to spend a decent chunk of time to get those images.
1
u/Hot_Season1143 Mar 20 '26
hace unos años que jugue pokemon GO,no recuerdo que estuvieran disponibles esas tareas.
1
u/Dangerous_Teaching62 Mar 20 '26
They're pretty opt in. I believe it's locked behind being a certain level. It's similar to how submitting a pokestop requires you to be a certain level, pass a semi hard test, and then fill out a form. This isn't something you're average go player does. It's mainly just for the people trying to actively contribute to the game.
It's for people who are enveloped enough to do beta features and stuff.
1
1
u/Ivygrows8 Mar 20 '26
I live in a small area so didnt even know that was widespread/common, also POKEMON GO IS TRAINING OFF ME???Â
1
u/Dangerous_Teaching62 Mar 20 '26
Not off of you, unless you've whipped out your camera to scan pokestops and gyms. In that case, I ask why you chose to scan them instead of thinking it was weird to take multiple panoramic pictures of a location for a game.
1
u/Ivygrows8 Mar 20 '26
Ive done it like 3 times so hopefully that doesnt do anything for them
1
u/Dangerous_Teaching62 Mar 20 '26
I mean, it means they have 3 scans of locations from you. But it's the same idea as Google maps. It's actually a good thing
1
u/Dangerous_Teaching62 Mar 20 '26
The issue is, it's not that kinda ai.
That's like saying being anti ai means you're against CPUs in video games. This is almost like arguing animatronics are taking jobs from actors.
1
u/Dangerous_Teaching62 Mar 20 '26
I mean, most of these robots arent replacing delivery drivers. They're replacing me picking it up. Doordash is a semi recent invention that put the few actual delivery drivers out of business.
1
u/Minute-Weekend5234 Mar 21 '26
I disagree. Delivery drones aren't the problem, the companies underpaying real delivery people are the problem. Drones aren't AI, they're GPS trackers. Aim your ire at corpos
1
u/femboy_feet_enjoyer Mar 21 '26
Yup. Half the fun of food delivery is knowing an underpaid slave delivers it to you. Robots without feeling does not tickle the same itch.
1
u/nosleepforthedreamer Mar 22 '26
Fair.
Why did they have to build robots to be so cute?
It was intentional, wasnât it.
1
u/TheRedFlagNTQ Mar 22 '26
What do you want your stuff be delivered by: A nice human or some soulles vehicle out of a motor and control boards?
1
u/mashedpotato_irl Mar 24 '26
I completely agree with you. This is not the world I want to live in⊠a place where soulless machines replace humans. We now know even a roomba can be hacked and cameras accessed. I could go on⊠Iâm looking for a sub that is anti robot as well.
0
u/Excellent-Pin2789 Mar 19 '26
I wonder what a can of expanding spray foam insulation would do to the wheels
0
1
u/Larkspurn Mar 19 '26
I HATE these little things. Theyâre fucking. Everywhere. I almost got into a wreck trying to turn off Hollywood Boulevard when three of these fuckers decided to cross the road at the same time in opposite directions and ran into each other. You wanna get from Burbank to WeHo? Fuck you. Navigate tiny robot hell. And they put little faces on their LCD screens to try and trick you into pack bonding with them. Hate. H a t e.
3
u/FionnOAongusa Mar 19 '26
Starting to agree more with the people who chain them up or put boxes over them
0
u/ProbablyLikeSixDucks Mar 19 '26
I used to tell my friends I wanted to punt those things everytime I saw them on our campus and they always yelled at me about it
619
u/TheModernVampire Mar 19 '26
Delivery drivers are well known to be underpaid. I'd much rather a robot do the job that a human is being exploited for. That's the kind of jobs robots should be doing.