Post by @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world

2026-10-17 15:03 UTC

A retired Penn professor has been blocking Uber Eats robots for months. This week, she got arrested for it cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/53250107 Police confirmed they had responded to a report of “criminal mischief involving a robot” on the 1200 block of Filbert Street around 1:16 p.m. on Wednesday. A woman on the scene ignored “multiple commands” to move, they said, resulting in a criminal violation notice for disorderly conduct. Uber declined to comment. Marvin, who plans to contest the charge on the grounds of her First Amendment right to protest, has been undeterred by the arrest. She plans to continue blocking Uber Eats robots and chatting with curious passersby who ask what she’s doing. “It allows me to talk to people about what’s going on,” she said. “It’s always very interesting conversations that we have, and I think it’s good to have those kinds of conversations in public space.”

Replies (16)

@TrackenDaKracken@lemmy.world 2026-10-18 03:26

youtu.be/jJLNurAIrlM

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@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2026-10-17 15:26

Who’s the narc who called the cops on her?

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@AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 2026-10-18 03:47

“I know they’re taking the jobs of human delivery workers and so, I have been protesting them whenever I saw them by standing in front of them and preventing them from going forward,” Marvin said. I mean fuck. Do we want people working as delivery drones? Really? The other post in fuckai about this doesn’t even mention she’s been doing this for month which obscures why she’s been arrested. And climate change is real you know? A small robot takes little energy compared to a full sized car. Ideally delivery robots should be state owned and accountable to democratic processes. They are a valuable and useful innovation to solve logistic problems. A way to reshape how neighborhoods are build and planned and make them more energy efficient. This dogmatic opposition to anything AI is really becoming more and more irrational, less and less grounded in facts and rational arguments. AI needs to be regulated. Like China currently does AI regulations best, but we can’t even imagine things like that any more because people just accept neoliberalism as the new world order and screaming is the only thing left to do apparently instead of demanding regulations or nationalization of certain AI infrastructure. Maybe this is linked to some kind of anti-democracy propaganda campaign. Divide and conquer, and don’t even let talk about regulation enter the public discussion.

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@Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 2026-10-18 07:01

Spending your time inconveniencing delivery robots is 100% jobless behaviour. Is that really the best thing you have to do with your time?

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@artyom@piefed.social 2026-10-17 15:46

There are Waymos that drive through my workplace all night long. Like literally every 10 minutes. They cause problems all the time, as we have semi tractor-trailers trying to dock, and they’ll block their movement and then just sit there waiting. They started putting up cones so they wouldn’t pull through but now all the legitimate traffic has to get out and move them around every time they want to come through. One time I blocked 3 of them in for several hours by trapping them by putting more cones behind them, such that there was no exit. That was fun.

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@Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 2026-10-17 16:04

If she was not touching the thing then why didn’t it try and get out of her way? It should not be on the sidewalk in the first place, and should not have right of way.

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@olejellylegs@lemmy.zip 2026-10-17 19:30

Ah see that’s where she went wrong, making a scene standing there. Just spray paint the sensor and move on with your life. Or tip it over. Or put a cone over the sensor. Then disappear.

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@merc@sh.itjust.works 2026-10-17 18:42

She was arrested for “disorderly conduct”, for just standing there.

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@Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 2026-10-17 17:25

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@melsaskca@lemmy.ca 2026-10-18 11:19

If you can block bots online, why can’t you block them in the physical world?

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@Kaligalis@lemmy.world 2026-10-18 22:14

It’s fine to not order stuff online yourself. Preventing others from getting what they ordered isn’t. She should find a hobby which isn’t purely about annoying her environment. Want to be an activist? Well, United Healthcare still exists…

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@Sunflier@lemmy.world 2026-10-19 04:47

This is basically the start of the counter to the automation. We still tell fables about people who stood againt the devaluation of workers like this.

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@Monument@piefed.world 2026-10-18 16:12

The little nub on the top is a LIDAR module. I wonder if an upside down cup will fit over it.

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@peacepath@lemmy.world 2026-10-18 21:48

Has it been set illegal to disobey “multiple commands” of a privately owned robot?

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@Bluedragon012@lemmy.world 2026-10-18 15:19

You know… I’m surprised that no one has… Done more? I’m surprised hunting these things isn’t a trend…

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@bold_atlas@lemmy.world 2026-10-20 13:23

Why wasn’t uber arrested for obstructing this woman’s path with their shitty robot?

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