A food delivery robot in California went rogue and appeared to start messing with a man. It repeatedly kept colliding with a man with cerebral palsy on the sidewalk.
The incident happened in West Hollywood, California. The viral video now has more than 20 million views across TikTok and Instagram. It happened to local therapist and advocate Mark Chaney who says the encounter happened with a Serve Robotics cart when he was on his way home from a procedure. He tells KTLA, "I was really frustrated because I was in a lot of pain that day. I was like, 'I just want to get home.'" See a video report from KTLA 5 on YouTube below.
In an email response, the company said that the robot did not drive in reverse at any point and was operating autonomously at the time. A Serve representative told KTLA, "In this case, just as you adjusted your path for the robot, the robot was also trying to adjust its path for you. Ultimately, as you got closer to the robot, it determined that the safest option was to come to a complete stop. It's the challenge of predicting someone else's movements in real time without direct communication."
Chaney is hoping the attention the video is getting on social media will force companies to do more about it. This would be incredibly inconvenient to run into and shows that we aren't quite ready for this technology out in the wild yet.
Cort Freeman was born and raised in Metro Detroit. He was named Clarkston High School 2009 Class Clown 13 years after graduating. Totally normal thing to happen. That’s thanks to his time spent as an Intern at Comedy Central and Social Media Correspondent for The Colbert Report. Cort has done comedy across the country, both standing up and sitting down. When he’s not trying to make you laugh on-air and online, he’s probably at home enjoying his favorite shows like Seinfeld, South Park, and The Office. He’s also totally uncomfortable writing about himself in the third person. Cort enjoys writing about comedy, food, sports, and entertainment. So, basically anything and everything.
