Okay: Delivery robots.

Are they actually pretty good? Are they a good idea done wrong? Are they a good idea but presently owned and operated by surveillance tech companies? Are they pretty bad but could be good? Should they be publicly owned? Do they require different city infra?

They feel like one of those things that progressives are obligated to hate because of their placement within the hypercapitalist system we live in, but it's not clear to me if they're an irredeemably bad idea or if we need e.g. public implementations?

I'd LOVE to hear y'all's nuanced thoughts!

@jon Heh, yeah, with regards to AI for example, when I'm debating with boosters about it, I often argue, "Look, if we actually had working and workable UBI *at this very moment*, this would be a very different conversation!"

@ipsquiggle @jon I think that's what makes nuanced thoughts so tricky. Robots replacing horrible jobs, on paper, sounds good, but realising they take precious jobs is rough. Equally, in an ideal world delivery wouldn't be a shit job (think Postman Pat if you're British) as it's a community service, really. So, I suppose it depends on who you ask in what context. It's (probably) good for the consumer as delivery will be cheaper, it's good for companies who build robots, but it's bad for people who rely on these jobs and bad for people who crave that small human interaction.

@ipsquiggle @jon I must say I have minor bias as I used to have an excellent delivery man who would make small chat, banter and jokes. He ended up getting recognition in the local newspaper for being such an icon.

@chronocide @jon Hah yeah in the "pointing at deeper problems" category:

If delivery people are delivering in the neighborhood they live, have sufficient working conditions to make small talk, job consistency to be "your deliver guy", then they're part of the social fabric.

Social fabric is always valuable! And if from the lens of that social fabric, Joe the delivery guy is "stuck" doing that job and the while neigjborhood could be elevated if some robot handled the deliveries, then great!

@chronocide @jon But instead, businesses in general and tech in particular, has converted delivery guy into a mechanical function where the human is interchangeable and irrelevant. That we "can replace them with robots" is just the coda...