Logan Newell/The Coloradoan / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
More and more companies have started to turn to robots to tackle tasks that have historically been reserved for human beings. However, there’s still plenty of kinks to work out, as evidenced by the mess that was created by an autonomous food delivery vehicle that crashed into a bus stop in Chicago.
Most people don’t have to (currently) worry about robots swooping in to take their jobs, but there have been some impressive technological advances over the past few decades that have ushered in a world where it’s become increasingly common to see them performing various tasks in public.
That includes a rise in the number of food delivery companies that have harnessed tiny autonomous vehicles capable of ferrying orders from one place to another, and they’ve become a pretty frequent sight in some of America’s biggest cities.
That includes Chicago, where some residents who’ve pushed back against the trend got some ammunition they can use courtesy of one robot that left the sidewalk covered in glass after ramming into a bus shelter.
A food delivery robot in Chicago shattered a glass panel after colliding with a bus stop shelter
In 2022, the city of Chicago approved a pilot program that allowed companies to “partner with local food establishments as a courier service to deliver food orders to customers using small robots traveling on sidewalks and in crosswalks.”
Two of them, Coco and Serve, currently oversee the hundreds of self-driving vehicles that now weave their way through the streets of The Windy City on a daily basis. They’ve received a mixed response from residents, as critics have taken issue with the jobs they’ve taken from people and paint them as nuisances that have invaded streets and sidewalks.
That includes one Serve robot that was making its way down Grand Avenue on Sunday when it managed to collide with a panel inside a bus shelter that left the sidewalk covered in shards of glass.
Serve delivery robot drove through the glass of a bus shelter on Grand. Here it is spreading the glass everywhere.
byu/realnostalgia inchicago
According to the person who filmed the video, a Serve employee was eventually dispatched to the scene to retrieve the robot, and someone who works for the company that oversees the advertisements that are placed in the bus shelter was ultimately responsible for cleaning up the mess.
This is not the first time a food delivery robot has managed to cause some issues. Earlier this year, one managed by Coco caused some damage after tearing up a fence during a run in Los Angeles, and another affiliated with Uber Eats made its way through an active crime scene in the same city in 2022.