Delivery robots as evocative objects

I came across these delivery robots on Sunday morning, clustered in the corner of a park. One had been covered in graffiti, two had their flags snapped and a third one was covered in some strange green slime. It looked like Saturday night had been tough.

I find it hard not to anthropomorphise these robots. I heard the way they crossed the road described as ‘scrabbling’ yesterday and it’s the perfect adjective for how they appear to look left and right, before accelerating out into the traffic. People interact with them, talk about them, respond to them. In many ways the vandalism is the flip side of the anthromorphism. They are evocative objects in Sherry Turkle’s sense of provoking responses in the humans who encounter them. You might find them cute, you might have the impulse to cover them in graffiti, you might want to help them cross the road, you might want to block their path to see if they do.

The key thing is that they are evoking a response from you. If their design enables them to do that reliably then they are likely to be normalised, even if the economic model might not currently work in its current form. The real significance of them is how they become evocative features of the urban landscape and what that means for the political economy of the city.

It occurs to me that if we are projecting into these robots, which we clearly are because they obviously do not feel anything, it raises the question of what we are projecting. My hypothesis is that when I saw them on my run this morning, feeling sad about the vandalism and exhibiting a spatial sense of having retreated into a corner of the park, I was doing something with my own insufficiently acknowledged guilt about the gig economy. I’ve stopped using delivery platforms but I still end up taking Ubers regularly, even if I’m slowly tipping the balance to black caps.

When I feel vaguely sympathetic for these robots (while recognising how absurd that reaction is) am I expressing in an alienated form my own desire to demonstrate solidarity with gig workers, which is being subordinated to my own convenience in a way that provokes guilt in me?

I wanted to add that I think vandalism against delivery robots can be a political act. There are clear examples of this in vandalism against robo-taxis for example. I’m just not sure this particular vandalism can plausibly be read in those terms, though perhaps I’m wrong.

I knew that the rapid development of AI came with a crushing exploitation of the environment.

What I did not realize was, that it also comes with a crushing exploitation of gig workers around the world. (A quick search gave two links:)

https://www.noemamag.com/the-exploited-labor-behind-artificial-intelligence

and

The AI Revolution Comes With the Exploitation of Gig Workers  - AlgorithmWatch
https://algorithmwatch.org/en/ai-revolution-exploitation-gig-workers/

#ai #gigworkers #exploitation

How much do LA Uber drivers actually earn? Uber cites $34.46/hour — but that's only for active trip time. Factor in the 30–50% of time spent waiting for rides, and independent studies show median pay can drop to roughly $6–$9/hour.

Key step: track your total online hours separately from your active trip hours. The gap tells the real story.

#UberDrivers #GigWorkers #Prop22 #CaliforniaLaborLaw #WageTheft #LosAngeles #RideshareRights

Digital Trends: The influencer economy’s invisible workers are first in line for the AI chop . “That arrangement worked because the labor was affordable and mostly invisible. Now the same businesses that benefited from it are turning to tools like OpusClip, which promise to turn long videos into short clips and publish them across platforms with a click. The factory floor was always there. AI […]

Hey, #gigWorkers of Mastadon:

Do you feel the need to carry a commercial liability policy?

I'm thinking of signing up for one of them and the terms of "partner agreement" they want me to sign includes that I will be held personally liable for defending the company if there's a suit filed for anything that's my fault. That would include me paying for their attorneys' time, which they have the right to choose. As far as I can tell, my homeowners' insurance won't cover this, even with an umbrella clause.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/21/ai-trainers-identity-cost

It was only a matter of time before #BigTech starts exploiting #gigworkers ' own bodies. Since we can't really stop people selling parts of themselves as a way of surviving, we absolutely need to make these #AI companies pay the real production cost of their "goods". A first step would be to heavily tax them everywhere (like 99% of their benefits) and redistribute this money to those they exploit. At the same time, we need to put a stop to this cringy #capitalism.

#Tip your #deliverista!

https://www.thecity.nyc/2026/03/06/tipping-delivery-workers-drivers-food-apps/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=SCOOP_03.06.2026&utm_source=1&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Tip%20your%20delivery%20guy%20the%20right%20way&utm_campaign=SCOOP_03%2006%202026

#delivery #FoodDelivery #GigWorkers #DeliveryWorkers #FoodServiceWorkers #FoodService

"The US Air Force had sent the Rivet Joint, one of the world’s most powerful surveillance aircraft, to gather intelligence before a hostile operation. The UK also owns three of the planes and last month dispatched one to the North Atlantic to support the seizure of the Marinera tanker, which the US said had transported sanctioned oil for Venezuela.

Equipped with cutting-edge military technology, the Rivet Joint can pick up radar signals, geolocate enemy systems and intercept communications from 150 miles away.

Exactly how it does this is kept strictly under wraps. But we can reveal that an Australian tech company called Appen has performed work for a secretive US military unit, code-named Big Safari, that installs the planes’ tech systems.

Appen recruits gig workers from all over the world to help train AI systems. The company’s latest annual report says it has a workforce of a million people who speak over 500 languages.

Many of these gig workers are paid very little. Some are from countries that have faced attacks from US armed forces. None were told by Appen that they may have been working for the US military."

https://restofworld.org/2026/gig-workers-us-military-appen/

#Surveillance #AI #GigEconomy #Militarism #USA #GigWorkers