Semi-retired professor Carolyn Marvin became a local celebrity facing down Philadelphia’s growing robot delivery army: ‘It’s my first amendment right to protest’
I’m sorry but a robot box delivering my food doesn’t make it “slop,” this isn’t like AI at all. The food isn’t worse, or even colder, it’s just being delivered by a robot instead of an underpaid guy on a bike or in a car. Why are we fighting to maintain an extremely exploitative gig economy and tipping culture at the same time? I thought both were bad? I don’t get it.
Nah actually people like you need to take a walk outside lmao in my opinion. These things suck for foot traffic and take jobs from people who often have no other means of survival at all. They are made by weird tech guys who design them for optimizing profit over everything else which should NOT be the case for what is a vehicle in a street
I literally walk to work every day in an area with a ton of them, they’re less in the way than the average moron abruptly stopping in front of me because they’re more into their phone call than paying attention to the world around them lol.
The average moron is a human being. If corporations paid their fair of taxes and didn’t just suck blood from the public in terms of bankruptcy, killing jobs, and subsidies than maybe they might have a place among human foot traffick. But as long as the bots enjoy rights and privlages that humans are not afforded they can all fucking burn. This isnt innovation this is the death of the human mind and soul.
Yeah you’re right, funneling more money to the benevolent overlords who own Uber, Doordash, etc. and exploit economically marginalized individuals instead of robots, including by incentivizing them to do bike deliveries in dangerous heat, is a much more just system. That definitely helps fight the evil of large corporations. /s
Don’t be so fucking stupid. We are playing a game of keep your head above water or die in the street in America. Maybe you are in a position that is privileged and comfortable but many Americans don’t have the luxury of being able to pick and choose at their leisure to survive. You think I like uber or corporations look at my comment history? People need to eat. They need to provide for their loved ones and in this country it means doing whatever you can to survive.
And the solution to that is Uber Eats? Lol okay, I’M the one who’s in a position of delusional privilege. Get out of here with your Butlerian Jihad, childlike bullshit.
You’re literally arguing that the status quo is better because people need to keep their head above water, and some hand wavey nonsense about crushing the human soul because we automated food delivery.
Explain to me how continuing to exploit economically marginalized people with the current gig economy is better without abstract nonsense like “we’re crushing the human soul by using delivery robots.”
continuing to exploit economically marginalized people
Stop twisting my progressive language to suit your ends.
Removing jobs from these people without giving them anything else in return is economically marginalizing them.
Not to mention, I just think more people need to be brought face-to-face, through jobs or otherwise, and I genuinely think you’re a bad person if you don’t.
Anyone i have seen using the word “luddite” so far has proved themselves to be morons of the highest order. They always conflate rejection of technology to fighting to be replaced by our capitalist overlords
The Luddites were the good guys, by the way. They were labor activists fighting back against mass-unemployment in a world that didn’t care what happened to workers who lost their livelihood.
The government response was to make “machine breaking” a capital crime so that they could execute labor activists who dared take direct action.
Declaring yourself anti-Luddite is just taking the side of the capitalists who would murder workers to protect the machines. That’s not a wise side to be taking today if you’re not a billionaire.
A Luddite is someone who opposes new technology, automation, or the modern information age.
I’m aware of the history and it’s a very apt parallel. At the same time it strikes me as rather futile and misguided to push against progress to save shitty jobs. Worker protections have improved over the 200 years since then, we just need to make sure society keeps moving in the right direction for everyone.
We havnt solved world hunger, income inequality, climate change or so many other human social issues… but yes, a robot to deliever food to the wealthiest folks is going to be the future and help everyone!
You’re right, a person doing that job will totally fill the income inequality gap. That’s the real future of worker emancipation. Up by the bootstraps, one McDonald’s order at a time!
That’s not new. Look at any modern assembly line - should we focus on getting more humans back in there so they can do mind-numbing work eight hours a day?
We obviously need to put a lot of effort into making society work for everyone. But sticking your head in the sand and refusing progress is counterproductive.
We should focus on planning the economy, and until we can do that, we need to let people keep their jobs.
The weavers had to be suppressed with the military when the autolooms came for their jobs, now imagine if that’s every job in every sector in every country all at the same time. There is a tipping point where job losses outpace job creation, and then people start picking up guns.
Dumb fucks like you love to just roll over and let these Big Brother drones eventually track everyone’s movements via facial recognition and use the info to throw dissenters into camps
But the ubereats guy is whizzing along footpaths as quick as he dares on an electric bike because hes gotta get back to make more deliveries to survive.
I live in a tiny town where that doesnt happen, but whenever I go into my local Big City I’m always dodging them, terrified.
Uber Eats guy is getting paid. Uber should be fucking destroyed, but that’s a separate take. No automation without talking about the impact it will have on the most vulnerable. People who speak from their ivory teslas might so well to come down here and float with us in poverty for a while.
Except they don’t block the road. I live and work in an area with a ton of these things all the time. They usually are annoyingly cautious not to block the road, leading to them sometimes sitting at crosswalks for several cycles. That’s just not true. They don’t even really block the sidewalks even though there are a ton of them.
I’m sorry but a robot box delivering my food doesn’t make it “slop,” this isn’t like AI at all. The food isn’t worse, or even colder, it’s just being delivered by a robot instead of an underpaid guy on a bike or in a car. Why are we fighting to maintain an extremely exploitative gig economy and tipping culture at the same time? I thought both were bad? I don’t get it.
Nah actually people like you need to take a walk outside lmao in my opinion. These things suck for foot traffic and take jobs from people who often have no other means of survival at all. They are made by weird tech guys who design them for optimizing profit over everything else which should NOT be the case for what is a vehicle in a street
I literally walk to work every day in an area with a ton of them, they’re less in the way than the average moron abruptly stopping in front of me because they’re more into their phone call than paying attention to the world around them lol.
The average moron is a human being. If corporations paid their fair of taxes and didn’t just suck blood from the public in terms of bankruptcy, killing jobs, and subsidies than maybe they might have a place among human foot traffick. But as long as the bots enjoy rights and privlages that humans are not afforded they can all fucking burn. This isnt innovation this is the death of the human mind and soul.
Yeah you’re right, funneling more money to the benevolent overlords who own Uber, Doordash, etc. and exploit economically marginalized individuals instead of robots, including by incentivizing them to do bike deliveries in dangerous heat, is a much more just system. That definitely helps fight the evil of large corporations. /s
Don’t be so fucking stupid. We are playing a game of keep your head above water or die in the street in America. Maybe you are in a position that is privileged and comfortable but many Americans don’t have the luxury of being able to pick and choose at their leisure to survive. You think I like uber or corporations look at my comment history? People need to eat. They need to provide for their loved ones and in this country it means doing whatever you can to survive.
And the solution to that is Uber Eats? Lol okay, I’M the one who’s in a position of delusional privilege. Get out of here with your Butlerian Jihad, childlike bullshit.
You seem dense. What makes you think I’m advocating for uber? I’m advocating for people to have food in a system that wants to eat them alive.
You’re literally arguing that the status quo is better because people need to keep their head above water, and some hand wavey nonsense about crushing the human soul because we automated food delivery.
How stupid do you have to be to believe that the robots are not also funneling money to Uber, Doordash, etc.
Explain to me how continuing to exploit economically marginalized people with the current gig economy is better without abstract nonsense like “we’re crushing the human soul by using delivery robots.”
Stop twisting my progressive language to suit your ends.
Removing jobs from these people without giving them anything else in return is economically marginalizing them.
Not to mention, I just think more people need to be brought face-to-face, through jobs or otherwise, and I genuinely think you’re a bad person if you don’t.
And that’s why I’m proposing a ban on heavy machinery in the construction industry! We need to 👏get👏back👏to👏shovels👏. Preach!
The proper solution is to properly pay the delivery person. You shouldn’t replace them with a clanker that doubles as a surveillance drone
Serious luddite vibes. These jobs will be lost to automation like so many before them, and we’ll be better off for it.
Anyone i have seen using the word “luddite” so far has proved themselves to be morons of the highest order. They always conflate rejection of technology to fighting to be replaced by our capitalist overlords
The Luddites were the good guys, by the way. They were labor activists fighting back against mass-unemployment in a world that didn’t care what happened to workers who lost their livelihood.
The government response was to make “machine breaking” a capital crime so that they could execute labor activists who dared take direct action.
Declaring yourself anti-Luddite is just taking the side of the capitalists who would murder workers to protect the machines. That’s not a wise side to be taking today if you’re not a billionaire.
Luddite
/ˈlʌdʌɪt/
A Luddite is someone who opposes new technology, automation, or the modern information age.
I’m aware of the history and it’s a very apt parallel. At the same time it strikes me as rather futile and misguided to push against progress to save shitty jobs. Worker protections have improved over the 200 years since then, we just need to make sure society keeps moving in the right direction for everyone.
I bet you call billionaires “job creators” don’t you?
Progress for whom?
We havnt solved world hunger, income inequality, climate change or so many other human social issues… but yes, a robot to deliever food to the wealthiest folks is going to be the future and help everyone!
You’re right, a person doing that job will totally fill the income inequality gap. That’s the real future of worker emancipation. Up by the bootstraps, one McDonald’s order at a time!
Not having a job is shittier than having a shitty job.
One act of resistance will never solve a societal problem, but that doesn’t make acts of resistance useless.
Then they won’t have a job and no one is hiring. Without a planned economy, people are fucked over by automation.
That’s not new. Look at any modern assembly line - should we focus on getting more humans back in there so they can do mind-numbing work eight hours a day?
We obviously need to put a lot of effort into making society work for everyone. But sticking your head in the sand and refusing progress is counterproductive.
We should focus on planning the economy, and until we can do that, we need to let people keep their jobs.
The weavers had to be suppressed with the military when the autolooms came for their jobs, now imagine if that’s every job in every sector in every country all at the same time. There is a tipping point where job losses outpace job creation, and then people start picking up guns.
Found the cog-sucker.
Dumb fucks like you love to just roll over and let these Big Brother drones eventually track everyone’s movements via facial recognition and use the info to throw dissenters into camps
Sure, the delivery bots are the lynchpin in our dystopian surveillance future. If only we could stop them, then nothing else would track us.
“Guys, one basket isn’t going to win us the game.”
“Slop” has been slang for food for longer than it has been slang for AI content. You’re deliberately misinterpreting the headline.
“Slop bowls” is deliberately invoking the parallel. Nobody uses the term “slop bowl.”
GQ. “A Slop Bowl Is a Totally Valid Way to Feed Yourself In 2025”. 2025-01-08.
New York Times. “Living the Slop Life”. 2025-05-19.
Atlas Obscura. “All Hail the Slop Bowl, Lunch of Our Ancestors”. 2025-06-23.
Good Work YouTube channel. “Why are we eating slop?”. 2025-09-19.
CNN. "Has the cash-strapped American worker fallen out of love with slop? ". 2025-11-11.
New York Times. “The Allure of ‘Slop Bowls’ Fades as Consumers Tighten Spending at Restaurants”. 2026-03-06.
Well shit. You’re right. Never heard it used that way but I guess that’s a thing.
For one it’s a big box blocking the road for people and there will not be few of them.
But the ubereats guy is whizzing along footpaths as quick as he dares on an electric bike because hes gotta get back to make more deliveries to survive.
I live in a tiny town where that doesnt happen, but whenever I go into my local Big City I’m always dodging them, terrified.
Uber Eats guy is getting paid. Uber should be fucking destroyed, but that’s a separate take. No automation without talking about the impact it will have on the most vulnerable. People who speak from their ivory teslas might so well to come down here and float with us in poverty for a while.
Except they don’t block the road. I live and work in an area with a ton of these things all the time. They usually are annoyingly cautious not to block the road, leading to them sometimes sitting at crosswalks for several cycles. That’s just not true. They don’t even really block the sidewalks even though there are a ton of them.