I don’t know if you have food delivery robots where you live, but here in Los Angeles they’re quite common. They roll along the sidewalks, determined, indomitable, like some adorable Pixar characters on a restorative three-act quest to find their lost robot mothers. Some smile to see them, some take photos, but most people don’t pay them much mind at all.
Now the other day, as I was walking along a busy four-lane thoroughfare, I noticed a robot across the way that had evidently tipped over while trying to navigate its way onto the sidewalk. There it laid, on its side in the busy street, its little robot wheels spinning desperately, a baby turtle flipped onto its back.
The food delivery robots are cute - they’re quite petite, they have orange safety flags that call to mind a child’s first bicycle, their headlight eyes are wide and curious – and so the helpless robot splayed out on the street cut a decidely tragic figure.
I decided to wait and see what the passersby would do.
One couple laughed at the poor thing, but it was only a minute or two before others hurried over to help it. One stepped into the street and held her hand up to alert oncoming traffic, while two others lifted the robot, set it back upon its wheels and guided it onto the sidewalk.
The little robot seemed stunned a moment, or perhaps just grateful; it rocked forward a bit, then backward, stabilizing itself, testing out its new feet - then continued merrily upon its way. The people smiled and high-fived each other.
So here’s the question I have been struggling with ever since:
Does the fact that strangers kindly helped a childlike machine say something wonderful about humankind… or does the fact that they ignored a homeless woman sleeping in the doorway ten feet away say something appalling about us?
I genuinely don’t know.
Post your thoughts below.
Yours in the fetal position,
S.
illustrations by orli auslander
Helping the homeless woman requires 100 different perfectly-timed, magically-funded steps.
Helping the robot required flipping it upright again.
That's why the robot was helped. Because it was something within those folks' control.
It’s about safety: the robot is limited and predictable and so reliably harmless. Every interaction with another human being is a potential minefield of social, emotional, and physical harms.