A Serve Robotics food delivery robot crashed through the glass wall of a bus stop shelter in Chicago earlier this week, shattering the glass all over the sidewalk. The crash comes amid a protest against delivery robots in Chicago and a few weeks after a politician who represents part of Chicago said he would not allow the robots into his district.Footage of the aftermath of the crash went viral on Reddit and X, with one of the company\u2019s robots shaking shards of glass onto the sidewalk. Serve Robotics told 404 Media in a statement that the company sent people out to clean up the mess.\u201cWe\u2019re aware of the incident involving one of our robots in Chicago. No injuries were reported, our team responded quickly to clean up, and we\u2019re reviewing what happened to make improvements,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cWe have also been in contact with local stakeholders and are committed to addressing any concerns directly. We take this matter very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Serve deployed its robots to Chicago in September under a partnership with Uber Eats. The company operates in a few cities around the country, including in Los Angeles, where activists have been filming the robots in various compromising positions or after they have been knocked over by passersby. In 2023, Serve Robotics fed footage from one of its robots to the Los Angeles Police Department, we reported. In 2022, a Serve robot drove underneath police caution tape and through what was at the time considered to be an active crime scene, where a school shooting at Hollywood High School was reported to be taking place (the shooting was deemed a hoax, but police were actively investigating at the time).Delivery robots have been controversial in Chicago, where at least 3,600 Chicago residents have signed a \u201cNo Sidewalk Bots\u201d petition asking the city to ban the robots. Chicago\u2019s First District Alderman Daniel La Spata has said that the delivery robots will not be allowed into his district after polling residents there; 83 percent of respondents to his poll said they \u201cstrongly disagreed\u201d with allowing the robots.\u00a0The No Sidewalk Bots petition website notes \u201cChicago sidewalks are for people, not delivery robots,\u201d and says that people who have signed the petition \u201care reporting collisions or other troubling contact, accessibility issues, and\/or obstruction.\u201d\u00a0The Chicago Department of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"