Ask HN: How can your robot protect itself while going on errands for you?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32444690

by amichail • 4 years ago

5 13 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

It might be stolen or maliciously damaged while outside. Will robots be allowed to protect themselves somehow while outside by themselves?

Maybe it could have an alarm and real-time video that is sent directly to the police?

samketchup• 4 years ago

Glock 19 works well for me, I suggest glock-bot

roey2009• 4 years ago

What errands? Is it going to do shopping, as opposed to a home delivery by the shop? Go to the bank,as opposed to online banking?

In this hypothetical future, our online culture would mature. I do not see when we would send a robot when things could get to us. Just doesn't make sense to me

amichail• 4 years ago

The robot going on errands would be cheaper than having items delivered to your home.

archi422• 4 years ago

How so? And under all circumstances, or only for some cases?

We already have mail delivery systems, which scale pretty well AND can be augmented by bots and other technological advances. I have a hard time seeing how your claim holds besides some corner cases like "need fresh tomatoes for cooking in this evening".

rdtwo• 4 years ago

Nah if you are rich enough to afford the robot some percentage of the time it’s just going to get jacked by the drug addicts. Thats just going to be something you accept like having your windows broken or being yelled at by a drugged deranged person in the city.

johntash2• 4 years ago

You could probably spend an extra $100/mo on RobotCare+ so that you could pay your $1200 deductible and get a brand new replacement robot.

cyanydeez• 4 years ago

UberBot: bot damaged? Order a UberBot to fetch your stuff for you

jesuscript• 4 years ago

The same way people protect themselves now. Don’t live in neighborhoods where stuff like that happens. Don’t buy an expensive robot in the hood, the same way you wouldn’t buy an expensive watch.

monsterofcookie• 4 years ago

Bear spray

minhmeoke• 4 years ago

If the robot has the ability to fly or move, then perhaps just hop (up or over) out of arm's reach when someone comes too close?

Real-time audio and video might be very bandwidth (and therefore battery) intensive to transmit over a cellular connection. Instead, it might be more efficient to include a heartbeat signal that transmits the last GPS coordinates, and maybe a static image transmitted every second. When you stop receiving the heartbeat, that indicates that the robot's battery died or it is in trouble.

imtringued• 4 years ago

I thought about this as well but I don't need to go as far as malicious actors, imagine if your robot simply fails to navigate and gets stuck in a loop. If you only have one it's not a big deal but if you have a hundred you are going to need some sort of callcenter and robot towing company that takes care of the problem.

Ask HN: How can your robot protect itself while going on errands for you?

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