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Robotics & Autonomy·May 25, 2026·1 min read

Delivery robots are spreading across LA. Residents ‘both pity and hate them’

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Sidewalk robots in a car-first city like LA are a stress test for social license at scale — residents “pity and hate them” is the early warning. If your autonomy roadmap assumes public space is free real estate, you now have to budget for community ops and local politics as core deployment costs.

Robotics & Autonomy

Visually impaired Waymo users in CA say riding in a Waymo gives them a feeling of independence and spares them the discrimination they face from human drivers (Sonia A. Rao/New York Times)

Autonomy is quietly becoming an accessibility infrastructure — for some riders, the value prop is not convenience, it's dignity and predictability. If you're deploying AVs and not designing around high-need users like the visually impaired, you're leaving your strongest product-market fit on the table.