The Guardian covered the LA delivery robot boom...
...But failed to address what I think is the most important unanswered question about them: the degree to which these "robots" are actually autonomous.
You can read the Guardian's coverage here.
I think that as newspapers continue to cover this and other telepresence/automation industries, it's extremely important to begin all reporting from the most crucial question: how often do these vehicles actually run "autonomously"? What role do humans have in driving them, or in minutely overseeing their behavior, or in intervening to handle challenges that their software cannot handle "on its own"? How often are the delivery robots joysticked? In what situations? How similar is Coco's business to 2023, for example, when the robots where mostly joysticked?
You cannot begin to report on this stuff from the assumption that they are autonomous. You simply can't. Too many products in these industries have been revealed over the last few years to be just labor arbitrage - cheaper workers remoting in from other countries where the cost of living is lower or where it's easier to exploit them. You MUST begin your reporting on autonomous anythings with an examination of the precise method and scale of human involvement. I'd say that if a human is involved at all, in any capacity, you must be surfacing that to the people you interview, and you must at least try to interview THE WORKERS about what their jobs are like!
Come the fuck on, Guardian!!!!!!! This should be easy for a real newspaper!!