Why Are People Kicking Food Delivery Robots? Fox News Tech Columnist Kurt Knutsson Says Job Fears Over AI Are Part of It
In a CyberGuy column, Fox News describes kicked and tipped robots in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, a retired professor's arrest for blocking one, and a Chicago pile-up. The writer's view is that anxiety about automation drives some of the anger.
A Fox News technology column looks at an odd sign of the times: small delivery robots that people go out of their way to hit.
The pattern. The column, from Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson, says people are kicking and knocking over the four-wheeled machines that carry meals along sidewalks, and some film themselves doing it. It cites an Uber Eats robot that was kicked twice and knocked over near a Philadelphia parking garage in late March 2026, and says similar incidents have surfaced in Los Angeles and other cities. Some clips have gone viral.
The arrest. Knutsson writes that on Oct. 14, Philadelphia police arrested Carolyn Marvin, a 78-year-old retired University of Pennsylvania professor, after she deliberately blocked an Uber Eats robot. He says she was protesting companies that replace human delivery workers with machines, and that her arrest followed her refusal to follow police instructions. He adds that Pennsylvania law requires delivery robots to yield to pedestrians in pedestrian areas.
His theory. Knutsson says he suspects the anger has "very little to do with the robots themselves." In his view, the robots are a visible stand-in for artificial intelligence, which many people link to lost work. He points to the person who earns money delivering meals and asks what happens as fleets grow. He is clear that frustration is no excuse for damaging property, and he says companies should see that they are putting machines into neighborhoods where people may already be anxious.
The other side. The column also notes the machines cause their own problems. In September, video showed at least a dozen Coco robots clustered on a sidewalk near Lincoln Park in Chicago. Coco told him a deployment error rerouted several robots at once and that it was fixed within minutes with new safeguards.
Why it matters here. The piece is a small example of a larger theme, public unease about AI showing up in daily life, which also appeared in the vote on data centers that we covered this morning. It is one writer's reading, and the column offers no survey of why people attack the machines.
What we could not check. We read most of the column, but the page we received was cut off before the end, so we cannot say what its closing points are. We did not verify the arrest or the incidents beyond the column.