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Woman charged after police say she blocked a delivery robot
Police say Carolyn Marvin kept stepping in front of an Uber delivery robot in Philadelphia; she says the machines take couriers’ jobs.
A Philadelphia woman has been charged with disorderly conduct after police say she stood in the way of an Uber delivery robot, The Verge reported on Sunday 18 October 2026. Witnesses had called in a disturbance on the 1200 block of Filbert Street, by Reading Terminal Market, local station 6abc reports.
Officers told Carolyn Marvin several times to step aside, police say, and she kept moving back in front of the robot. She was handcuffed at the scene, and the video has since spread widely, The Verge says.
Marvin told 6abc she protests because the robots are “taking the jobs of human delivery workers”. She says she blocks them whenever she sees one, including in a September run-in on Broad Street, and calls it her First Amendment right to demonstrate on a public footpath.
This is not the first clash. Someone kicked one of the small wheeled robots over downtown earlier this year, The Verge notes, and the same job worry now follows robotaxis and AI agents.
Robot delivery now meets the same job fears in the street that AI meets in the office.
Sources
Alexandre S.
Alexandre S. is a creative ad strategist and copywriter with ten years' experience in digital marketing across multiple channels.
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