This retired professor was arrested for blocking a delivery robot. She says she’ll do it again
31st October 2026
October 14 wasn’t the first time Carolyn Marvin put herself in front of an autonomous delivery robot. It had become, since the wheeled little food vessels were unleashed upon certain parts of Philadelphia, a habit for the 78-year-old: standing in front of one of the robots when she encountered it rolling on the sidewalk, delaying it for a few minutes from delivering its precious lunchtime cargo.
But it was the first time that Marvin, a retired University of Pennsylvania communications professor, was arrested for doing it — in a case that she says raises profound questions about public space and the legal protections extended to robots in our increasingly tech-dominated world.
“I was under the impression that I had more rights than the robot did,” Marvin said, laughing.
Okay, Karen.