A retired professor's one-woman protest against sidewalk delivery robots
In Philadelphia, 78-year-old Carolyn Marvin blocks Avride's UberEats delivery robots on principle — and was briefly arrested for it.
What happened: Carolyn Marvin, a semi-retired University of Pennsylvania communications professor, has spent months physically blocking UberEats delivery robots on Philadelphia sidewalks as a one-woman protest. She stands in front of the machines, built by Texas company Avride, until they stop or reroute. The act has made her a local celebrity, inspiring Halloween costumes, but it also got her briefly handcuffed after police ticketed her for disorderly conduct when a crowd formed around a standoff. She disputes the charge and plans to fight it in court, arguing her protest is protected free speech in a public space.
Why it matters: Marvin's protest taps into a bigger argument: who gets to decide how sidewalks are used as companies roll out automated machines into shared public space. She and some supporters say the robots are a hazard for people with mobility issues and a threat to delivery jobs. Others passing by just want their food to arrive. Pew Research has found most Americans are more worried than optimistic about AI's effects, and similar friction is showing up elsewhere, including protests against driverless taxis and data centers, suggesting the unease isn't limited to one city or one robot.
How the robots work: Avride's machines use cameras, sensors and AI software to navigate sidewalks and pick up and drop off food orders. The company has deliberately designed them to look friendly, with cartoon-like screen faces, because it wants pedestrians to feel at ease rather than alarmed by an unfamiliar object rolling past them. When users complained that idle robots looked broken, Avride added a sleeping 'zzz' animation to signal the robot was simply waiting for an order, and the complaints stopped. Legally, Pennsylvania's Act 106 of 2020 already defines these robots as 'pedestrians,' giving them a formal right to share the sidewalk with people.
The rollout: Avride runs close to 1,000 delivery robots across more than 25 college campuses and is expanding into cities like Jersey City and Austin; competitor Serve Robotics operates roughly 2,000 more nationwide. Not every city is welcoming them the same way: Toronto banned sidewalk delivery robots outright in 2021. In Philadelphia, reactions have shifted from curious selfies when the robots launched in March to widespread indifference now. Marvin's court date is still pending, and she says she intends to keep standing in the robots' path until then.