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WHEN WE FIRST got close to Dot, DoorDash’s new delivery robot, we looked right into its big blue, pixelated eyes and gave it a kick. A little one. A tap, really.
It’s not WIRED’s policy to be mean to 350-pound hunks of plastic on wheels. But it’s a big, cruel world out there, and delivery robots like Dot will have to face—are already facing, because Dot has just started doing deliveries in metro Phoenix—myriad dangers and challenges.
So many challenges, in fact, that although companies are making big strides in autonomous vehicles—two more companies launched public rides in the US just this month—delivery robots like Dot have followed a rockier road.
