Betty by Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen for August 15, 2021

He’s lucky it was only set on stun

Broomie has a successor.

The pavement is for the people, not machines. When it’s already illegal to drive or park cars there delivery robots should be obliged to use the streets, too. If such things were used here I’d sue them to hell.

They’ve learned from HitchBOT.

As, indeed, HitchBOT taught us never to go to Philedelphia.

CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY!

I remember a story about a mall’s information robot. People carefully guided it into the fish pond.

You’ve been flagged, chump!

“Roll softly and carry a taser.” I, Robot

“Beep boop beep beep boop BRAAP”…

Aside from the humor, this strip is a good cautionary science fiction story, born out of speculation about changing technology and how it is going to affect us.

This reminds me of a first season episode of Lost in Space. The Robinsons were driving around in the Chariot when they were suddenly confronted by a giant, one eyed monster. They blasted it with a laser. Can’t help but wonder if today’s strip was inspired by that.

This is like kids teasing a dog. Fortunately, we’re dealing with adults (at least Betty is acting adult-ish) in this strip, and not blaming the ‘dog’ when it reacts and ‘bites’.

EX-TER-MIN-ATE!

Delivery robots? This is old news. Xerox had one delivering mail in Rochester decades ago in one of the large, old manufacturing buildings. Similar to this:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mailmobiles-mail-robots-technology-retirement

I want my Pizza Delivery bot and my Jonny-cab to be able to do this.