alt Hacker News1) "Take over" is slanted language. More accurately "Some residents complain about delivery robots on sidewalks"
2) Remote control delivery carts are much safer and less intrusive than double parked delivery cars (sometimes unlicensed, untagged, and uninsured) or even delivery bikes (riding 20+ mph in the bike line or against traffic on 100+ pound "bikes").
True, they are less intrusive than double-parked cars, and maybe vs some bikes, but that does not mean it is still not corporations trying to take private profit from using a public space.
The videos of those particular bots show them taking up a substantial portion of the width of a sidewalk (and definitely the full width in tight spots next to trees & fences) and moving and positioning themselves very clumsily and discourteously. They just sit in the middle occupying something like half the sidewalk width trying to decide what to do next, forcing people to walk to both sides in ~1/4 of the width. These things are not even close to ready for prime-time.
It is rude as a human to just stop in the middle of the sidewalk and unfold your map to figure out where you are going.
Programming in this kind of rudeness is just stupid, and will rightly generate backlash that will not be good for the companies. Of course safety is first, but it'd be more safe and courteous to have it hug one side of the walk. And if you cannot do that safely, not only are you not ready for prime-time, you aren't ready for public Alpha tests.