problems

When I was a child, I watched “The Jetsons” and “Lost in Space” and imagined my adult self living in a world of high-tech ease: flying cars, self-cleaning rooms, high-speed trains, personal jetpacks and wise-cracking robotic companions capable of solving any problem in a trice.

Instead I got Google (now with an irritating and frequently wrong AI feature), increased gridlock, Roombas, far too many passcodes/two-factor authenticator systems and a bunch of motorized ice chests cluttering up the sidewalks.

The last of which were recently banned, mercifully if temporarily, in Glendale. Reading about the city’s upcoming moratorium on delivery robots, I literally cheered. I hate them so much.

I know, I know, they’re adorable, with their wide “eyes” and squat toddler-like determination as they trundle along, pausing in careful recalculation whenever they encounter a curb, street sign, a sidewalk cafe table. Hating them makes me feel a bit like those folks who ban children from weddings or make snarky comments about dogs showing up just about everywhere (two things I would never do).

A Serve Robotics delivery robot heads to work Feb. 13. They navigate autonomously using LiDAR and only require human intervention if they get stuck, damaged or are heavily vandalized.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

But though I am happy to accommodate dog walkers, stroller-pushers and other slow-moving/space-requiring pedestrians, I am less happy to do so for a tricked-out little metal box as it picks its way over potholes and sidewalk cracks on a “heroic” mission to deliver takeout to someone who, presumably, lives less than a mile away from its source.

And it isn’t just cranky-pants impatience. I recently became part of a face-off between two opposite-running Coco bots on the small strip of sidewalk in front of Cafe Figaro. The minutes-long standstill forced several people into the street; many more, including my husband and his cane, engaged in a potentially perilous stutter-step around the two knee-high, randomly moving yet noncommunicative vehicles.

One of which was, for reasons of its own, sporting an American flag — maybe it wants to be a Mars rover when it grows up.

Delivery bots, including those made by Coco, a company begun in 2020 by two UCLA graduates, have been around for a while. Early rollouts, however, were small and often plagued by trouble. Stranded or struggling robots became the new Bird scooters — nifty ideas that proved more problematic in practice.

In the last two years, however, improved models have become an increasing presence; Coco, which has expanded across the country, recently announced a bigger, bolder next-gen model.

The Coco 1, left, alongside the new Coco 2 (Next-Gen) at the Coco Robotics headquarters in February in Venice. Coco Robotics launched its next-generation, fully autonomous delivery robot, Coco 2.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Many people love Coco and other delivery robots, which partially replace traffic-clogging, exhaust-spewing delivery drivers with a more environmentally friendly alternative.

Others do not, viewing the bots as sidewalk lice that create hazards and take jobs from humans. Several cities, including Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco, have already instituted bans; Glendale is, as Long Beach recently did, taking a less draconian approach, putting the robots on pause while city officials figure out a regulatory framework.

Good luck with that. The e-bike craze, which is putting many people, including kids, in the hospital at an alarming rate, has thus far defied similar regulatory frameworks. As with delivery robots, the possible benefits of e-bikes — environmentally friendly, traffic-decreasing, super fun to ride — created a demand that ignores the dangers created by popularity.

Unlike e-bikes, or the electric scooters that preceded them, delivery robots aren’t yet causing widespread physical harm. Even my own feelings for those motorized metal coolers are fueled by existential disappointment as much as personal irritation.

In many ways, the high-tech future I envisioned as a child has come to pass — we have computers in our pockets, driverless cars, thumbprint and face ID, and voice-activated remote controls for everything. We may not be able to teleport, either physically or via hologram, but we can Zoom or video chat with pretty much anyone anywhere. ChatGPT is not exactly J.A.R.V.I.S., but it’s something. High-speed trains, and pretty much any mass transportation improvement, continue to elude the United States, but one can experience them elsewhere.

Matt Wood, Serve Robotics supervisor, drives a robot to a holding area earlier this year in the company’s parking lot where it and 26 others were to be transported by delivery truck to a farther service location.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The problem is, of course, that reality is much more complicated than futuristic visions sold by “The Jetsons,” “Minority Report” or the cultural marketers of Silicon Valley. Like e-bikes, every advancement creates a host of new problems — hackers, identity theft, system failures, increased energy demands. Labor-saving devices are rarely that — instead labor is shifted, from one department to another, from the body to the brain, or standards are raised — when laundry is done by a machine, its operator must ensure that all clothing is bright, soft, sweet smelling and stain-free just as those who have been given a company smartphone must be available 24/7. After all, how hard is it to answer a text?

Delivery robots are both disappointing in their reality and alarming in their symbolic implication. With all manner of industries constricting and AI threatening entry-level positions, many people have become delivery drivers, full-time or as an economically necessary side gig. Are robots coming for them as well? And are we all going to step around them and post photos on Instagram as they do?

It’s a lot to put on a relatively new and small industry that remains, thus far, a cute and novel way to receive a salad or a few groceries. Those who fear imminent robotic world domination can actually take heart — like the AI actor Tilly Norwood, these little geezers have limited abilities. They don’t go very far, or move very fast; they are easily damaged and disabled (especially in Philadelphia). If they are the vanguard of a sentient nonhuman enemy, we don’t have much to fear yet.

Still, as these robots grow in number and size, those big innocent “eyes” and the cutesy design take on an unnerving air. As Albert Brooks said in “Broadcast News”: “What do you think the devil is going to look like if he’s around … he will be attractive, he’ll be nice and helpful.”

And deliver your lunch.

A record wave of early voting promises to cut crowding on election day, but the trend has also front-loaded this year’s election with problems — long lines at early-voting stations, missing absentee ballots and controversy over retooled rules for early balloting.

Analysts and opinion surveys project that more than 26 million of an estimated 120 million voters might cast their ballots before the traditional start of polling — at midnight on election eve in Dixville Notch, N.H.

Despite hopes that early voting would reduce anxiety after a highly contentious 2000 election, a recent survey found that 40% of Americans believe that most of the problems exposed in that election have not been corrected. And nearly half of Americans in another survey said they think this year’s results will be challenged in court.

Many local election officials share those fears. Already overtaxed by voting that now lasts for weeks, some doubt that their work will be finished Tuesday.

“It will not be over on Nov. 2, and you can put that on the record,” said Susan Miller, elections director for Colorado’s Jefferson County. “We have 12 days to certify provisional ballots. In Colorado, there is more than likely to be a recount.”

Miller says she has already been told about four or five groups that might file lawsuits to challenge results in her county, which includes the town of Golden. She worries that “another Florida” — with its 36-day recount and disputed ballots — could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“We’ve been working six-day weeks, 12-, 14-hour days for a month,” Miller said. “When the public calls and says they don’t trust us, it breaks my heart…. We’re at the point where we don’t care who wins. We just want him to win by a landslide. Then we don’t have to recount the ballots.”

The Washington-based Committee for the Study of the American Electorate has projected turnout as high as 60% this year (compared with 54% in 2000), which would mean voting by more than 120 million Americans. Twenty-two percent of them, or more than 26 million, planned to cast votes before Tuesday, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey.

That trend has been evident across the country, in states where the presidential election is close and where it is not, such as California.

In Palm Beach County, Fla., requests for absentee ballots have more than doubled, and retirees and others have waited as long as two hours in line at satellite voting stations. Iowa has seen a nearly 55% jump in absentee ballot requests. New Mexico’s secretary of state expects half of her votes to be cast before Tuesday. The number of residents on the Hawaiian island of Oahu asking for mail-in ballots has spiked by nearly 82%.

In California, an enormous jump in absentees has been led by Orange County, with an increase of 200,000 to about 450,000. Los Angeles County has seen a more modest 18% increase, to 740,000, said Conny McCormack, the county’s registrar-recorder.

Officials nationwide say the deluge of early voting has them in effect running two elections — requiring extra staffing and long shifts to handle absentees and then a second push to prepare election day polling places.

“It’s time-consuming and tiring,” McCormack said.

Most of those voting by mail will avoid such a crunch and should have their ballots counted without glitches, experts said. But there already have been some trouble spots.

In Broward County, north of Miami, officials have been deluged with hundreds of complaints from voters who say they never received their absentee ballots. U.S. Postal Service investigators were trying to find an undetermined number of the 60,000 ballots the county mailed out Oct. 7 and 8.

“That is something beyond our control,” said the county’s deputy supervisor of elections, Gisela Salas. “We really have no idea what’s going on.” Salas advised voters who did not receive their ballots to go to the county’s early-voting stations.

But Florida’s voting stations — at libraries, city halls and other civic buildings — have not necessarily made balloting easier.

In Del Rey Beach, Judy Sternberg nearly fainted after a two-hour wait in the sun. Paramedics came to her aid, but Sternberg, 69, was not about to go home.

“They really wanted me to come back a day later,” said Sternberg, who voted for President Bush. “I said, ‘I am not coming back. I am voting.’ ”

Attempts to clarify rules since the 2000 election have not eliminated disputes, particularly over how mail-in ballots should be treated. One of the most emotional and politically charged disagreements has been over military ballots from overseas.

Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania has been pressuring Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell to accept ballots from military personnel up to 15 days after the election.

Rendell has declined, saying he had already attended to the issue by making special accommodations for two counties, Venango and Huntingdon, which have presented evidence that military personnel got their ballots late. Those service members got new absentee ballots by express mail, with prepaid express mail envelopes in which to send their completed ballots back.

A federal judge last week backed Rendell, saying that overseas military voters should cast their ballots by Tuesday.

But other states, including Arkansas, Colorado and Florida — will allow absentee ballots from overseas to arrive at elections offices as much as 10 days after the election, as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday.

Another group that has complained about access to absentee ballots is college students. Although well over half of collegians this year plan to vote absentee, according to a Harvard University study, six states have laws that can make that difficult. In Louisiana, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, Nevada and West Virginia, voters must cast their first ballot in person, according to election watchers at Rock the Vote.

That means young people from those states who attend out-of-state universities may not get to vote, said Hans Riemer, Washington director for Rock the Vote.

“This is really made to disenfranchise college students,” Riemer said.

An additional concern could be presented to students in New Hampshire, who are warned on the secretary of state’s website that establishing their residence in the Granite State could affect insurance and some types of financial aid.

“This is a totally outrageous, preposterous, outlandish intimidation of young people,” Riemer said of state restrictions that affect students.

Not surprisingly, supporters of both Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry have claimed their side is getting the best of the early voting.

In most jurisdictions it is impossible to tell who is right. But a few states record the party affiliation of those voting absentee or at early voting locations.

In Polk County, the most populous in hard-fought Iowa, Democrats had a nearly 2-to-1 edge in early ballots cast — 32,924 to 17,340.

In Los Angeles, McCormack was crossing her fingers that voters were prepared for a long ballot, jammed with state propositions. If not, she predicted, “it could be really ugly.”

Gary Smith, the Forsyth County, Ga., director of elections, said many of his colleagues had taken to reciting what he called the “night-before prayer”:

“Dear God, don’t let this election be close.”