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Comment by Human-Cabbage | Hacker News Reader

A wheelchair user is a person. Uber’s property is not.

They're both classified as pedestrians under Pennsylvania law.

If an empty self-driving wheelchair were on its way to pick up its owner, would it be OK for a pedestrian to block its way?

There are no self-driving wheelchairs, let alone ones driving outside.

And in what world is it possibly driving around empty? Where's the owner, crawling around on the floor for fun?

There may be no self-driving wheelchairs today, but they will probably exist in a year or two. If/when they do exist, and a self-driving wheelchair were returning to its owner's home after being repaired or tuned up, would it be OK for a pedestrian to block its path, since it's not human nor currently carrying a human?

No there won’t be. They have vans that drop them off for people already.

And just to humor your ridiculous argument: yes it’s okay to do that. Stop wasting the little space there actually is for pedestrians with this unnecessary garbage.

It might be immoral, but certainly not illegal. But, what if the person it was driving to was planning to use it to commit crimes?! Then would it be okay?

And what if Superman was needed to save the world but he was immobilised by a chunk of kryptonite and this selfish protester was blocking the self-motorised claw machine that he’d reprogram (well, his agents would reprogram) into an improvised kryptonite removing device?

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