Bomb hoax leads Starship to temporarily suspend food delivery robots

A suspension of Starship Technologies’ autonomous food delivery service at Oregon State University Corvallis campus this week highlights an emerging challenge for companies operating robotics and unmanned vehicles — the potential for misuse and threats as they are integrated into day to day life.

Starship was forced to halt its robotic delivery operations on the OSU campus on Tuesday afternoon after a student claimed over social media to have hidden bombs inside the small, cooler-sized robots. Though quickly deemed not credible, the threats led to emergency alerts being sent to people nearby. 

In response to the incident, a Starship spokesperson provided this statement:

“A student at Oregon State University sent a bomb threat, via social media, that involved Starship’s robots on the campus. While the student has subsequently stated this is a joke and a prank, Starship suspended the service. Safety is of the utmost importance to Starship and we are cooperating with law enforcement and the university during this investigation.”

The spokesperson added that they expect the robots to be back in service at OSU later this afternoon. VentureBeat has also reached out to the school for comment.

‘Avoid all robots until further notice’

An alert was sent out over X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and text message around 3:20 pm ET. “Bomb Threat in Starship food delivery robots. Do not open robots. Avoid all robots until further notice,” it read. 

For companies like Starship who have adopted autonomous technologies, malicious hoaxes and pranks could become an unfortunate cost of doing business. As robots are increasingly integrated into our cities and lives, ensuring resilience against bad actors will be paramount.

In April 2018, Starship Technologies launched a large-scale commercial autonomous delivery service aimed at corporate and academic campuses in Europe and the U.S. Starship saw huge potential for automated deliveries serving the needs of major employers and university populations. Its robots could deliver food orders or transfer other goods around large campuses. This marketplace was worth billions and predicted to grow with the pandemic.

By January 2021, Starship had goals to expand to 100 university campuses across Europe and the U.S. It reached 1 million autonomous deliveries, up from 100,000 in mid-2019. The milestone put it on par with top self-driving vehicle startups in miles logged.

Physical hardware necessitates physical security

Key partnerships with food providers like Sodexo and DoorDash allowed Starship to scale quickly at universities and corporate sites.

If you’re an executive considering new autonomous services, one lesson is the need for clear crisis response plans for emerging threats. Having established protocols with law enforcement can help ensure measured reactions during hoaxes.  

Maintaining public trust must also be a priority. That starts with companies making safety and ethics central to their technology roadmap. Of course, not all threats emerge from fear or naivete. As autonomous platforms expand, firms must guard against genuine criminal or terrorist misuse. 

The potential for nefarious misuse creates an imperative for executives to actively monitor the risks around new tech – like drones or robotaxis – as it is deployed. This includes red teaming and routinely stress testing systems against possible threats.