No, this is not that robot. That robot is busy extracting bodily fluids in China, and if it were in San Francisco, Vince would probably already be writing it up. This robot, inaccurately named Tug, is at the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, and it’s busy dropping things off in rooms and looking far too much like Milton from Archer.
Tug is actually fairly impressive as a robot. It doesn’t use a beacon system, but rather an internal map of the hospital and a set of sensors to navigate for dropping off food, supplies, and other needs before dropping stuff off elsewhere. It’s actually built from the ground up to be polite and non-intrusive as it shuffles around, albeit the hospital had to do some robot training of its own, along the lines of “Don’t leave stuff in its way” and “It’s not going to hurt you.”
For those wondering what happened to the people who used to deliver sheets and haul away bedpans, it turns out that most hospitals ask their techs to do that work. Unsurprisingly, said techs do not complain about missing out on bedpan duty. That said, there is some question as to what will happen as medical robots become more complex, but, for now, everyone’s happy to see them drop off food.