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posted by martyb on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the unintended-consequences dept.

Autonomous delivery robots, once the exclusive purview of 1980s sci-fi movies, are coming to a city near you, with promises of reduced labor costs, increased efficiency and the reduction of cars.

But as robot fleets proliferate – Starship robots perform food deliveries for DoorDash and Postmates in Redwood City, California, and Washington DC, while Marble robots will begin making deliveries for Yelp Eat24 in San Francisco on Wednesday – the question none of these companies seems to want to answer is this: are these the sidewalks that we actually want?

Sidewalk-traversing robots are one of several possible solutions to the pesky problem of “last-mile” logistics. Venture capitalists have poured millions into startups employing an army of independent contractors to provide instant gratification to urbanites. But the humans in this equation remain a significant cost, and innovators are looking to obviate them with automated solutions.

Amazon, UPS and Google are all working on an airborne method, which certainly makes for splashy PR stunts. But in cities, ground-based delivery services are a more practical solution.

Somehow the prospect evokes Jawas lurking in the dark, ready to pounce on unsuspecting robots.


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  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:29PM

    by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:29PM (#495949)

    So the first place this will be tried is in very densely populated urban cores. So lets send a very valuable robot loaded with instantly usable products, including hot food with fragrant aromas wafting from it, down streets packed with hungry homeless people, vibrant diversity and police who can be counted on to look the other way and hope for the best. Yea, that will work.

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