The Robots That Are Taking Over Your Food Delivery
Technology removing humans in effort to make restaurant delivery faster and better
Robots are carting fried chicken through Chicago streets. Drones are parachuting Panera strawberry lemonade down to homes in Charlotte, N.C. AI-powered scales at fast-food restaurants are making sure delivery orders that go out aren’t missing burgers.
Billions of dollars in investment and years of research are going into efforts to fix a modern convenience: food delivery.
Restaurants in the U.S. receive around 4 billion food-delivery orders a year through apps alone, according to data-insights company Consumer Edge. But hungry customers often end up disappointed. Couriers juggle multiple deliveries, resulting in cold burritos. Drinks are spilled, fries are shorted. Delivery charges grow ever higher, as do suggested tips and menu prices.
Enter robotics companies, which have received around $3.5 billion in investment since 2019 in an effort to make food delivery better, faster and cheaper, according to research provider PitchBook.
Typical delivery charge: $7-$10. No tip,
Delivery radius: about 7 miles.
Delivery time: about 5 minutes.
It’s coming, I guess. There are visuals of “flight drones”, but a large part of this is also “crawlers”, drones which navigate sidewalks to roll your food to you
Recently when traveling in New Zealand we saw some robotic machines we hadn’t encountered before.
We entered an elevator in a 20 story hotel and were followed in by an autonomous machine about 4 feet tall and looking a bit like R2D2. As it entered the elevator it announced “please hold the door”. It then told us it was a carpet cleaner. It rode the elevator to the next stop and got out to continue cleaning the hall carpets.
We had dinner in the same hotel and saw another robotic device that delivered drinks and appetizers to patrons at their tables.
All over NZ we saw robotic lawn mowers (looking kind of like Roombas). I suppose these are common in the US, too, but I hadn’t encountered them.
If they are flying, and you shoot them down, it will be a big fine. I have a pool in my backyard and have had a few fly over, but they have been respectful and not loitered. But it will become a big privacy problem. In Nevada, if someone has a wall, it is against the law to look over it. (Peeping Tom?)
They are covered under the FAA so it would be like shooting down any plane. You would need to have a shotgun to shoot them down and that can be a little loud and I haven’t seen what a good silencer costs, since they are legal now. They do have jammers for them but they are a little expensive.
Certainly not advocating this but since these things hover and are likely doing so when they arrive at their destination, a small caliber rifle (.22) is likely both sufficient and very quiet by comparison.
Hawkwin
Who doesn’t expect such vandalism to increase dramatically due to the area (dense urban) such drones will likely be deployed.
Maybe a semi-automatic? The ones I have seen are most likely hobbiest drones, and they hover but seem to move around a lot while hovering, and it isn’t in any pattern that is discernible. So while a 22 could do the job it might take a few shots and every bullet you miss goes somewhere. Where a low base shotgun pattern only carries a short distance and the pellets, when they come down, have less of a chance hurting someone. But it not something I would do nor would I condone it. The FAA fines keep most people on the straight and narrow.
My NRA friend used to have (probably still does have) a .22 pistol. When we would go hiking, he would load it with “snake shot”. Basically, it makes the .22 a shotgun with tiny shot. I would imagine that would be great for taking out a drone hovering near you.
I remember when drones were relatively new, I was seeing clips of drones over peoples’ yards (based on the video from the drone), and the residents pulling out shotguns and blasting them (again, based on drone footage that ended abruptly after the shotgun was pointed at it).
I am smiling that you are considering that a drone shooter cares at all where the bullets are coming down.
As for shooting down, I was wondering about the rolling drones and seems people are not running them off the road? It’s what I think of out here in the boonies, if something was trundling along a remote state highway I’d be amazed if ‘hold muh beer’ Fred didn’t try to sideswipe it.
Used to be, no one blinked when gunshots went off in my (very rural, adjacent to national forest) neighborhood. Drones would be fair game. But it’s getting gentrified. About half the houses on my dirt road have sold in the past few years, and they all got expensive remodels. More likely to see a Porsche than a Remington now…
Sounds like parts of Vermont recently. Just had another neighbor pack it up and leave. Seems their house got bought without even hitting the market, to become a ski cabin.
Not sure what I think of that. As for drones, I might be the only one within miles with a hobby drone, for quick checks of the woods behind the house.
I wonder how this law is written exactly. There are hundreds of cases to take into account:
What if you are sitting on a lawn chair in your yard. Can you look in the direction of the fence and over it (at whatever angle between your eyes and the fence)?
What if you are on a raised deck in your yard. Can you look in the direction of that fence (at a lower angle now)?
What if you are in your second story bedroom with floor to ceiling windows. Can you look out your windows in the direction of the fence (at an even lower angle)?
If you have security cameras mounted around your house under the eaves, they will also look down at some angle beyond any regular height fence..
Finally, if you are flying a drone and taking video of the neighborhood at some downwards facing angle, can you do this? Realtors do this all the time. Insurance companies do this all the time now. Home inspectors do it as well.
Good question. I don’t think they will arrest you, but they could arrest you. A guy I worked with belonged to a nudist club. They used to throw parties in his backyard where his pool was. The Kids in the back of his yard used to get up on the fence and watch all the nude people. The kid’s mother turned them in and the cops came to her and told her they were completely in their rights to be nude in the backyard, and it would be her that would get arrested. Problem solved. But I haven’t dived into the laws, so I can’t say exactly how they would be enacted but only that they are there.
I want to borrow a cup of flour from my neighbor, I don’t have time to run over there myself.
So, I 3D print one of these, it crawls over, he puts the flour in the receptacle, n my drone crawls back to me.
Too complicated. When. You should be able to have a printer with cartridges full of molecules of wheat, corn, seeds, whatever, and just be able to print flour.
No need to leave the house, no need to inconvenience the neighbor, just print the food you need. I’ve seen it in Star Trek and Passengers and other places, so it must be possible. Why aren’t we doing that?
Seems like we could skip the intermediate step, no?
Where’s the fun in that?
Imagine the “fun” that ensues when this thing scurries or scuttles across a fence or pathway.
Climbs up the door frame to ring the bell.
