Uber Eats to rid itself of pesky human drivers with food delivery by robo Waymo Bad news if you're income-boosting, or God forbid trying to make a living, as an Uber Eats delivery driver because the robots are coming – to one part of the United States, at least. On Wednesday Uber announced a deal with Alphabet's Waymo to use the latter's self-driving car fleet as delivery vehicles around Phoenix, Arizona …
So, we've replaced the last-mile problem with a last-30-meters(or so) problem. Maybe getting the food from the vehicle to the customer is a suitable application for Elon's humanoid robot (price unknown and possibly, like full-self-driving awaiting just one more fix) or Boston Robotic's $75000 robodog. Or maybe Unitree's $1600 robodog (if it actually exists).
If you have an army of androids would you need a driverless car?
Even really dumb humans can be taught to drive, however poorly, so would it not be possible to teach a robot?
As the android would be equipped with hands, it could also be used for other tasks such as cooking, cleaning, washing dishes,
standing at the counter to take orders from barely verbal humans and many others.
This would also solve the "disabled people" objection as well as the 800-kilo immobile people one.
And, as android machinery may be cheaper to lease than humans are, it would cut down on the costs of wages, too.
An added benefit would be that no one, not the corporation, the franchisee nor the robot would be liable were it to defend itself.
Boons, bonuses and benefits all around.
The article did cover both questions: the app lets you opt out and, if there is an automated delivery, they don't take the tip. It's true that you have to go out to retrieve the delivery, and the points raised by others about those with disabilities that make that difficult are valid problems with the idea. I have a feeling a lot of people who don't have those concerns won't have a problem with that and may approve if the deliveries are cheaper, especially in a city like Phoenix whose unpleasant weather is usually just it being really hot, where a few seconds outside probably isn't too bad.
If we get rid of the rich executives, who will be left to exploit the poor? The job is harder than it looks, what with the taxing, the disenfranchisement, the distractions and the displacement. And the police! It's a lot of work, this keeping people down!
And Soylent Green isn't just good, it's available! Also, it's people. Soylent Green is made out of people. That's not just a slogan, it's our future. Also, our dinner.
Listen, without the lovingly handcrafted threat and misery, the less-wealthy aren't going to just destroy themselves. For that, we need billionaires and executives.
Remember, you can't commiserate without misery.
Self-driving cars have been around for quite a while, and they thought of that. If you attempt to steal the car it will simply not drive:
Man arrested and accused of trying to steal a self-driving taxi in L.A.
I wonder if the plan is to eventually replace the Waymo with either a starship "mothership" or a Yamaha Motodroid..
I also wonder if it would be simpler to install a system of pneumatic delivery tubes under each city, so that the meatbags never have to leave their pods
.. Although that solution is less flexible if the meatbags one day decide to come out, and need to be forcibly returned or neutralised
Spending millions of dollars on technology so that a tonne+ chunk of metal can autonomously convey a kg or so of cheese substitute and mechanically recovered meat from inconveniently outside one set of premises to inconveniently outside another is the kind of efficiency that would truly get the economy back on its feet. If not its consumers.
Would they be spending this if corrupt vote buying government were not constantly increasing their costs by mandating wages?
Will these morons in government ever understand that when you force someone to pay a wage that does not fit the job, they will find a way to not pay that wage! Either labor reductions, automation, or as we are now seeing in California, just shut the business down! In all these things, people lose their jobs!
HUMANS FIRST!
The simple answer to your first question is: yes, because they hope it will mean even bigger profits at some point. This has always been part of the plan.
Legislated minimum wages are often a symptom of failed wage negotiations. I'll answer your second question with another: should it be possible to pay someone less than they need to live off? When people can't earn enough to live on, there are costs to society and thus the economy as a whole. The gig economy deliberately seeks out unregulated parts of the economy where capital is at a potential advantage to labour (or resources) and claims this is innovation: it isn't.
The same logic could be applied to any technology. Spending millions so a chunk of metal that fails all the time when the vacuum tubes break so it can add up numbers, when we have banks of computers (people who perform calculations on paper) that can add just fine. Every technology can look unnecessary if you only consider its first application. Only by considering the capabilities available in the long term can you distinguish between those that are truly unnecessary with ones that may prove revolutionary.
I think you already know what the theoretical possibilities of advanced automated road travel are. We could have lots of discussion over whether this can be made safe or economically, or if they will ever be accepted by the public, or whether they will prove to be useful alternatives to automated fixed-route transportation, but I don't think we will get anywhere if we assume that the only thing they'll do is deliver lunch.
Much of the ills in society are about extremes.
As you state so its extreme to devote so much effort to transport a shitty fake cheese substitute. This effort contributes to even more traffic, causing millions more to waste more hours commuting and so on. ANd yet basically nobody stops to think how much fucking time and pollution is being wasted for this stupidity we call the rat race.
It will be interesting to see how the money for this is distributed; my guess is that most will be going to Waymo. Uber is continuing to use cash to buy customers in a desperate attempt to find a sustainable business model. My local electronic retailer has started offering delivery via Uber at rates that cannot interest any driver.
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