The pandemic is bringing us closer to our robot takeout future

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/04/the-pandemic-is-bringing-us-closer-to-our-robot-takeout-future/

by deegles • 6 years ago

167 112 6 years ago

arstechnica.com

gorgoiler3• 6 years ago

Milton Keynes’s Q&A on Starship is rather fun:

https://www.aboutmiltonkeynes.co.uk/qa-on-mk-starship-delive...

...a welcome bit of the internet with less polish and a few corny jokes.

I must admit to being a bit embarrassed at never thinking of delivery drones meaning mars rover type drones. I always assumed that “drone delivery” would mean N-copters, but little rovers seem so much more sensible at least in a city with ample modern design like Milton Keynes.

(Mars rovers probably cope with cobbles ok?)

amelius3• 6 years ago

Yes but these rovers are quite slow.

gorgoiler3• 6 years ago

I guess latency isn’t an issue when you have bandwidth / throughput to make up for it? Not for kebabs though (pleases to see that as one of the trial businesses in MK, hah!)

Overnight silent electric delivery with custom delivery machines has historical precedent of course:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float

maxerickson• 6 years ago

That's due to the mass and power budgets for a Mars rover though, not some fundamental aspect of rovers.

numpad03• 6 years ago

I think it’s silly to scratch build rovers. Something like a motorized Renault Twizy would be a better fit.

globular-toast2• 6 years ago

It makes a lot of sense in Milton Keynes. Unfortunately that kind of design makes it an incredibly boring place to live, but there are some benefits.

Aaronstotle• 6 years ago

There was a startup in Berkeley called Kiwibots pretty much did the same thing. The concept seemed promising at first glance, yet I always thought they were too small. I feel like if they made them cooler sized, and had them go on routes like an ice cream truck it would prove to be a better business model than a bunch of tiny robots going to an fro to deliver a bag of chips.

Jasper_• 6 years ago

They faked the bots.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Kiwibots-win-fa...

The Kiwibots do not figure out their own routes. Instead, people in Colombia, the home country of Chavez and his two co-founders, plot “waypoints” for the bots to follow, sending them instructions every five to 10 seconds on where to go.
On the ground in Berkeley, people also do a lot of robot support. Traveling at 1 to 1½ mph, the bots would take too long to chug to local restaurants, so Kiwi workers pick up the food at restaurants and take it via bikes or scooters to meeting spots around campus to insert into an insulated bag in the bots’ storage compartment.
The average distance a robot covers for a delivery is about 200 meters (656 feet, or one-eighth of a mile) which makes them fall short of a “last-mile” solution.

This isn't real robot automation. It's just trying to shove the human worker out of sight, down the end of the road.

av_engr• 6 years ago

Kiwibot isn't exactly that. Their vehicles are basically modified Traxxas RC cars and their "autonomy" is offshoring remote control work to Columbian workers for situation that the robot can't react to. Unlike Mars Rover that are designed to handle very rough and unexpected terrain, those Traxxas RC probably do not have that stability over obstacles that a mars rover have.

nocubicles• 6 years ago

The robot courier company, Starship, mentioned in the article, layed off most of their employees like month ago because their business was not viable anymore. Here's the news article in Estonian, couldn't find anything in English https://www.err.ee/1069888/robotkullerite-tootja-starship-te...

jkaljundi3• 6 years ago

They temporarily laid off just the low-level operators, think of them as call centre staff or Uber drivers. These are the people who when a robot gets stuck help them cross a street or navigate around an obstacle. Think of them as support side of the business. The only reason being because US universities are on hold because of the coronavirus.

The new product development, software and hardware side is still thriving.

mb_722• 6 years ago

Here's the English version: https://news.err.ee/1070009/starship-technologies-makes-redu...

I live in Tallinn, but haven't once seen a Starship bot, guess I'm in an area not covered yet (Sikupilli).

ipsum22• 6 years ago

The article doesn't mention it in the first few paragraphs but these delivery robots are not autonomous, they're controlled by people, usually in a different country.

Here's an article detailing Kiwi's approach. Every other delivery robot is the basically the same.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Kiwibots-win-fa...

The Kiwibots do not figure out their own routes. Instead, people in Colombia, the home country of Chavez and his two co-founders, plot “waypoints” for the bots to follow, sending them instructions every five to 10 seconds on where to go.
As with other offshoring arrangements, the labor savings are huge. The Colombia workers, who can each handle up to three robots, make less than $2 an hour, which is above the local minimum wage.

jkaljundi3• 6 years ago

Actually no, Starship is like 99% autonomous and self-driving, and just a few % of special cases are handled manually by the operators.

mattigames• 6 years ago

He is talking about the other company mentioned, "Kiwibot"

ipsum22• 6 years ago

Do you have a source for this? I haven't heard of any delivery company truly being 99% autonomous.

michaelbuckbee• 6 years ago

This is a really clear example of the "automation isn't replacing, it's augmenting" trend that is just going to continue to grow.

I think this is what we're going to see in more and more sectors: automation making it so that there is a 3x to 10x increase in productivity by making a few people hyper-productive.

stri8ed• 6 years ago

Doesn't augmenting imply replacing at least a big percentage of workers?

makomk• 6 years ago

This seems more like a clear example of the "automation is just a smokescreen for moving the jobs to countries with lower cost-of-living and pay" trend.

jkaljundi3• 6 years ago

RaaS - robots as a service. It's interesting to not companies like Starship do not sell their robots, but provide everything as a service.

rwmj• 6 years ago

This is pretty common. Many jet engines (on airplanes) are sold as a service nowadays. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/12530

TeMPOraL• 6 years ago

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Rent a man a fishing rod, and you make him a slave to you forever.

malandrew• 6 years ago

That man can sell excess fish and buy his own rod.

catalogia• 6 years ago

I hope these robots know how to break a twenty. Human delivery people can, and vending machines can, so I expect that to be reasonable to implement in delivery robots.

Yet for some reason, I feel pretty pessimistic about this.

krapp• 6 years ago

Don't worry - in the post-crash automated economy of the future no human will ever have an entire twenty dollar bill to break.

busymom02• 6 years ago

I feel like this whole thing will also make cash payments extinct as that requires touching dirty bills. I even think the credit machines will become tap only so you don’t have to touch dirty machines used by thousands of others and enter PIN numbers.

djohnston• 6 years ago

I hope cash doesn't go extinct, unless it's replaced by crypto that can guarantee anonymity like monero or whatever it was called.

jotm• 6 years ago

I don't know about the US, but there's a major push to move to electronic payments around the EU. Bank accounts are free, terminals are dirt cheap, even the poorest get contactless cards.

Not to mention that cash+coin machines that can also give change have been around and reliable for a while now. But having autonomous cash-filled robots around is just inviting trouble.

tiku2• 6 years ago

I'm just hoping for more sushi like belt restaurants..

meitham• 6 years ago

I would rather see my food coming directly from the kitchen to me, than seeing it orbiting around every customer breathing zone first!

numpad03• 6 years ago

Doesn’t make much sense to put steaming steaks on a conveyor... A lot of places use tablet menu/ordering with pictures these days. Like a supermarket grocery ad but you can tap to add to your order and send it. That with a robotic delivery could be a future.

tiku2• 6 years ago

I saw movies of places that did this exactly, the belt does not travel across the restaurant first but directly to the table..

Bombthecat• 6 years ago

I work in devops (devsecops) i get more recruiter mails than before now...

Talked to others in AI/ ML. They also feel like they get more mails than before... Automation definitely is now more on the radar then before.

seemslegit• 6 years ago

The number of times it took me to look at the title until 'takeout' wasn't read as 'takeover'

JoeAltmaier5• 6 years ago

Secure delivery is a must. And not to the street or even front doorstep. Who has a front doorstep? Most folks live in an apartment building. How about delivery to the balcony? To the back porch? To a secure box at the curb? To wherever the receiver marks as their delivery spot?

Armisael16• 6 years ago

Most folks live in an apartment building.

Source?

JoeAltmaier5• 6 years ago

The world. Ok in the US its 3/4 in houses and 1/4 in apartments. Its as high as 50/50 in some EU countries.

Its arguable, apartment-dwellers patronize takeout more than folks with houses (and kitchens and larders and cooking equipment and storage).

mb_722• 6 years ago

This is definitely the case in Tallinn, Estonia - home of Starship - yet they only seem to cover a small area of the city. I had assumed that there still always was a human following each 'bot around.

ckdarby2• 6 years ago

Delivery to street isn't complicated and is straight forward to being secure.

Drone tells you it has arrived and then in the app there's an unlock button in the app.

Drone arrives & calls where you're asked to press 1.

Drone arrives & SMS where replying would achieve the same.

Drone arrives and connecting Bluetooth via the app would unlock.

It's 2020, KISS mentality. Assumption: Why do us in software development have a tenancy to over engineer.

JoeAltmaier5• 6 years ago

Assuming there's somebody there to get it, and very promptly. Imagine the drone hovering there, battery draining, holding your dripping vindaloo and you're in the bathroom or bedroom with your sweetie and in no hurry to do any of the above.

Maybe secure delivery isn't hard for takeout, because usually somebody is hungry and wants it (usually). But UPS or Fedex happens when nobody's home. That's probably the better user story for secure delivery.

Jemm• 6 years ago

One thing I never hear mentioned is, how are meal g to load these things?

Is there going to be a lineup of them outside the restaurant to which staff must carry the product, will the drones, enter the restaurant, will there be some other way?

lstamour• 6 years ago

The drone has a barcode or order number display, and like Uber Eats and friends, the restaurant has an order code. The restaurant checks the drone to see what order it expects, and either hits a button to say it’s not ready yet or loads the order in and it’s done. They could theoretically have cheap touch screen tablets in them. That said, I figure they will have human supervision for the foreseeable future, at least a decade. They would basically need to be disposable for robots to make deliveries completely unsupervised. Which in turn means you could just have a human voice on a speaker, watching the robot and interacting, or you could station such humans at the restaurants themselves, to service the bots etc. for use in a known-safe, well-mapped delivery area.

gfxgirl• 6 years ago

it's hard for me to imagine this ever working in the USA. People will assault the drones both "4 teh lulz" and to steal the contents and or the drone itself. A car/truck/bike usually has a person involved and for whatever reason that's usually somewhat of a deterrent (though obviously not always). But an unmanned machine that is both valuable in and of itself and is almost guaranteed to have stuff inside? I can't imagine them not being stalked in droves.

Yes they can have cameras on them but the snatchers will just drive up in an unmarked van with masks on and dump them in their foil covered interior.

gorgoiler3• 6 years ago

Introducing them initially as being for caregivers and the vulnerable could cement the idea that they are not be messed with.

Now is a good time for that kind of social engineering: put an NHS logo on them, for example, and have the robots initially doing food delivery for shielded households.

In the long run: 1 in N robots could contain a dye pack, as a deterrent to robot capture and theft of contents.

ape4• 6 years ago

I guess pepper spray wouldn't be allowed

globular-toast2• 6 years ago

We have those kinds of people in the UK too, unfortunately.

dannyw• 6 years ago

These robots are GPS tracked, not to mention lockable and remotely deactivable. All you looted was some plastic, useless cameras, circuit boards, and mini wheels as well as a GPS tracker. Break it open and you'll find $25 worth of food inside.

How is the risk/reward worth it?

brandall10• 6 years ago

Could there not be a tie-in with law enforcement as a deterrent? Unlike electric scooters, a delivery drone has a known route it is following (and no one is picking it up to be recharged), the moment it is disturbed/picked up a nearby police officer can be notified.

Also perhaps it could use pepper spray or be equipped with a paint charge to mark the attackers, could possess a sonic weapon... or maybe it can have a self-defeat routine that essentially destroys its contents/electronics to make it useless.

As with most deterrents, the most sophisticated attackers will be able to get around them. It's just that inflection point where it becomes a problem economically, that probably can be overcome.

riku_iki2• 6 years ago

there are plenty of stealable electric scooters on the streets already.

ghaff2• 6 years ago

To the degree people really worry about the risk of going out to a restaurant to have a meal or pick up takeout, they'd probably be better off cooking at home more.

mdgrech23• 6 years ago

depends on the value of your time.

Melting_Harps• 6 years ago

I'm thinking we're at the living life vicariously through an avatar/online persona portion of that narrative, I just read that people who are suffering from loneliness have taken to Virtual dating on Animal crossing:

https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/15/21220911/animal-crossing-d...

I think that Second Life showed it's potential, and now this has solidified it as a viable alternative to something like Tinder--which was always incredibly odd to me.

Which is so weird, because I've encountered the complete opposite; now that more people have so much free time most people want to engage in way more small talk randomly with me.

And despite what anyone tries to tell me, simulated dating is a waste of time to me; half of the thrill from interacting with potential partners is from the social cues and the innate responses/reactions you get from them when flirting and such. I'm unlikely to ever get that butterfly feeling from an emoji or heart icon emitted from an Animal crossing character. I've had my share of long distance relationships and even those are a strain on one's psyche an enough to warrant appreciating a maybe less appealing, but more readily tangible partner.

What this has also taught me is how sad loneliness becomes, especially in old age, and the things some people will do/pay for just to escape its pitfalls. Some people's relationships in my inner circle seem like the worst of all possible outcomes to me, but the alternative of living alone when your kids are grown up and out of the house must be incredibly empty if you're divorced and away from all of them and all you had was work to keep you distracted from it all. I need to learn from their lessons for what lies ahead and apply it to my own Life.

But personally, this is making me miss my analog Life even more; I want to go outdoors in Nature and go for an aimless stroll, or freely sunbathe while I surf at the beach and then go to restaurants and clubs at night and meet more new people. I just had my first experience with an online meetup, aside from the novelty of talking to people in voice with strangers rather than text on telegram chat groups, it had no real appeal to me and I'm unlikely to wake up so early for it next time.

Robots are for replacing the need for Human drudgery into more time for leisure, passion projects and hobbies for us, not supplanting Life itself. So if they can do that form of 'take over' than I'm all for it and it cannot come soon enough. I just hope we have the good sense as a species to adapt to that transition with sensible infrastructure in place to support it.

crazygringo5• 6 years ago

Given just how much our lives in urban areas depend on package and prepared food delivery and grocery delivery, I've often wondered where the point is where vacuum-tube delivery to individual apartment buildings becomes cheaper?

If the "last mile" of all deliveries for all items under, say, 1.5 feet in diameter, were handled via computer-controlled canister. (Or these days, if it weren't even by vacuum, but just electric motors buzzing down tubes.) Where your hot dinner arrives in 5 minutes rather than 25, and your Amazon Prime purchase shows up from the warehouse in 20 minutes rather than next-day.

For places like Manhattan, it's just hard for me to imagine that over a decade, it wouldn't be cheaper to build and use a system like that, than to maintain our current army of tens of thousands of delivery people across restaurants, UPS, Amazon, USPS, etc.

kovek• 6 years ago

When I did Domino’s Pizza delivery, some addresses were well known, and for most addresses we did not need directions because we delivered to those neighborhoods so often. So, I see what you mean. However, I think tubes would be too much maintenance. I think low-altitude package throwing from building to building would be better. Every building would have a net and a catapult/canon on it. That would not work for cooked meals but could work for some fragile items. To prevent failures from falling on people’s heads....

I re-evaluate my idea. Have wires running from building to building, and just have a motorized package holding robot slide down those wires to the right building.

Klinky2• 6 years ago

It would be kind of interesting if skyscrapers were connected to each other via gondola lifts/aerial trams. However, I don't think this could be retrofitted, since likely supporting the cabling and trams was not in the original structural design of most skyscrapers.

TenJack• 6 years ago

I haven't done the math but my guess would be the maintenance costs would be pretty high over time and as energy costs drop, drones could be feasible.

Klinky2• 6 years ago

The reality is that food delivery already has high costs for vehicle maintenance and the person doing the delivery often bears that burden themselves, as well as being typically underpaid or in danger of wage insecurity, along with lack of benefits. Those are hidden/socialized costs of our current food service and delivery infrastructure. Engineering a robot that may not be economically desirable when the current system lets you offload a significant cost of human labor.

GuiA• 6 years ago

Seems like a hard business proposition. Huge infrastructure investment upfront, heavy maintenance needed, you get a very inflexible system, etc. Not to mention, what happens when Amazon uses 99% of the capacity and you can’t get your package through?

It’s hard to beat trucks and minimum wage drivers (and everyone’s hoping that the “driver” part of the equation will be removed sooner rather than later)

If we’re going super future, drones seem more plausible.

crazygringo5• 6 years ago

I don't know though. If they're just "dumb" tubes with smart commoditized capsules, it seems like maintenance could be relatively low.

And obviously Amazon using 99% capacity isn't a worry because 1) it would have to be built for full demand for a planned population and 2) in times of over-demand, market-based pricing simply selects consumers willing to pay the most.

Beating trucks and minimum wage drivers has to happen at some point. Drones might be useful in suburbs and more rural areas, but I'm trying to imagine constant swarms of them all day long over Manhattan and it looks like a nightmare to me.

adventured• 6 years ago

I've often wondered where the point is where vacuum-tube delivery to individual apartment buildings becomes cheaper?

If you're including everything into the factoring: never.

For places like Manhattan, it's just hard for me to imagine that over a decade, it wouldn't be cheaper to build and use a system like that

Allocation calculations never actually function that way. Your premise can only exist in a vacuum where humans and governments and corporations don't exist, only robots. There's no omnipotent creature that can forcibly pull the unit capital away from the army of tens of thousands of deliveries and centralize it to the tube system instead. It won't self-organize because the cost calculations for traditional deliveries are individualized (I pay $5 for my pizza or sandwich delivery; not $50,000 in personal taxes for a hopeful tube system I'll never get my money back out of in my lifetime), whereas to pay for the super tube system you have to slam everyone (have to spread it out to everyone) with a massive on-going cost until it's finished (which none of them will want to pay), for services maybe they'll use in the future (it'll take multiple generations to justify the cost, which you won't be able to convince individual taxpayers to fund when there is an existing functional system that is 85% good enough).

The cost requires an extreme centralized outlay of capital, which nobody can raise given the other factors; nobody can get the building done, and nobody can get through the zoning and regulations, and nobody can spare the 10x time requirement (10x worse than it should be, as all construction is these days) to get through all of it.

It requires a nationalized step-in by some large government authority. They have to simultaneously outlaw the old system (or hyper tax it to death, same thing in effect), while drilling people on taxes to supposedly build the new system (which will take forever, go drastically over-budget, and underwhelm for the value vs cost in the end).

1.6 million people live in Manhattan. Do the math for just 500,000 * $50,000 = $25 billion. That $25b figure is likely on the low side by anywhere from 2x to 4x minimum, if you attempted to tear up all of Manhattan to do it. The cost would be staggering, and then it would take decades to reach completion.

Nobody is signing up for those taxes so they can get their pizza or Amazon delivery via a tube instead.

crazygringo5• 6 years ago

I can't speak to the exact costs involved, obviously.

But I believe you're being far too pessimistic as to organizing it. The "omnipotent creature" to organize it just... city government. Roads and utilities are already built/managed well enough. You're right it won't "self-organize" -- the city has to contract and build it. It's paid for, like other large projects are, out of bonds paid off over deacdes by taxes, and/or contracts to operate. Nobody has to "outlaw the old system".

You just build it gradually, and UPS/USPS/etc. will take advantage of it wherever it can (for all addresses supported) because it will be by definition cheaper.

Governments manage big infrastructure projects all the time. This is how major bridges and tunnels get built. All of your arguments apply to pretty much most big government projects.

Nobody is signing up for those taxes so they can get their pizza or Amazon delivery via a tube instead.

My point is that yes they absolutely will if it's cheaper in the end. Making up numbers, if you spend $400/year on last-mile shipping and delivery, it's financed by bonds up-front, and the extra taxes are on average $200/year/person for the next 40 years (but with progressive taxation)... then of course people would be signing up for that. Vastly better delivery service for half the price? Why wouldn't they be?

elsurudo• 6 years ago

New York and some other cities had such a thing over a hundred years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_Yor...

ghaff2• 6 years ago

I'm actually guessing that, while fewer packages, there were probably more deliveries 100 years ago than there are today. A huge amount of shuffling paper around--see bicycle messengers--has been replaced with electronic transfers.

Eric_WVGG• 6 years ago

ahh you beat me to it… "fax me a burrito"

ericjang• 6 years ago

There is an excellent short sci-fi film exploring this concept by a former technical director at Pixar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv30ExfoKcc

hhs2• 6 years ago

This is neat. More broadly, wonder why a tubing system isn’t used for common waste and recycling?

riku_iki2• 6 years ago

larger mail boxes with arrival notification on your phone would serve the same function with much smaller investments.

crazygringo5• 6 years ago

The point is for it to be far faster and far cheaper.

Larger mail boxes and notifications achieves neither.

sails• 6 years ago

I often wonder about food as a provided utility in some future. Interesting idea to deliver by tube.

kurthr• 6 years ago

Why bother installing all the infrastructure? "Move fast and break things" with ballistic delivery! There's usually something close to a parabolic arc that will get where it needs to... Of course things (like pizza) that don't deal well with being crushed into cylinders at high acceleration (and jerk) probably won't do well in either. But canned liquids should do it justice.

Lot's of impact absorbing material to carted off as trash though so not really eco friendly.

HeWhoLurksLate• 6 years ago

So I'm hearing T-Shirt cannon, but for beer?

trianglem• 6 years ago

My co-op in midtown has an old US postal pneumatic system.

zelon88• 6 years ago

New York already has an underground steam system. They're constantly digging that up for maintenance. While they're in there maybe this could be installed.

carapace2• 6 years ago

There was a movie where no one leaves the house and everything was delivered by pipes. The kitchen had pipes for everything: milk pipes, syrup pipes, etc. And outside the house was just a big dark infrastructure filled with pipes.

I can't recall the name... (It's not "Meet the Applegates" but I think it might have come out around the same time. Had a real "Brazil" feeling to it. Might have been British.)

dane-pgp• 6 years ago

Are you thinking of "Dark City"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_City_%281998_film%29

m463• 6 years ago

vacuum tube delivery might just deliver covid at high velocity everywhere.

I propose electronic delivery methods, maybe DSL + 3d food/widget/organ printers. The printers would require anti-virus software.

andrewfromx• 6 years ago

we use doordash and grubhub all the time but the other day we noticed our local chick-fil-a offering delivery from their app. No 3rd party delivery service, just THEM. We tried it and I could not believe how fast the food arrived and was placed on our door-step (with no human delivery guy interaction). It was like 7 mins after the order all the food was there. I thought it was a joke my kid was playing on me at first with clever bags and boxes from previous orders. But nope, it was the real order!

t-writescode• 6 years ago

I've been hearing from my local shops, too, that they do not like DoorDash or GrubHub. Apparently it makes restaurants look bad? And I guess they skim too much off the top? I've definitely been asked to do take out or use the company's delivery service when possible.

I guess Chick-Fil-A took notice of that, too.

If you can, I would call the local shops you're ordering from and see if they would rather you do delivery with them, too, especially if it's a really local shop, not something a town over.

1123581321• 6 years ago

Not too surprising from the company that deploys kubernetes to every local restaurant. :) https://medium.com/@cfatechblog/bare-metal-k8s-clustering-at...

Their own equipment engineering is also impressive, based on a high school classmate’s work there in Atlanta.

gnicholas• 6 years ago

the most direct route, a seven minute walk, required going up a stairway and going near a construction zone. My robot instead opted to drive to the nearest main road, which almost doubled the travel distance.

My first thought was: yet another reason that ramps required by the ADA are useful, beyond just serving people in wheelchairs. Universal design for the win!

My second thought was: at some point, these ramps/paths will probably be overrun by delivery robots, to the extent that wheelchair users will have difficulty navigating ramps/paths that were originally built with them in mind. We'll have to make sure that delivery robots work in concert to allow humans to pass (e.g., by all moving to one side of the lane).

The pandemic is bringing us closer to our robot takeout future

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