Where are the food delivery bots when we need them most?
I encountered my first delivery robot in D.C. A Starship robot was paused at a crosswalk by its human handler like an obedient dog off leash. The robot, its handler told me, was learning the streets so that it could one day cruise solo. That was three years ago. Since then, I’ve ordered more dinners from Shake Shack than I care to admit. Not one came in the compartment of an autonomous cooler on wheels.
The industry has made great strides in developing the A.I. technology that enables robots to learn and navigate terrain. “Almost anyone,” says Ju, “can make a robot that can traverse on its own and not get lost.” Human interaction and unexpected activity in the environment remain the real problems, she says.
Dai and Ju both expect that the delivery robot industry could advance during this uneasy time when a comfortable distance between friends is 6 feet or more. “People trying to minimize human interaction is a scenario in which the robots are perfect for,” says Dai. Refraction AI is building new REV-1 robots—at a pace of about one every other day—to serve the 400 customers in a pilot group. In China, the delivery app Meituan Dianping. Starship expanded its delivery area in Milton Keynes to offer service to an additional 180,000 people. At George Mason University, the robots kept running after most students had left campus. “I honestly appreciate it,” said student Clinton Carlson Jr. last Friday.
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