The robots are among us! Bearing snacks!
MIAMI — When James Cameron was mapping out the details of his post-Skynet robot apocalypse for the Terminator movies, he didn’t bother making the droids cute. He made them scary.
Meanwhile, the director who went with cute was another techno-geek, George Lucas, who packed 1977’s Star Wars with cheerily chirping ambulatory characters like R2D2.
But maybe that’s how the robots eventually get us: through adorable delivery.
You’ll see them quite often in Miami and elsewhere now, especially near the Brickell and Miami Beach area, rolling down the sidewalks, looking like picnic baskets on wheels. They’re how many Uber Eats get delivered nowadays. People don’t look twice to see a midget ‘bot roll past them on the walkways. (It was only a matter of time before the world became like the crowded streets of Mos Eisley, where people and droids share pedestrian space.) At first I thought they were sidewalk sweepers or movable trash cans.
Then I ordered Uber Eats from my hotel. The app said there wasn’t a driver available but a droid named HANAN from the company Serve Robotics would be delivering my pulled pork sandwich and key lime pie. Awesome.
Food delivery robots seem like a godsend in places with heavy traffic. They’re seemingly safer than bikes and motorcycles, though they can seem a little naïve. One robot in Miami was plowed over by a Brightline metro train, and they sometimes get stuck at curbs. They’re not very fast, but they are cute. And they’re learning.
The way it works is, you get an Uber message when your delivery robot is approaching your address. You take out your phone and sort of signal to it as it plods along the sidewalk towards you. Is this the droid you’re looking for? Good! Aim your phone cam at the QR code on top of the delivery box; it unlocks, and voila! Robot-delivered snackage. (Serve Robotics says that “each robot holds up to four large pizzas plus drinks and sides in an insulated compartment.”)
The autonomous delivery robots are already quite popular in places like China and Bangalore, useful for short-distance (up to 1.25 miles) delivery of food and other items. In the US, Miami seems like a good match for overtaxed DoorDash and Uber Eats apps. I must admit, when I first saw one slowly wheeling towards me on the wide sidewalk near Bayside, I was puzzled and amused. I knew it was droid, so I did my best Yul Brynner in Westworld and aimed a finger gun at it. Bang bang! Not nice. The droid paused for a few seconds, seemingly analyzing whether I was the customer or a possible threat. I felt bad for teasing R2D2, so I stepped aside to let it pass. (They’re just so darn cute.)
Would delivery droids work in Manila? Absolutely not. Their AI sensors are overwhelmed by too many complications, such as wiseass humans, or noise, or street debris, or too many inputs, such as bikes, trikes and jeepneys. So any location in busy Makati or EDSA, they’d be robot toast. Plus the droids rely on well-paved sidewalks, which in Metro Manila are a scarcity. The robot invasion would be easily defeated by our metro’s crappy roads.
But sayang. They’d be kind of fun to have around. Pinoys would definitely go to town adding modifications to make them more Filipino, such as LED disco lights, chrome, day-glo murals and horse-team hood ornaments. You’d put your stamp on those robots.
Another nice thing about the food bots: they don’t require tipping. Everybody else in the States does, even for simply ringing up your order. So, at least for now, it’s refreshing to find something that has no need for our filthy lucre. Just saying.
