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What Happens When Robots Can Deliver Your Groceries? (venturebeat.com)
"What if you could get groceries in less than two minutes without even leaving your apartment?" asks VentureBeat. "Another beer...? Think guacamole would go extremely well with those Doritos you just opened?" Several grocery-delivery startups are already working to make this a reality. Slashdot reader moglito summarizes their vision of autonomous indoor-delivery robots from automated refrigerators servicing high-rise apartment buildings.
Coupled with AI algorithms for learning what residents like to consume, and algorithms for automatically restocking those items via a network of suppliers or logistics companies, this "bot-mart" could make grocery shopping a boring and time-consuming thing of the past... Will robots similarly reduce the need for a kitchen next?
Yes, the article also describes cooking robots (which can already prepare burgers, pizza, and sandwiches), as well as new automated delivery vehicles restaurants. "Perhaps the only question remaining is whether there is a business case for this," they point out -- though under some scenarios, it could actually prove cheaper than driving to the grocery store yourself. "Consumers will find it ever easier to get what they want, when they want it, where they want it."
Yes, the article also describes cooking robots (which can already prepare burgers, pizza, and sandwiches), as well as new automated delivery vehicles restaurants. "Perhaps the only question remaining is whether there is a business case for this," they point out -- though under some scenarios, it could actually prove cheaper than driving to the grocery store yourself. "Consumers will find it ever easier to get what they want, when they want it, where they want it."
age checking? or will this just not have 18+ or 21+ stuff to buy?
If you never want to leave your home. But why stop at that? Why not drug yourself strapped to the bed and get nutrition via IV? As long as the obese pay more for plane tickets and healthcare, I'm good.
Outside weather damage? or will they just bill the renter like the rent a car places do?
Then again, if you don't live in a large city, odds of surviving when it all turns to shit are better
.. when I pwn that thing and make it my personal slave? Free for Everyone!
Right now, when I go to the grocery store I bear the cost and risk of travelling. But if the grocery store or more likely a grocery warehouse is sending out autonomous vehicles they have to bear the risk or insure it away. It would involve more people and a lot more traffic on roads.
I have trouble seeing this working in many of the already crowded streets.
You used to go to the post office to collect your packages, but you wanted them delivered right to your door. Now you're too lazy to even go out to buy food, and you want people to bring the food to you instead. Next, you'll be offering services to chew your food, or to bring out a toilet in the living room so you don't even have to get off the couch to shit afterwards.
you could have a kiosk like refridgerater with touch screen and what you have and store also recuring purchases setup it would be delivered to the kiosk though and you can know when things are bad and you never run out of the recuring as it would replenish when its almost out. jetzins here we come
Delivering pre-packaged cans, bottles, and jars may indeed make sense, at some point - but I'd be leery about someone else picking my produce, eggs, perhaps even potato chips - unless there's a generous return policy.
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It has been mailman, pool cleaning boy, pizza delivery man. The grocery delivering robot will join this illustrious well known series, and take its due place.
steal the groceries, robot and all
Consumers will find it ever easier to get what they want, when they want it, where they want it
But none of them have any money or jobs to afford them. Using the free time they have they will be hunting and gathering food.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
So vending machines that provide room-service? (Bring on the hooker-bot/prosti-droid.) There's the problem of vending machines getting into elevators and navigating around people, in addition to receiving your order. More important, the reason why the halcyon decades (1930s-1950s) of vending machines ended is: 1) The high turn-over of stock (eg. sandwiches); 2) the lack of repeat business, which may not be an issue in a hotel; 3) the high cost of floor space requires that services (eg, storage, cooking, delivery) are centralized and batched.
The way that I read the article (sorry for not following /. tradition) is that you have a central grocery distribution point within the apartment building, condo complex or similar, and in those situations it could work, and becomes more viable the larger the apartment building/complex. For small apartment buildings, or for people who live in houses, it would almost certainly not be viable or workable.
Doing it the "other way" - you order online via and the groceries are shipped from a warehouse using some combination of delivery process that includes autonomous drones/vehicles for "last mile" service would work for all cases but is not much more efficient than current solutions and is prone to package loss/damage.
I love the idea but I don't want to rent or otherwise share mine. It's going to take a while to train it anyway.
But I think it's going to be a while yet...
no more refrigerators and probably many less cars will be needed.
I hope these things will be able to refrigerate in hot places and heat in cold places. Different compartments for frozen food / chilled food / normal food / heated food. They're going to have to have monster power packs.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Can't wait for the service industry to be revolutionized by robots. I so look forward to the day that a robot will take my order at a restaurant and there won't be an expected 15%-20% added to the price of the meal,
Less traffic, less congestion, no wasting time on shopping, personal buttler service for the 99% that will save us a portion of our lives in more ways than one. How many accidents happen on the roads just because of shopping?
You can't handle the truth.
Eventually food, and all goods, will go from source to consumer in a fully automated fashion. The question then becomes one of timelines and intermediary steps. Does the mentioned scenario sound like one that fits into that interim? Sure.
That is why they're pushing this and automated taxis. They hate people that work for a living.
I love the fact that robots can deliver groceries and cook my food but there is one additional task they could offload from me. You see, I have a toothache and it hurts to chew my food. If the robots could chew my food for me and just regurgitate it into my mouth without me having to get out of my recliner then I'd be all set. Well, except for emptying my catheter and colostomy bag and changing the batteries in the remote every few months.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
What happens? I get a free robot!
...start to appreciate Kraftwerk?
Well there goes my primary use case for owning a car. Boom. Gone. Uber to get to and from public transit, robots to deliver my groceries, humans to deliver whatever it is that Amazon sells that isn't groceries. You never realized until you give up shopping in stores, how much time you spend driving to/from the store, waiting in line, being sneezed on by other people's kids, packing and unpacking the car. Sweet jesus, shopping from online places like Amazon, Walmart, Target.com etc you save 3-5 hours a week. It's glorious.
moox. for a new generation.
Just a few more pieces of automation and we can have farm field to home delivery fully automated. At that point, only processed foods and meat should cost money (or if you exceed a certain quantity).
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I don't know if there is enough of a market, but I would gladly pay more for any kind of grocery delivery service in my area. I hate grocery shopping with passion. I don't find it boring and time consuming, it's just stressful... and it's particularly so because it combines several things that are stressful for me: driving, waiting in line, dealing with strangers etc. The money is not the issue. I just need the service in my area.
Basically this: Robots start delivering peoples' groceries.
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Have gnu, will travel.
Pretty soon we'll never have to leave our cells, uh, I mean, domiciles.
What a great future we have awaiting us!
getting fruits, veggies or meat products that way without visually inspecting first may not be such a great thing.
Peaches stone-hard, bananas green, lettuce tiny etc.
If you're so rich that robots will deliver the groceries for you, you've got disposable income. Street vendors will gather around the delivery robot to try to sell you additional stuff because labor will be cheap.
"Consumers will find it ever easier to get what they want, when they want it, where they want it.".... At an exhorbitent price. You'll pay for that convenience until it becomes widespread and starts to displace the traditional grocery store.
but most of the United States is too spread out to make this sorta thing economical.
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It's the arcology of SimCity 2000 come to life. Get everything you need without ever leaving the building. And it will work for buildings with enough people, though it seems to me it would make more sense to test it out in hotels first. Higher population density, they often have kitchens for room service already, and if people aren't pleased with the service they'll be gone in a fairly short period of time.
For smaller buildings (or less dense ones), perhaps the robots will only be around once or twice a week, and you have to put in your order the day before so they can cover the whole building in one pass, and with one delivery truck.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
What happens if robots do shopping for you? You get even more fat, awaiting the next step, when another robot will spare you the walk to the kitchen to grab food.
If you let a robot pick groceries, that's a good way to sell the torn, dented, etc. packages nobody wants. Also can sell the fruit & vegetables that people don't select.
Expectation:
Robots start delivering peoples' groceries.
Reality:
Poorly Designed Smart Electric Shopping Carts on sell
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Let's make America Fat Again!
I break all the eggs and blame the robot so they get fired... :)
Seriously though, I would not buy food online. Food is one of those things that is always better seen and checked first hand before buying. Depending on what foods look like (freshness/color) I change my recipe planning on the fly. Long ago I went to culinary school for 3 years and I love to cook. I'm very picky about what I cook and eat.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I use going shopping as a major part of my exercise. I usually do not go to the nearest shop either, a nice 20 minute walk each way 4 times a week or so is entirely fine. (Yes, I know that is at the low end, but far better than nothing.) The second thing is that for vegetables, fruit and meat, I like to look at what is available and not just from some pretty pictures, but the actual product.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
no more refrigerators and probably many less cars will be needed.
So what do I do if I purchase a bottle of mil and some ice-cream, but I don't want to consume it all in one sitting?
Assemblers just don't seem to get it. One banana on the same bunch as another is different, and the Robot can never know the difference, due to the spherical nature of the planet coupled to sinusoidal innocence and guilt, etcetera. Just like one pack of Pringles is not the same as the Pringles next to it even though they are the same advertised flavour. It's a bit like scientists searching for God. Nobody can know the absolute truth of who God is except God.
Let's just cut straight to centralized municipal food paste delivery through pipes in your house and be done with it.
Is often harder and more trouble than just being there and shopping.
There is literally too much in the way of choice, and selecting what you want even without decision paralysis can and will take more time than just zipping through a store.
Not saying it can't work but it needs some real improvements. Who knows maybe the old Idea of 3d virtual stores will make a comeback.
I go to the grocery store every day. It may not be going to the gym and it can cost a lot of money to not properly plan meals, but it guarantees I walk at least for a while. I also use only hand baskets and avoid grocery stores that have baskets with wheels that are uncomfortable to carry.
I should of course properly exercise, but the alternative is sitting on a couch with chips and doing nothing. So while I'm not exactly burning calories, I am avoiding consuming them. I also take the time to prepare proper meals.
what if most of what you own could be delivered on demand by delivery robots and stored somewhere else when you don't need it? It could solve the Pareto problem of property: you need 80% of your private space to store 80% of things you need only once a day, a month a year as your 'property'. What if you could have a provider deliver those within 2 minutes? Property would be a service you pay for that assures that some objects in a nearby storage are kept secure and labeled as "yours". You could agree to share certain property with others while you're not using it. Would you share a book, a microwave, a TV, dirty dishes, a toothbrush? How many of your belongings you label as exclusively yours would be your choice. How far could you take this concept? Do you still need a wardrobe if you can have any of your clothes delivered to you instantly? What if you could just say: this shirt is worn out bring me another one from now on? Or when you travel that you can say to the provider: "I want this and this property to follow me, and I will need these other properties but they can be replaced by local copies".
I don't want someone else picking out my groceries for me (especially produce, meat, cheese, and bulk food items), and I don't want a robot delivering them either.
I just tip the delivery guy but I won't tip the robot.
> "What if you could get groceries in less than two minutes without even leaving your apartment?"
Wall-E. That is what will happen. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/
Last reason to get onto your feet and walk at least a little bit is removed.
Whats with all the hard questions on /. today?
Does anyone remember Webvan ?
Or I am the oldest /. reader ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
B double E double R U N, BEER RUN! I shouldn't have given that away now I won't be able to capitalize on it, dammit.
We'll make great pets
As a side bonus if there is an earthquake/hurricane/other then there is a week or so of calories stored near the apartment complex. Albeit mostly in Doritos. But still - this is a big bonus.
The logical conclusion? http://archive.ncsa.illinois.e... "Of course," said a famous lecturer - he of the French Revolution, who gilded each new decay with splendour - "of course we shall not press our complaints now. The Mending Apparatus has treated us so well in the past that we all sympathize with it, and will wait patiently for its recovery. In its own good time it will resume its duties. Meanwhile let us do without our beds, our tabloids, our other little wants. Such, I feel sure, would be the wish of the Machine."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
This is a fun idea, but its harder than it sounds.
Pay attention next time you're in a grocery store. Damn near everything is different shapes and sizes. Sure, canned goods have *some* standardization, but there are no less than 3 styles of cans, (nesting, non nesting, and pull top) in a dozen or more sizes. And that's just canned goods, don't even think about things like sugar and flour, which come in fucking paper bags that can be punctured by a fingertip, let alone a robot arm. There are dozens of styles of salad dressing bottles, etc. My point is, having a robot stock/select these items from a shelf, or even pick single items from a case on a pallet is, at this stage, still not really that feasible. Quite a few advancements need to be made in robotic arms to be able to universally manipulate the erratic spectrum of shapes, sizes and weights of grocery items.
So, automatic delivery is one thing, what with your self driving delivery trucks and truck to door drones that everyone keeps raving about, but at the other end is still going to be some poor bastard rushing around a warehouse, throwing your selections into a box. maybe his job will turn into the guy who re-fills the giant soda-machine like dispenser that deals with *most* grocery items, and troubleshoots the inevitable jams it suffers from, but the level of automation this idea requires is an insanely complex system, dealing with literally hundreds of thousands of unique shapes, and this does not even address the varying degrees of durability. A plastic jar of peanut butter neatly handles a fall from 4 feet up onto a hard surface. A glass bottle of beer from the same height becomes a hilariously large mess.
Its a fun idea, and in small scale/limited selection (like any vending machine) its probably fairly operable, but to scale it up to grocery store level is an engineering nightmare/marvel waiting to be built.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.