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Kroger Will Use Autonomous Vehicles To Deliver Groceries (theverge.com)
Starting this fall, Kroger will partner with driverless car company Nuro to deliver groceries using its autonomous vehicles. The Verge reports: A pilot will be rolled out to a yet-to-be-announced city later this fall. To start out, Nuro will use a fleet of self-driving test vehicles with human safety drivers to make deliveries for Kroger's grocery stores. Customers can track and interact with the vehicles via a Nuro app or Kroger's pre-existing online delivery platform. But if Nuro's human test drivers don't get out to help you, don't be mad because in our driverless future, we all need to pitch in and unload our own groceries.
Nuro is still tweaking its user experience, but for now it will go something like this: customers can place an order through Kroger's online delivery portal or using Nuro's forthcoming app. Kroger workers will load the items into Nuro's temperature-controlled compartments, at which point the vehicle will drive autonomously to its destination. Customers can track the vehicle throughout the trip using the app, and once it arrives, will need to meet the vehicle at the curb or in their driveway -- in other words, no more door-to-door service. They can use either a PIN code or some other verification system to retrieve their delivery. Nuro was reportedly working on a facial recognition system, but has since tabled that.
Nuro is still tweaking its user experience, but for now it will go something like this: customers can place an order through Kroger's online delivery portal or using Nuro's forthcoming app. Kroger workers will load the items into Nuro's temperature-controlled compartments, at which point the vehicle will drive autonomously to its destination. Customers can track the vehicle throughout the trip using the app, and once it arrives, will need to meet the vehicle at the curb or in their driveway -- in other words, no more door-to-door service. They can use either a PIN code or some other verification system to retrieve their delivery. Nuro was reportedly working on a facial recognition system, but has since tabled that.
I wonder how many failed deliveries they will have when people don't come outside to unload their own groceries.
Greed is the root of all evil.
People who are handicapped or otherwise unable to unload groceries may be unable to use this, although I expect there'll be an option to pay extra for a human to unload the groceries for you. Eventually there'll be an unloader robot inside the van, which can also load the van (rather than having a human load it). Endpoint tasks will be the killer app for robots, which are normally stuck in warehouses and factories; since if you have a human driver you might as well just pay that human to do the task at the endpoint, i.e. pay a professional to also drive there. Once we have fully-automated go-there-and-do-something systems, that can replace a huge swath of human jobs normally not considered for automation (plumbers etc.)
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
When I was young, the smartly-uniformed milkman delivered all sorts of things up and down the garden path, and while he was doing that the bored horse moved the milk-float (some yards behind it) to align with the next house that had regular orders. People forget what was possible in a less techno-mad world.