The robots are leaving Amazon’s warehouses.
  • ch00f@lemmy.worldEnglish
    116·
    10 months ago

    Amazon announced using drones in 2014. In pop culture, drone delivery is like an assumed common practice. Yet fucking nobody gets their packages delivered by drone. It’s been over a decade.

    These robots are vaporware. Amazon will get a stock bump and that’s the whole point.

    • Buckshot@programming.devEnglish
      321·
      10 months ago

      Yeah, humans regularly deliver stuff wrong on our street. There is no way robots will manage. I get packages for both by neighbours and they get mine more often than correct deliveries and one of my neighbours is a business.

      • Leon@pawb.socialEnglish
        9·
        10 months ago

        At my old workplace we ended up getting like a thousand toilet seats delivered to us. We were a web publishing firm.

      • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        Stop redirecting them. Make it cost them.

        Tell your neighbors to file an “it arrived late” or “it didn’t arrive” complaint. Get two and send one back. Their fault for being shit companies.

        If something is delivered to you by mistake, it’s not your responsibility to fix the mistake, you just got free stuff.

        If it goes through USPS, it might be a federal offense to open stuff delivered via USPS, but is that true of third party parcel delivery? Almost certainly not, because USPS is a government org and those third party shit delivery companies aren’t…

        So now any package that’s delivered to me by anyone other than USPS… it’s mine now, and I open it to see if I want whatever trash my neighbors are buying.

        I used to try to fix the problem… but then I realized it’s NOT MY PROBLEM.

      • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        10 months ago

        What makes you think you can’t have individualized instructions for harder to reach addresses? After the first failure it’s pretty trivial to go out and fix it. Google does far more work maintaining maps and directions services.

        Vs having a new delivery guy get confused every other week?

      • Zetta@mander.xyzEnglish
        110·
        10 months ago

        What you just described is humans causing the issue, drone delivery would absolutely solve your problem.

        • nyan@lemmy.cafeEnglish
          8·
          10 months ago

          The drone’s only as good as its software, the map it’s using, and the address data it’s given. All of which were created by fallible humans.

          Ain’t it fun having turtles all the way down?

          • Zetta@mander.xyzEnglish
            01·
            10 months ago

            43.9454776, -123.5393014

            ^ no address, GPS is very very precise.

            • nyan@lemmy.cafeEnglish
              1·
              10 months ago

              When you order something, do you express where you want it sent in coordinates or as an address? You can’t assume that the device’s coordinates at the time the order is made correspond to where the order is supposed to be sent, even if the device gives coordinates. Plus, they’re either not precise enough (could encompass the yard of the house next door, or just the snowbank at the edge of the property) or too precise (“drop this in the center of the roof because that’s where the coordinates are”). You’d need software capable of parsing building layouts well enough to figure out where the main entryway is and leave the parcel there, or you’d have to require that people interested in receiving deliveries by drone put a beacon where they want the drone to drop stuff.

              Beacons are the simplest solution, but they immediately put Amazon in a position where most people won’t care enough to set them up.

        • ch00f@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          Even as pitched, you still have to print out a QR code and staple it to your front lawn for every package. Presumably, they want you to be home for it since it’s dropped out in the open and might bounce into the street.

        • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.worldEnglish
          16·
          10 months ago

          Down voted for the obvious observation. A drone just needs to get explicit instructions ones a report is filled and it won’t be an issue. Google does more work on Google maps IMO.

    • Zetta@mander.xyzEnglish
      3·
      10 months ago

      Amazon just rolled out their first production drone delivery SSD site in Phoenix. It’s sorta shit though.

      Zipline is way more interesting and I cant wait for them to go live in my area.

    • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      10 months ago

      Airspace rules are a huge factor there. I see delivery robots on the sidewalk often enough though.

      I suspect most companies are still waiting out the testing and waiting for costs to be reduced.

  • frazw@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    10 months ago

    Amazon 1 year after launch: Unfortunately, the space needed for robots in the van means that the van has to return to base 5 times more often to reload with the actual packages and the extra weight of robots more than doubles the weight of the van being lugged around in the form of heavy robots. So that’s why we are having to charge more for delivery and why it is taking longer for you to get your packages. But at least we can pay fewer salaries.

    • ChapulinColorado@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      10 months ago

      Also we don’t pay taxes but will fuck up the roads with the extra weight. Good luck driving over potholes suckers!

    • bluGill@fedia.io
      1·
      10 months ago

      That is still better for both the environment and safety than everyone going to the store seperately in their own car. (Transit or walking of course are still better yet).

      • 5too@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        Why is that the comparison, though? Sears developed mail-order catalogues in the 1800s. That’s what Amazon replaced.

  • Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pubEnglish
    17·
    10 months ago

    The robot then encounters the entirely unpredictable American rural south

    staircases half busted up surrounded by weeds and gravel roads full of holes

    robots fucked with by kids who are now tying it to a tree with bungie cords for fun

    one being dragged off in the background by a dude with a welding mask on

    wageslave.exe has encountered an internal exception and must close

  • Botzo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    10 months ago

    They can depreciate these assets over their useful life, because unlike your soggy flesh sack, these are capital expenses, not operating expenses.

    … For now. I’m sure there are libertarians that think you should be able to sell yourself as the depreciable asset you are.

  • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zipEnglish
    12·
    10 months ago

    If i see a humanoid robot delivering a package i will throw bricks at it and then pee on it, in the way a 3 year old would during a tantrum.

    • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zipEnglish
      9·
      10 months ago

      I, for one, will certainly not loot it for parts, unless it has an unfortunate accident, in which case I’m just recycling trash that someone left out.