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Awoo.

Amazon is making an aerial drone to deliver your packages


Wraith

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Not even joking. 

 

 

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took to 60 Minutes to reveal the company's latest delivery method: drones. In what is likely a cunning reminder of the e-tailer's upcoming Cyber Monday sales, these bots will apparently be capable of delivering packages up to five pounds (86 percent of orders are apparently under that), with the aim of getting them to your house in under half an hour. The system is called Prime Air and the octo-copter drones, which wait, ready to deliver, at the end of conveyor belts, have a range of 10 miles. As Amazon puts, "Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance the technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations" and Bezos himself added in the segment that it won't be before 2015 at the very earliest. While it sounds like they''ll take their time to get here (if they ever do), we've at least got a video of the drones in action -- it's right after the break.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/01/amazon-prime-air-drones/

 

A fucking flying robot that delivers your packages. IN 30 MINUTES. This is amazing. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98BIu9dpwHU

 

 

Imagine how convenient this makes things. My mind is fucking blown right now.

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What if I order my shit and then have to go out? WHAT THEN, AMAZON? I bet they'll put a tracker on me and my super kinky sex adventure will be rudely interrupted by my new blender's arrival.

 

Also this looks like an April Fools' Day thing.

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1: People would steal those fucking things all the time

 

2: This kinda doesn't work for people who live in apartments, which is a huge majority of people.

 

Nice idea though.

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What if a bird hits my package, or a plane, or lightning, or rain, or something hits the robot and OOPS! Package went bye-bye!

Minus those obstacles, it is pretty fucking cool though. Can't wait.

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1: People would steal those fucking things all the time

 

That, or they'd shoot them down. Target practice for the country folk.

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1: People would steal those fucking things all the time

 

2: This kinda doesn't work for people who live in apartments, which is a huge majority of people.

 

Nice idea though.

I doubt they'd steal them because you'd have to be a complete dumbass to steal something who's last location went to your residence.

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I doubt they'd steal them because you'd have to be a complete dumbass to steal something who's last location went to your residence.

 

I think you overestimate the intelligence and good will of a lot of people.

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Unfortunately, this might be real.

Why do I say "unfortunately"? Well, imagine you're a delivery truck driver. You get paid by the hour. Why would a company pay you, who are less efficient and more expensive than an unmanned drone, to deliver packages when they can get a robot that doesn't expect payment to do it instead?

I see this as another step towards humans replacing themselves through innovations such as this. Do you think delivery truck drivers are going to, or are even able to, retrain as engineers or some other type of skilled laborer? As we replace humans with machines to lower the cost of producing goods, eventually we'll find that there's nobody left to buy said goods because they all lost their jobs. This kills the economy.

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I bet you Amazon would find a way to have the little drones come to you with one of those "you were not home" sticky notes Amazon/UPS always leave behind

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This is so cool.  The biggest issue with regards to the robots' safety is making a foolproof way that cause of damage can be monitored.  For example, if someone does throw a rock at it, will it be able to tell that it was some jerk being a jerk or trying to steal the product, or whether it was the person who ordered?  You'd need high quality cameras which can stream data from anywhere to serve as a black box mechanism and can see in every direction around the drone.

 

Also presumably you'd need to buy some sort of device for it to lock onto, or a tracking system so the customer knows -exactly- when it will arrive and where to drop off.  Not everyone will have a front or back garden to safely drop off deliveries in.

 

Man I really would love this though.  I'd prolly get back into buying physical music again since it'd be almost as instant as iTunes but I'd be able to enjoy the cover and disc art properly.

 

 

Unfortunately, this might be real.

Why do I say "unfortunately"? Well, imagine you're a delivery truck driver. You get paid by the hour. Why would a company pay you, who are less efficient and more expensive than an unmanned drone, to deliver packages when they can get a robot that doesn't expect payment to do it instead?

I see this as another step towards humans replacing themselves through innovations such as this. Do you think delivery truck drivers are going to, or are even able to, retrain as engineers or some other type of skilled laborer? As we replace humans with machines to lower the cost of producing goods, eventually we'll find that there's nobody left to buy said goods because they all lost their jobs. This kills the economy.

 

Self-checkouts have existed for years and I don't see any cashiers complaining.  You're being paranoid here really.  Plus look at the video.  Even when these things do launch, in many years' time, they're gonna be for very small deliveries only, and it'll prolly be a premium service only available during certain hours of the day, robots to hand and location permitted.  There'll be plenty of work for deliverymen.

 

If we constantly worried about work in the present-tense we'd never make progress.  The change is so gradual and humans are versatile it really won't affect anything.  New jobs will be created for maintaining those robots.

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Holy fuck this is incredible, its probably gonna be expensive as fuck to use though.

 

However I can't help but imagine all the possible ways this can just horrendously backfire.

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That, or they'd shoot them down. Target practice for the country folk.

I know right?

200px-C._Jenkins.jpg

Damn city folk and their flying machines!!

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This is literally the best thing ever omg

 

Obviously there's going to be restrictions based on where you live and it's only going to be available to Prime users, so that's going to be how they whittle out the issues. No doubt they're going ensure your house is a house and if you're paying them $80 a year for next day delivery I'm sure they'll trust you enough. Plus there's CCTV anywhere, if anybody shot one down they'd have it on camera I'm sure

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This is just the bee's knees, and an awesome concept.


Gonna have a broadsword delivered to my enemy's house via an Amazon drone so a sword will just fly through the sky and stab 'em in the chest for me.

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I don't know why everyone's assuming that even if this plan does go through that it will be the default delivery method.  I'm sure they've taken many of these issues into considerations and will continue to use traditional shipping methods due both to price and being generally easier to access.

 

If this plan does go through, that would definitely be cool, but I don't picture becoming standard for a long time largely as a result of price, the relative newness of the system, and the problems that need to be considered long before such a thing is ever debuted.

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I doubt they'd steal them because you'd have to be a complete dumbass to steal something who's last location went to your residence.

 

Would easily be countered by just sending it to a different address, or intercepting a neighbor's or something XD. My biggest concern with using this would be the vunerability really. It's literally a giant eye-catch suspended above the entire city, holding my new shiny toy I just bought for anyone to follow/intercept. However I'd be most certain that these things would have GPS/tracking devices built into them, and I'm sure Amazon would have a new Prime Air monitoring control team to make sure devices go in/out properly, but still. A problem with the monitoring thing is possible worry that there's flying cameras everywhere, and I'm sure there's a lot of people uneasy with that idea.

 

I really love the idea though, and I'm sure just like anybody else, taking such steps to a crazier future is always exciting. I hope they find a way to make these pretty fool proof because it's just way too cool and practical (delivery wise) to pass up. I'd definitely be on board with Jez's idea with buying more physical music again, since it'd just be a tiny tad bit longer than downloading it (for me anyways).

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Self-checkouts have existed for years and I don't see any cashiers complaining. You're being paranoid here really. Plus look at the video. Even when these things do launch, in many years' time, they're gonna be for very small deliveries only, and it'll prolly be a premium service only available during certain hours of the day, robots to hand and location permitted. There'll be plenty of work for deliverymen.

If we constantly worried about work in the present-tense we'd never make progress. The change is so gradual and humans are versatile it really won't affect anything. New jobs will be created for maintaining those robots.

This is just the beginning. Self-driving vehicles exist and are a mature technology waiting to be deployed on a large scale. Almost every job that consists of driving a vehicle is in imminent danger as a result. Taxi drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers, freaking pizza delivery guys, all out of a job. I don't see all those people suddenly learning how to do something more skilled and then finding jobs doing it. Additionally, self-driving vehicles would also not need any more maintenance than normal vehicles, so it's not like we'd suddenly need a few million more auto mechanics.

I can't comment on the self-checkout thing; I assume it's because they're not very user-friendly and many like to interact with an actual human while shopping.

These automation innovations may be cool and futuristic or whatever, but the potential negative economic and social consequences are not to be scoffed at.

Edited by Frogging101
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I can't comment on the self-checkout thing; I assume it's because they're not very user-friendly and many like to interact with an actual human while shopping.

Self checkouts are actually pretty common place here, and are widely used.  They're great because they allow you privacy when there's certain items you don't want to advertise to other people and are actually very user friendly from my experience.  They don't replace human interaction, though, as they do have a tendency to malfunction and not everyone is technically literate, so they still have cashiers on standby to serve you.

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There are a lot of things to get through first, I'd say the most important one would be Aerial Space, they'd need to keep track of those things so they won't hit a plane or something... And even then there's another problem, if one of these things gets either shot down, breaks, glitches in plain air... What are the chances the damn thing won't fall on someone's head?

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This is just the beginning. Self-driving vehicles exist and are a mature technology waiting to be deployed on a large scale. Almost every job that consists of driving a vehicle is in imminent danger as a result. Taxi drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers, freaking pizza delivery guys, all out of a job. I don't see all those people suddenly learning how to do something more skilled and then finding jobs doing it. Additionally, self-driving vehicles would also not need any more maintenance than normal vehicles, so it's not like we'd suddenly need a few million more auto mechanics.

 

But how many past technologies are now defunct?  We're part of an ever changing system.  There's hundreds of jobs that have ceased to exist as technology has reached the current point, and hundreds of jobs created as a result.

 

The people who are alive today, whose only skill is being able to drive stuff around, will most certainly be retired or dead by the time their jobs are completely irrelevant because everything is done by robots.  And the youth of that generation will have been raised in a time where everything is starting to be done by robots, and therefore robot management will become a key skill in general human life like driving is.

 

It's an overexaggerated example but hopefully you get my point.  This is just one snapshot in the ever evolving progress of the human race.  You can't stifle natural inventiveness, it's part of the human condition.

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Aww, now my Mecha A.I. Postal office worker of the future is obsolete. Thanks Amazon =/

 

This is just the beginning. Self-driving vehicles exist and are a mature technology waiting to be deployed on a large scale. Almost every job that consists of driving a vehicle is in imminent danger as a result. Taxi drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers, freaking pizza delivery guys, all out of a job. I don't see all those people suddenly learning how to do something more skilled and then finding jobs doing it. Additionally, self-driving vehicles would also not need any more maintenance than normal vehicles, so it's not like we'd suddenly need a few million more auto mechanics.

I can't comment on the self-checkout thing; I assume it's because they're not very user-friendly and many like to interact with an actual human while shopping.

These automation innovations may be cool and futuristic or whatever, but the potential negative economic and social consequences are not to be scoffed at.

 

If there's something John Connor has taught me is that humans are always going to be needed to fight against the machines. But in all seriouness like others have said that process will take a long time. Take newspapers for example, people have been saying how hey are going to die fast for the last 30 years and yet they still exist. Sure, they are declining but they still are going to be around for a while.

 

Change like that just doesn't happen overnight. Plus, less truck drivers, taxi drivers etc etc means less pollution if technology manages to improve to a point where it doesn't causes as much.

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Self checkouts are actually pretty common place here, and are widely used.  They're great because they allow you privacy when there's certain items you don't want to advertise to other people and are actually very user friendly from my experience.  They don't replace human interaction, though, as they do have a tendency to malfunction and not everyone is technically literate, so they still have cashiers on standby to serve you.

Plus, you're still being watched by a cashier monitoring the self-checkouts. So if anything, this is an example of humans and machines working together than machines replacing humans. There's still stuff for us to do. tongue.png

 

Still this is a cool idea. Cuts down a lot of travel time. What the hell will we think of next?

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