Popping up suddenly, and quickly becoming a familiar sight, adorable delivery robots start to populate Southern Californian sidewalks and have even made their way to the Jewel City, Glendale. These robots initially started to be implemented into daily life in other parts of California, but recently, nearby companies have started to deploy them as well.
These bug-eyed bots handle deliveries for food, groceries, and other goods. Although several companies have begun developing their own delivery robots, the ones currently spotted in the Glendale neighborhood are the robots created by the Serve Robotics company, which have been working in Los Angeles since 2022.
The AI-powered robots are friendly and approachable, even stopping for humans to avoid physical collisions with them. They have round, bright LED eyes that have the ability to blink, and even have their own personal names printed on their side. Orange flags are attached to their backs in order to be visible to pedestrians and vehicles passing by. Each bot has 6 wheels and can move up to speeds of 7 miles per hour, stealthily delivering products to consumers’ front doors.
Glendale community members are starting to take note of these robots as they become more common throughout the city, but do people really know what they are? “I keep seeing the little robots on Orange Street and wonder where they come from, and what they’re delivering. I hope that the next time I order food that it’s brought in one of those robots so I’d be able to see them more closely,” junior Asya Hakobyan said.
According to TechCrunch, Serve Robotics is a company that branched out from Uber as a delivery platform for customers. Approximately 2,000 robots have been released as of May 2023, some of whom have made their way to Glendale.
On the Serve Robotics website, the company claims that these robots reduce traffic in the streets and lower carbon emissions by using electric robots instead of gas-powered delivery vehicles. “The delivery robots are a great advancement for our community, they are not only efficient, but have the potential to greatly decrease the heavy traffic flow in the Glendale streets,” sophomore Angelina Emam said.
While the robots are impressive innovations, with new technology also comes its own issues. Though there seem to be many benefits to moving towards this system for food deliveries, a question still remains: are the members of this community specifically going to benefit or be disadvantaged with the replacement of human food delivery?
