Washington Becomes the Latest State of Allow Use of Autonomous Delivery Robots
The explosion of e-commerce has made life easier for consumers all over the country, but it is also true that there are only so many people that any firm can hire to make their deliveries and a tech solution was always on the cards. Over the years leading tech companies and e-commerce firms have been working on ways to come up with a solution to the problem and eventually autonomous delivery robots seemed to be the perfect solution. However, it was always going to be a struggle to get it past the hawk eyes of legislators and hence only a handful of states in the United States have legalized it. In a fresh development, the state of Washington became the latest state to legislate the usage of autonomous delivery robots. In the process, it became the 8th state to legalize this delivery mechanism.
One of the most significant arguments in favor of the usage of autonomous delivery robots is the fact that it helps in reducing pollution significantly since the number of delivery personnel riding bikes will go down and in addition to that, it would also reduce traffic congestion significantly in busier cities. On top of that, it would also allow the smaller operators in the state of Washington to compete against behemoths like Amazon by reducing the costs on delivery personnel and in the long run, it could prove to be an excellent initiative. However, Amazon is not going to lag behind while all of this goes on and demonstrated their very own robot while the bill was being signed.
On the other side of the spectrum, there are critics of the autonomous delivery robots as well, and according to them, the usage of these robots will lead to accidents. In addition to that, there is also the possibility of robots slowing down traffic. However, in all the states in which it has been legalized, no such incidents have been reported yet. The feasibility of using these robots is being tested at the University of Virginia campus, where students can get refreshments like coffee and pizza through robot deliveries.