With the rise of online shopping and technology, Ford, Walmart and delivery service Postmates have recently announced they will collaborate to develop a driverless vehicle to deliver goods. Initially the vehicles will be driven by humans (in order to gather information about customer preferences) with the goal for all vehicles to be autonomous as soon as 2021.

A similar trial was conducted in London last year. A mini vehicle named the ‘CargoPod’ made 100 food deliveries. With a grand top speed of 5mph, one can’t imagine it was the quickest of deliveries but it was mainly tested to see how it manoeuvred around pedestrians and cyclists. It also required a delivery person to unload and carry the shopping to the recipient. So it seems the role of the delivery driver is not yet obsolete.

Is this a further step towards AI in our day to day lives? Given that it is the UK government’s goal for autonomous vehicles to be in commercial use by 2021, it is feasible that your shopping could be delivered by driverless vehicles in the near future.

Sources: Futurism, wired

@all: How would you feel if your shopping was delivered by an Autonomous Vehicle?