Amazon might have spurred everyone to test out drone deliveries, as France’s national postal service, Le Groupe La Poste, has reportedly begun to test a drone delivery program for their mail.
The idea isn’t fresh from the warehouse so to speak, as a subsidiary of the postal service, DPDgroup, has been working on the drone delivery method since 2014. The group has now joined hands with French drone-making company Atechsys which will help in providing drones capable of flying 19 km (12 miles) at speeds of nearly 31 km/h (19 mph) with a payload of 3 kg (6.6 lbs).
The drone traveled between two depots in the southeast of the country, Saint-Maximin-La-Sainte-Beaume and Pourrières in the Provence region of France, which is almost 15 km (9.3 miles) on its test route, and successfully picked up and delivered packages.
This success, while lauded by many circles, has also attracted the concern of people who fear joblessness resulting from over automation. They might just be right, as experts say robots are and will continue to replace humans estimating that they can take away from 47 to 81 percent of jobs in the coming decade.
It doesn’t relate just to low-skill jobs though. IBM’s Watson AI robot was able to recommend cancer treatments as doctors, and was also able to edit an entire magazine on its own. It also speculated using its state of the art algorithm that AI can replace 80 percent of IT workers. Pretty scary stuff!
What are your thoughts on this particular use of the drone, and the idea of technology taking over the world in general?Comment below!
