Robots on the Streets of Los Angeles
The growing trend of robots in our everyday lives is a STEM job creator
The Uber Eats robot is ready for its close-up. It is fitting for the streets of Hollywood to be the stage for Uber Eats robot delivery services.
Welcome to the new age of hot food delivery!
While enjoying avocado toast al fresco at Toast Bakery Cafe on Harper Avenue with a friend, suddenly, an Uber Eats Robot zips past our table. It was delivering chicken wraps from Calif Chicken Cafe, half a mile away. I guess the restaurant staff wanted something else to eat that was not found on the Toast Bakery Cafe menu. This was my first experience seeing a robot on city streets in LA.
With the support of San Francisco-based Serve Robotics, robot delivery has grown 30% monthly since 2022. There are now over 200 Los Angeles restaurants using sidewalk bot service.
As of August 2024, Serve Robotics has plans to add at least 250 more robots to Los Angeles by the end of Q1 2025. The company's goal is to deploy 2,000 robots across the U.S. in 2025.
Currently, if you search the Serve Robotics Careers page you will find 22 job openings including Senior Executive Assistant ($120-$160K), Senior ML Engineer, Embedded AI ($150-$200K), and Senior Mechanical Engineer ($130-$180K).
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does not track salary data for robotics engineers specifically, but these professionals fall under the general category of mechanical engineers. As of May 2022, mechanical engineers have a median annual salary of $96,310, according to the BLS.
College students will never look back.
I have visited college campuses and watched robots delivering food to dorm rooms and study halls. Hungry Generation Z students can eat a midnight snack delivered by a robot as they cram for their organic chemistry exam.
Who is responsible for building the robots on all of the different campuses including UCLA, Purdue, and Oregon State? Starship Technologies delivers food on over 50 campuses. They are based in Estonia and most of their hires in the US are robot technicians.
The popularization of television in the 1950s changed food habits in the US.
TV dinners started for two reasons: television purchases and the Swanson food company. In 1950, only 9 percent of U.S. households had television sets — but by 1955, the number had risen to more than 64 percent, and by 1960, to more than 87 percent. Swanson took full advantage of this trend, with TV advertisements that depicted elegant, modern women serving these novel meals to their families.
The popularization of television in the 1950s also played a large role in the postwar boom of restaurant food delivery. With televisions in more and more homes, the concept of eating dinner from restaurants at home was established. Families could come home after long days at work and have their meals delivered to enjoy while watching their favorite television programs.
“I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.” Marty McFly after playing an electric guitar riff in Back to the Future
If Uber Eats robots traveling along sidewalks are overwhelming people today, they better hang on tight. As Bette Davis says in the movie All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts, it is going to be a bumpy night”.
Some West Hollywood residents have been filing complaints about the city’s allowed use of delivery bots, specialized remote-control robots that are contracted by Uber Eats to drop food off throughout the city.
Since robot delivery is so popular with restaurant owners the bots keep rolling along.
Uber Eats and Amazon are planning for drones to fly over the streets to deliver hot food to doorsteps soon. If you go to Amazon’s website, you can read the following: We are opening in phases. When we launch drone delivery to your household, you will receive an email informing you that drone delivery is now available.
The growth of ownership of TVs and home computers has altered how, when, and where we eat over 75 years. Food delivery is just keeping up with how much time we spend in front of a TV, PC, tablet, or phone.