Great post, Photon.
I attended a Gartner conference last month and had the opportunity to speak to an IT director from Papa John's pizza. He was telling me that they are going to start early testing of driver-less delivery vehicles next year sometime. Basically, the vehicle will contain 6 or 8 warming compartments that are locked by default. The local pizza joint will load the vehicle up with the pizza's for 8 customers along with their address, etc. The vehicle will then pull up to your house and text/call you when it arrives and sends you a PIN number or something that allows you to unlock the warming compartment with your pizza in it. After you grab your pizza, it carries on to the next customer.
The potential benefits are huge to both company and customer: Lower labour costs, no drivers getting lost, no tipping, pizza arrives hot, for example. I could see the technology taking hold in this sort of application much earlier than privately owned autonomous vehicles.
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