British motoring chief fears delivery robots will run down ‘smartphone zombie’ pedestrians
AA President issues urgent warning as tech firm prepares to unleash automated takeaway droid on streets of London
Londoners will be soon be able to order takeaway grub and have it brought to them by a self-driving intelligent robotic delivery droid.
But Edmund King, president of the Automobile Association (AA), fears it could end up running over human beings who are glued to their smartphones.
The cute looking cyber-courier will begin travelling on the pavements of central London within just a few months, delivering food ordered through the website Just Eat.
Yet the AA boss fears it could pose a risk to hapless "smartphone zombies" who stalk our streets like the living dead, glued to their mobiles and ignoring everything around them.
"Smartphone zombies is a word used to describe the menace of people walking down the pavement, bashing into everyone and anything," he told The Sun.
"Do we really want robots interacting with people who aren't paying attention to where they are going?
"There's already a debate about driverless cars, so this adds an extra dimension we don't need right now.
"It's too early to be introducing robots to the pavements of the UK."
He also said one question remained - and it's no joke.
"How does the robot cross the road?" King asked.
"Will it use a pelican crossing, a zebra crossing or traffic lights?
The robot has been built by Starship, a firm set up in 2014 by the co-founders of Skype.
During a testing period, it has travelled more than 5,000 miles along pavements in 35 cities around the world, meeting more than 400,000 people along the way without hurting anyone.
It is expected to start delivering food from selected London restaurants in the next two or three months.
Henry Harris-Burland, communications manager of Starship, said the delivery droid was "incredibly safe" and predicted humans would soon get used to seeing a food-laden machine speeding along pavements.
"It's amazing how quickly this robot has integrated into public life," he told The Sun.
"Even smartphone zombies will just glance at it and then get on with their lives."
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People who get food delivered by droid will be given a code to unlock it. They will then be able to remove the food and send the robot pootling back to its home.
The top speed of the robot is three miles an hour and it uses optical sensors to keep an eye out for obstacles.
Fernando Fanton, chief product &and technology officer at Just Eat said: “This is another example of how we are pushing technology boundaries to provide our customers and restaurant partners with more choice and flexibility.
"We’ve always been committed to offering our customers new ways to order and pay for their food and now we’re right at the heart of a new way of delivering food which is as exciting for us as it will be for those who find a robot on their doorstep.”
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