{"id":8010,"date":"2020-04-22T10:57:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T16:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=8010"},"modified":"2020-04-22T10:57:25","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T16:57:25","slug":"coronavirus-may-mean-automation-is-coming-sooner-than-we-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=8010","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus May Mean Automation Is Coming Sooner Than We Thought"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liwaiwai<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Now we have a reason to apply this level of automation to, well, pretty much everything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Though our current situation may force us into using more robots and automated systems sooner than we\u2019d planned, it will end up saving us money and creating opportunity, Xing believes. He cited \u201cfast-casual\u201d restaurants (Chipotle, Panera, etc.) as a prime example.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Currently, people in the US spend much more to eat at home than we do to eat in fast-casual restaurants <\/span>if<\/i> <\/span>you take into account the cost of the food we\u2019re preparing plus the value of the time we\u2019re spending on cooking, grocery shopping, and cleaning up after meals. According to research from investment management firm <\/span>ARK Invest<\/a>, taking all these costs into account makes for about $12 per meal for food cooked at home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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That\u2019s the same as or more than the cost of grabbing a burrito or a sandwich at the joint around the corner. As more of the repetitive, low-skill tasks involved in preparing fast casual meals <\/span>are automated<\/a>, their cost will drop even more, giving us more incentive to forego home cooking. <\/span>(But<\/i>, it\u2019s worth noting that these figures don\u2019t take into account that eating at home is, in most cases, better for you since you\u2019re less likely to fill your food with sugar, oil, or various other taste-enhancing but health-destroying ingredients\u2014plus, there are those of us who get a nearly incomparable amount of joy from laboring over then savoring a homemade meal).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Now that we\u2019re not supposed to be touching each other or touching anything anyone else has touched, but we still need to eat, automating food preparation sounds appealing (and maybe necessary). Multiple food delivery services have already implemented a <\/span>contactless delivery<\/a> <\/span>option, where customers can choose to have their food left on their doorstep.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Besides the opportunities for in-restaurant automation, \u201cThis is an opportunity for automation to happen at the last mile,\u201d said Xing. Delivery drones, robots, and autonomous trucks and vans could all play a part. In fact, <\/span>use of delivery drones<\/a> <\/span>has ramped up in China since the outbreak.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Speaking of deliveries, service robots have steadily increased in numbers at Amazon; as of <\/span>late 2019<\/a>, the company employed around 650,000 humans and 200,000 robots\u2014and costs have gone down as robots have gone up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liwaiwai: Now we have a reason to apply this level of automation to, well, pretty much everything. Though our current situation may force us into using more robots and automated systems sooner than we\u2019d planned, it will end up saving us money and creating opportunity, Xing believes. He cited \u201cfast-casual\u201d restaurants (Chipotle, Panera, etc.) as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8010"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8011,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8010\/revisions\/8011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}