TECHNOLOGY: Amazon proposes using drones to deliver a majority of its packages.
by Chance Ornelas-Skarin, Staff Writer
Imagine one day walking outside to smell the smog-ridden air and see the blinding rays of the sun fill the sky, when suddenly you hear the sound of eight rotors spinning as an octocopter with the Amazon logo lands in your yard. You look in the machine and find the package you ordered 30 minutes ago on Amazon. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos exhibited this idea on the show 60 minutes last Sunday. That’s right: they use them for surveillance, they use them for tactical strikes, and now they are going to use them for delivering novellas and video games to your front door. Though this may be a more efficient way to deliver packages, it is also more dangerous. There is a high possibility that people will abuse these machines. Not only that, the drones will also drastically affect the economy as they replace jobs.
As technology becomes more advanced, we as a society become more addicted to it. With people who are constantly on their phones to people who play video games incessantly, we are a society that takes advantage of the usefulness of modern technology. These drones, though born from a different form of innovation, are an example of how abuse can take place if they are used on a wide scale, which is exactly what Amazon Prime Air has proposed to do.
No, I do not think they are going to spy on us or turn into killing machines but as Missy Cummings, a drone expert and graduate from MIT, said, “It’s people that want those packages [that we have to worry about].” The hilarious possibility that people could use these innovative machines for target practice due to the “innate human desire to knock stuff out of the sky” (as stated by CNN writer Doug Gross) is a big problem. Not only would Amazon lose a drone and the customer his package, but the stray bullets from such a practice could cost lives. In previous years, many people died from stray bullets from holiday celebrations and who-knows-what. According to a study by youthtoday.org, “More than 300 people… between March 2008 and February 2009” were killed under such circumstances.
So these drones can lose packages. Besides that what else could be wrong with them, especially if they do what they are designed to do? The danger is that innovation in technology will cause many to lose their jobs, while human employees cost employers monthly wages, drones cost only the initial sale price and are therefore less expensive. The middle class of America is already becoming transparent, and firing the mailman is not going to help. As professor Brynjolfsson from MIT said, “Productivity is at record levels, innovation has never been faster, and yet at the same time, we have a falling median income and we have fewer jobs. People are falling behind because technology is advancing so fast and our skills and organizations aren’t keeping up.”
Humans cannot keep up with the effectiveness of these new machines, and our desire for them will destroy the economy. Robots do not pay taxes and are not consumers. They are not going to spend money at the grocery store or buy new furniture. We shouldn’t use these drones just because we have the capacity to. We have nuclear bombs and chemical weapons but we made pacts not to use them. Though they are not nearly as dangerous to the physical world, drones will be dangerous to our economy. They may be efficient in the future, and maybe we will eventually have an economy that will not be negatively affected by them, but for now we should hold off on the octocopters of Amazon Prime Air and anything similar to them.