Drones: When deliveries come from the sky

last updated 8 January 2015

Picture thousands of drones zipping across America, swooping down every few minutes to drop off books and electronic gadgets and boxed DVD sets, said Josh Duboff in VanityFair.com. “Nope, this is not the premise for a dystopian novel; it’s real!” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced on CBS’s 60 Minutes this week that within five years his company plans to use unmanned, GPS-operated “octocopters” to deliver purchases to a customer’s door—just 30 minutes after an online purchase. “The concept isn’t new,” said Jason Paur in Wired.com. FedEx and other businesses have already discussed the idea of using flying robots to make deliveries, and groups as varied as farmers, photographers, and Domino’s Pizza eagerly await the integration of civilian drones into the national airspace. But when a company as massive and wildly successful as Amazon gets involved, “people pay attention.”

Sorry to spoil all the excitement, but just wait until one of those 100-pound octocopters crashes down on someone’s head, said Peter Grier in CSMonitor.com. Letting businesses and individuals fill the sky with drones is just too risky. In densely populated cities, swarms of propeller-driven aircraft loaded with goodies would be a constant hazard—not to mention lucrative targets for thieves—while in rural areas, they’d be target practice for “people bored of hunting deer.” Meanwhile, to reassure the Federal Aviation Administration that the octocopters won’t snag power lines or crash into airplanes, Amazon may have to attach cameras to them, raising serious privacy concerns. Americans don’t want camera-bearing drones looking down on them from above; seven states have already banned police surveillance drones. Considering those obstacles, Amazon’s announcement smells like a “well-planned publicity stunt.”

“Yet for all the showmanship, there’s reason to believe that Amazon is on to something,” said Bloomberg.com in an editorial. The FAA is cautiously opening the door to domestic drone use, and the unmanned aircraft have already been successfully deployed in firefighting, disaster relief, and search and rescue. Now, with businesses beginning to dream up their own ideas, “expanded use of commercial drones is inevitable.” The technology needs to mature, said Rich Lowry in the New York Post, but it will. Drones just have too much potential to be grounded by fear of misuse. “Scoff at Jeff Bezos, if you like. But our robot future is already here, and it will inevitably take flight.”