Drones in America: Sushi and Pizza Delivery Drones Now a Thing

Culture

Drones is a ubiquitous word in the West. It is also a negative word. In the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, drones were part of dining table conversations. It’s only natural that drones come to our dining tables now. Well, not the dangerous ones, yet. Ever since DomiCopter made its way onto public sphere, new technologies are entering the culinary world and the food industry is apparently trying to make it all easier for the customer.

If flying food delivery via Domino’s Pizza drone wasn’t enough, your Bento box will now come to you carrying your food directly to your table via the very aptly named iTray. It doesn’t have wings, but it has its own Wi-Fi and it can be operated via an iPad app. It really does boast of the quintessential convenience.

But, is it really convenient that we will get with all the Sci-fi, futuristic developments in the food industry? Or are they just overcomplicating things? Yo! Sushi’s London restaurant gave a test run for its flying sushi trays and everything didn’t go exactly as planned. The result was a sloppy carrier nudging its way through to reach the customer. It is a classic example of confusing modernity with convenience. Less manual workforce will result in economic advantages and will be less time consuming. So clearly it’s for the producer’s benefit. After all, it is indeed the era of speed, and in order to attain that, activities such as calling for a waitress, giving your order, waiting for her to get your order and carefully place it on your table just seem redundant. So why shouldn’t an automated instrument make it all seem new and intriguing? Everything routine does need a spark eventually!

The only real troublesome factor though, in this entire discourse, is the word drones. The first thought that would come across the minds of people when they hear sushi or pizza drones sadly won’t be of the food. Drones would take over the sentence. The word is specifically used in the purpose of fast food delivery because its basis is quick machinery, but do we really want people using drones in a casual, perfunctory, almost normal way? Is it not the opposite of the Utopia we so wish to see after the past few decades of violent global mayhem? It is a good boost for the technology that such innovations see the light of day, and maybe in next couple of years this will be all the rage, but just for a second the fact needs to be identified that it will also perpetrate a sense of human uselessness and blatant immobility.