Praised Be The Robots! Burritos On My Balcony
This whole capitalism thing is officially vindicated in the eyes of all millennials (myself included): Chipotle is going to deliver to us by drone.
When drones first became an accepted thing a few years ago, most people thought of them in terms of war. But then some entrepreneurs said, “What if we gave these to the general populace?” And the general populace took them and ran.
Is Chipotle exploiting my food habits and my lifestyle? Yes. Do I mind? Not at all.The movie business uses drones. Professional photographers have drones. Kids have drones that they lose in trees. My alma mater has a drone. Amazon wants drones. And now Chipotle has drones.
Burritos
A lot of sci-fi movies feature robots and artificial intelligence, and a lot of them portray the technology as dangerous, capable of becoming autonomous and destroying us all, á la HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey . But these burrito-bearing drones will be captained by both autocommand and human command, so in the unlikely event that the drones decide to mutiny and keep the burritos for themselves, humans can take the controls and pilot them to customers before they get hangry.
Capitalizing on Laziness
Naturally, this idea is being tested on a college campus. What are two things millennials unapologetically love? Food and laziness.
We are the kings and queens of laziness. We spend countless hours of brain power to invent something that frees up countless hours of body power. (Although I’m still waiting for an app that does my push-ups for me. What is taking so long?)
I love being catered to. And business finds it very profitable to cater to me.We are so embracing of food that there is a new food trend every year. We are the biggest consumer demographic for food trucks. We even went to Chipotle at the height of the E. coli epidemic. We literally would rather risk getting horribly sick, than go a single month without a burrito.
Is Chipotle’s drone plan exploitative of my food habits and my lifestyle? Yes. Do I mind? Not at all. I love being catered to. And business finds it very profitable to cater to me.
If I’m too lazy to go to the store and I don’t feel like making myself presentable enough to find a food truck, all I will have to do is go out onto my apartment balcony and wait for the Almighty Food Robot to bring me food.
The only way Chipotle can improve this is if they deliver a margarita with my order. I’ll be waiting.
Eileen L. Wittig
Eileen Wittig is the Associate Editor at the Foundation for Economic Education.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
