About That Amazon Plan to Deliver by Drone

When I was reporting a story on domestic drones earlier this year, I  had a long interview with Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired who now runs DIY Drones. We talked quite a bit about the possibility of drone delivery services, but I didn't spend much time on the concept in my piece. It seemed too far-fetched.

Now, Jeff Bezos says Amazon could be delivering packages by drone in four or five years. Really? Not if Chris Anderson is correct. When I asked Anderson about drone delivery during our January interview, he replied:

Not in my lifetime. People love that concept of delivery, but let’s just think it through. Try to imagine a harder technical and regulatory—to say nothing of liability—problem than navigating an urban landscape at street-level, where you’ve got telephone lines, and trees, and birds, and construction. Millions of people underneath you, involving a multi-copter rather than a plane—because, remember, it’s got to be precisely located... This is an artificial intelligence challenge like you can’t even imagine, and it’s a regulatory challenge like nobody wants to think about. So, we could deliver you a taco to your apartment today, at about, like, a meter per second maximum. Really slowly, and with about $100,000 worth of LIDAR gear on board. And it might work, sometimes. And it would take like an hour each way. Of course, we’d have to recharge the batteries mid-way. But maybe we could almost imagine doing it, technically. But, can you imagine what regulator is going to let that happen? There’s no bigger liability area than robotic delivery in cities.

Anderson continued:

I think that the first place drones are going to be used is away from people, for obvious reasons. Common-sense safety reasons, and also regulatory reasons. And I think any delivery service that’s trying to deliver things to people fundamentally comes in conflict with the FAA’s priorities, which are the safety of our citizens. I just think it’s got a really high regulatory barrier… The closer you are to people, the harder it is to navigate safely. You’re dealing with obstructions. You’re often in GPS-denied areas because of high-rises. You’re around trees, and telephone wires, and birds, and god knows what—it’s actually hard to do that stuff… But the fantasy of food delivery in a city, if you think about it for like two seconds, just imagine what that would take in terms of the path-finding, and the obstacle avoidance, and the safety considerations—and where would you land? They’re basically flying lawnmowers, right? Because the ones that are going to land on the spot are copters, not planes. Where are they going to land? And how do you know there’s nobody there? And what if you landed on a kid?

I assume Amazon is asking these questions. Maybe the company has already answered them, but if so it hasn't explained how. I did notice, however, that in the video demonstrating Amazon's drone delivery capability, father and son stay behind a closed door while the drone delivers its package.

Wise move. Here's a picture I took of drone-blade injuries to a contestant at the 2012 International Aerial Robotics Competition:

Ground Control to Flying Drone

On domestic drones and their discontents, in the current issue of The Magazine. While I was reporting this one, I became the proud (and scared) owner of my very own personal drone. Been trying to figure out what to do with it ever since.

Washington State, Now More Liberal Than Amsterdam

A quick look at the historic Nov. 6 votes legalizing same-sex marriage and marijuana, for The New Republic.

On The Media

Talking about some unusual political ads with Bob Garfield.

“Why’s this so good?” No. 53

This was fun to do.

Boring, Traditional, Religious Marriage

For The Stranger: The inspiring dullness of Jamie Pedersen and Eric Cochran. ("Last week we ran into a ladybug," Jamie says. "That was pretty exciting.")

On Faygele ben Miriam

For Tablet: Seattle's most interesting—and least remembered—radical gay Jew, and how he pioneered the fight for same-sex marriage in Washington State. (Photo by Geoff Manasse.)

Extremely Late and Incredibly Tardy

Not only have I gone and joined Twitter (@elijsanders). I've also let go of my beloved Razr.

On the Trail With Jay Inslee

Answering an existential question.

Santormentum

Even in Seattle.

Valentines Eve With Rick Santorum

Always a pleasure.

A Visit With Jon Tester

For Esquire. (Previously.)

Looking for the Lost Tribe of Portland

In Tablet.

P... R... I...

My first time on Public Radio International. (Re: Gay softball.)

"I Would Like You to Know My Name"

Jennifer Hopper, the survivor of the South Park attacks, in her own words.

The Bravest Woman in Seattle

For herself, for the woman she loved, and for justice, the survivor of the South Park attacks tells a courtroom what happened that night. (Illustration by Aaron Bagley.)

Gay Ball

How some drama at the Seattle Gay Softball World Series became a federal case. (Illustration by James Yamasaki.)

The Hatchet

The scariest thing about the alleged Capitol Hill hatchet murderer is that a lot more people like him are going to be on the streets—without help—soon.

High Court Hypocrite

Washington State Supreme Court justice Richard B. Sanders describes himself as a defender of civil rights and civil liberties even though he’s anti-choice, was “not a fan” of Martin Luther King Jr., once showed up at a party in a Nazi uniform, and in 2006, signed an opinion denying marriage equality to gay couples—because they have “more sexual partners” and because other courts have found that monogamy is “the bedrock upon which our culture is built.” Meanwhile, he’s been divorced twice, and this election season it became clear he has multiple simultaneous girlfriends. He doesn’t see anything inconsistent in any of that.

Update: He's no longer a Washington State Supreme Court justice.

The Great West Coast Newspaper War

Seized delivery vans, murderous editors, irate blog posts, allegations of insanity, connections to the Church of Satan, illegal predatory-pricing schemes, and more than $21 million on the line—the crazy alt-weekly war in San Francisco has it all.