Once I ordered from one of those companies on a brutally rainy day, and the rider who delivered my order was a mother taking her infant daughter along with her. Before she arrived I was kind of frustrated as the order was taking twice as long as expected to be delivered, but once both of them showed up at my front door all soaking wet with the mother apologizing, it broke my heart.
I'm not so sure people are happy to deliver stuff to others. They work jobs because they really need the pay. You might argue delivery companies didn't created poverty, but they aren't exactly paying a living wage either.
Robots makes food delivery less exploitative.
I'm not comfortable with this line of argument. It makes it sound like these delivery companies are generous charities that act on the riders' best interests. Instead, they are just exploiting the most vulnerable not only on their extremely low pay and lack of welfare and benefits but also by treating them as disposable servants. It sounds a bit like something rich people say during a banquet about servants taking home their scraps. That doesn't sit right by me.
At least delivery robots are a realization of how these types look at people.
The labor costs for these are rising precipitously in many states. I've almost eliminated app-based food delivery in New York, as have many of my friends.
In 10 years this situation will play out across all jobs in all industries. Nobody from janitors to theoretical physicists will be spared. All work, everywhere, will gradually acquire an ever-deepening sense of futility. Until all anyone can see is that the only people doing this pointless work are the "working" poor. And then we'll ask "why are some rich and some poor?" and discover that economics is just a scam, having no bearing on reality. The rich are con artists, the poor are marks. And why are the poor marks? Because they've been worked so hard for so long that all they can manage is their own survival. If the poor learn how the scam works, there won't be any rich people anymore. That's why the rich do everything in their power to prevent all forward progress in all areas of life that may lift this veil of deception.
Get mad at me, equivocate, deny and deflect. It doesn't matter. It's too late, and this is all going to happen faster than anyone ever saw coming.
An analogy: I used to get mad when I spilled my coffee each morning. Now I observe the nature and character of the spill, how my hurriedness or caution has little bearing on the odds of it happening, and appreciate that the universe has spilled for me, to give me a little sign that it's still there. That's what it feels like watching increasingly absurd talking heads on TV distract from anything and everything that's even remotely related to UBI.
Just because I know the spill is coming, doesn't mean that I can stop it.
They're delivery food because it's all they can get/interview for/network with... It's not, "Oh this robot is delivering food now so I can go get that job at FANG."
No argument that the rich are con artists, in a way, but not to the extent you mean. Most jobs are terrible - raw sewage? Handing drywall? Meat processing? etc. They are awful. Robots won't be there any time soon if ever. They probably won't even replace retail workers in the next 10 years.
Keynes predicted we would be working 15-hour weeks. He was wrong because he missed that the enslavement was, in fact, the point.