Domino’s Pizza in New Zealand has created "the world’s first" pizza delivery robot in what could be the beginning of the end for their underpaid human drivers.
Looking like the lovechild of Disney’s Wall-E and Eve, the "Domino’s Robotic Unit", or DRU, is a prototype developed for the retailer by Australian defense contractor Marathon Robotics.
But wait, it gets creepier.
Using this military technology, combined with its own GPS tracking systems, the robot uses LIDAR, the same technology in self-driving cars, which one researcher has shown can be hacked.
DRU is able to travel within a radius of 20 miles from a restaurant’s location, where it can be tracked, reach speeds of up to 20kph and is able to traverse footpaths and trails, using lasers to navigate around obstacles along the way.
The four-wheeled robot consists of cold and heated compartments and the ability to carry 10 pizzas at once, with the recipient entering a unique code to release the pizza.
"How many people will lose their jobs as delivery drivers?" commented one YouTube user, raising the much-discussed issue of low pay at a number of pizza chains.
Numerous petitions in the UK claimed delivery drivers are paid as little as £4 per hour and an additional £1 compensation to cover 14 mile journeys. Workers also said they were earning "negative wages" due to what staff described as illegal deductions.
One former employee told BBC the chain took money from him to cover the cost of buying and insuring the car he was using to deliver pizzas.
A similar issue was raised in 2015 by staff at competitors Pizza Hut in Australia, who said some franchises were using "sham" contracts to underpay delivery drivers.
A number of restaurants were reported to be paying as little as AU$10 per hour, which is up to AU$15 less than it should be, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.