Who's the Drone?

The little grocery around the corner in Chennai where we shop is a busy place. Often there’s not even enough room to enter. You have to make known what you want with hand signals above the heads of other customers like they do on the floor of the NYSE.

We generally get deliveries once a month. At that time we give the boy a list of the provisions we will need for the following month. In between we go there to pick up various sundry or forgotten items.

Chandamama handles thousands of items from eggs to fountain pens. They do not have a cash register and nothing is computerized. The man behind the counter knows where everything is. His partner makes his calculations in pencil amidst plenty of interruptions. At the end of the month, the boy brings over a hand-written bill. We check the arithmetic. It is always correct. Naturally, we think the two Tamil brothers at the grocery are very smart.

Me thinks that the robots are made to accommodate a workforce that is no longer educated to think. Picking up items that may have fallen off the shelf is not thinking. The thinking part is confined to the building, programming and maintenance of the bots. And who knows where on earth all this is done.

Your clip indicates that workers no longer have to remember where things are; neither do they have to go and get them. They simply reach and pack. Who exactly in this scheme of things is the drone?

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