Categories: News

Bots are creating a digital divide for Amazon food delivery

Grocery delivery services are in high demand, with stay-at-home orders in place nationwide. In some cities, people have reported not being able to find a delivery time slot for weeks at a time. VICE’s Motherboard investigates a series of bots that give some people an advantage when limited delivery slots are available from Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods. The bots serve as a tool to automatically search for available delivery time slots, then select and complete a customer’s order. But for high-risk, low-tech communities like the elderly, these services are not as accessible, and could end up permanently edging them out of delivery options.

Related Post
The Counter
Share
Published by
The Counter

Recent Posts

Grist acquires The Counter and launches food and agriculture vertical

Grist, an award-winning, nonprofit media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices,…

7 months ago

Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?

Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…

3 years ago

Your car is killing coho salmon

Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…

3 years ago

The pandemic has transformed America’s dining landscape into an oligopoly dominated by chains 

One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…

3 years ago

California is moving toward food assistance for all populations—including undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…

3 years ago

Babka, borscht … and pumpkin spice? Two writers talk about Jewish identity through contemporary cookbooks.

Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…

3 years ago