Imagine this scenario: A new delivery robot comes to town, ushering in a simpler, app-based way to order takeout food, which is then conveniently shuttled to your home in an autonomous robot the size of a cooler.
But that's only the start of the transformation. A few weeks later, you notice that a couple of missing trees on your street have been replaced. Then the potholes in the road and some sidewalk defects vanish. Next, the air starts to smell a bit sweeter, and a few right-of-way issues are solved so that wheelchairs (and, conveniently, delivery robots) can get through more easily. Finally, the local government announces some changes to local driving rules, diverting traffic so that the street you live on is no longer a tangle of morning traffic.
"When did all this start happening?" you wonder one morning. Then you realize: Your neighborhood delivery robot, it seems, is like Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name, the silent, mysterious stranger who comes to a new town and cleans it up. Or, perhaps more appropriately, it's like Amélie, the cutesy do-gooder who performs tiny acts of kindness for those she encounters.
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