The earlier ones hit a crane which one could argue was an edge case as a temporary structure. This just hit a building which suggests something much more fundamentally wrong with the tech.
Fortunately, automated systems can meet that higher threshold so long as we actually aim for it. If you aim for the lower "beats existing systems by some measures" bar then you make stupid decisions and tradeoffs like rushing to market or leaving out more capable sensors. We ought to try to make new technologies as good as possible. Sometimes the market will bet against that, but that's a tide that engineers should fight back against. Trucks kill too many people, and if drones kill half as many that's still unacceptable. We can do better.
The new system needs to be better but that doesn’t necessarily mean safer.
For delivery, that could mean cheaper and faster and more convenient.
Autonomous vehicles are a special case because those accidents tend to cause death and serious injury. As long as delivery drones can avoid killing multiple people per year, they are probably fine to compete on other metrics.
I would expect them not to fly into any kind of structure. That they'd hit a crane is pretty insane considering what the results of something like that could be.
Drones are lightweight, they're not going to do much to heavy machinery. Basically the same as a brick wall.
The real fear is propellers hitting a human. The result is not good at all.
The impact would be quite serious, if they crash at speed but even falling on a car or a human would be quite serious, possibly deadly, even if the propellers don't spin.
You are setting an impossible standard.
if true, its a matter of repetition, and probability, until the time one of these crashes starts something on fire.
Looks like they didn’t meet the minimum crew requirement on this one.
> The Federal Aviation Administration opened an investigation into Amazon’s drone delivery program in November after one of its drone struck an Internet cable line in Waco.
Looks like the rest of that sentence has been cut off: "... but the company doesn't expect to be punished, since it spent $75 million dollars bribing President Trump in the form of the Melania movie.".
(jk, I don't actually work for Amazon's PR team. Just sarcastically beating them to the HN comment section)
I was watching a YouTube bodycam video showing police interaction with a guy who got upset that a Walmart delivery drone test was being performed on his property without permission. He shot the drone with a shotgun. I forget if he was arrested on the spot, but I think he got in huge legal trouble -- apparently in the US, shooting at a drone is treated the same as shooting at a manned aircraft, and he might have ended up getting multiple years in prison.
Shooting a human trespasser has a pretty high legal bar, and rightfully so. Shooting a robotic trespasser seems like it shouldn't carry prison time, even if unjustified it should only carry financial penalties. Especially if the law doesn't specify any peaceful recourse to get rid of unwanted robots trespassing on your property.
no, there really doesn't need to be.
i'm not saying that i'm in favor of autonomous drones flying around, i'm simply not in favor of individual people getting their own say about everything we as a society do. democracy: live with the results
it's not shooting at drones that is the big worry, it's missing the drones, and shooting at things if the law doesn't give a peaceful alternate way to get your own way is also not "great" in the pantheon of ideas.
The GP was suggesting that democratically, we could define "a legal means for property owners to keep drones off their property". Your comment is the one attempting to subvert democratic agreement.
Or as we pilots say it, takeoff is optional, landing is mandatory.
I'm glad we don't permit this stuff where I live.
robotnikman•1h ago
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/02/07/delive...
https://www.theverge.com/tech/875475/amazon-delivery-drone-c...
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/08/us/video/amazon-drone-deliver...