It was bound to happen. With all of the interest in service-oriented robots -- like those that make your noodles, serve your drinks, and make your burgers -- it should come as little surprise that a restaurant comprised nearly entirely of a robotic wait staff has opened in China.
The so-called Robot Restaurant -- outlined in the Daily Mail and other published reports and a video online -- is located in Harbin, Heilongjiang province in China and has a staff of 18 multi-colored robots that uses sensors and conveyor belts to move around the restaurant and serve customers.
The robots perform a number of tasks, like bringing specialty noodle and dumpling dishes to tables after human wait staff take orders, leading clients to their tables, and also cooking the dishes being served.
The Harbin Haohai Robot Company in China has developed a robotic restaurant staff and opened a restaurant that uses them to cook, greet clients, and wait tables. The robots, which are multicolored and travel around via sensors on the floor, cost about $31,000 to $47,000 and run on batteries with a five-hour life. The move is part of a growing trend toward service robots, a market that could outpace even industrial robots in the next several years. (Source: Reuters)
They stand between about four feet and five feet tall, can exhibit about 10 different facial expressions, and run on batteries that have about a five-hour life span. The robots can also verbally greet customers.
The Harbin Haohai Robot Company designed the machines in use at the restaurant, which serves about 30 different dishes and in which the company invested about 5 million yuan ($790,000). Each robot itself cost about 200,000 to 300,000 yuan ($31,500 to $47,000). The restaurant opened last year.
This kind of noodle joint may sound like the stuff of sci-fi, but it comes as little surprise to me, someone who's been watching the robotic space for a while. Robots in the restaurant industry are part of a new wave of service robots emerging in a market that is expected to grow at an even faster clip than the busy industrial robot market over the new few years, according to a recent study from Freedonia, "World Robots to 2016."
Asia in particular -- perhaps because of its interest in anime and sci-fi -- has been particularly receptive to using robots to interact with humans in service jobs. In addition to Harbin Haohai's creation of a robotic restaurant staff, it was a chef in Beijing named Cui Runquan who invented the noodle-making robot, which looks similar to the ones serving customers in Harbin.
So if I am to understand you right, Ann, it is the less developed countries that will suffer worker displacement more than developed countries? That is a shame, I guess, which also may send those workers over to the U.S. to work illegally and be exploited, as another commenter pointed out.
Good point, Ann. The French are within their rights to be that way about food, but there is no excuse for the service. Then again, I sometimes don't mind how I'm treated by the wait staff if the food is deiicious and I don't have to tip them. Put robots in a Michelin star restaurant and I think I would be fine! But service is so tied to the restaurant industry itself, especially in the U.S., which is why I think an idea like that--or robots in most restaurants in general except fast-food chains--wouldn't fly.
Actually, I said "not me"--call me crazy, but I like French waiters, snooty and all. I think the French have several things to be legitimately snooty about, and one of them is food. But bad service? That's something else.
I've always suspected that they think I'm not good enough to be walking into a French restaurant, Ann. A robot might not be friendlier, but at least it wouldn't assume I'm Homer Simpson.
The problem with a lot of job displacement discussions/analyses/studies is that they don't take into account the kind of new jobs created and the kind of old jobs that become no longer available to lesser-skilled people. The relationship between the skill level of the labor force and the kind of jobs available to it is not as balanced as many such studies would make one think. But that discussion takes a lot more than a few sentences.
Regarding robots, the Freedonia study I reported on here
bluntly and matter-of-factly stated that (I quote myself here): "Because of higher labor costs, robots are being used to replace human workers in existing applications in developed countries. But in developing countries, they're more often deployed to carry out difficult and dangerous tasks that people can't do." As one might imagine, this is not a popular sentiment in the robotics industry.
Interesting statistic, Chuck! Not sure if research into robot-human displacement has gotten far enough that we would know yet, but would be good to research that. I think it may be a bit of time before we see the full effect of robots in the workforce.
I agree with Chuck, Ann--another funny and French-related comment! I know exactly what you mean...and it's the same with some staff members here in Portugal when it comes to service oriented jobs. A friendly, attentive robot would be far better than someone who audibly sighs and rolls their eyes when you need service because it takes you away from whatever phone call they were on or magazine they were reading.
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