World's First Kitchen-Free, Robot-Run Fast-Food Restaurant

http://foodbeast.com/content/2012/11/16/heres-a-look-at-the-worlds-first-smart-restaurant-chain-kitchen-free-and-run-by-robots-2/

by kode4fun • 14 years ago

35 66 14 years ago

foodbeast.com

jiggy20117• 14 years ago

When I was a teenager the most popular part time jobs among my piers were either working in a supermarket or at a fast food place.

Lots of supermarkets are starting to replace humans with self-checkouts and things like this will probably become standard in fast food.

So how is a teenager supposed to fund his pot habit in 2020?

mertd• 14 years ago

In 2020, they will probably be able to grab some weed from the family pantry.

On a different note, I am curious to see how economy and society will shape up once most low entry barrier jobs are automated.

alwaysabove5• 14 years ago

It's a triumph that we're automating these kind of jobs. Why are we wasting human talent on inane jobs like store checkout or junk food production? Every person in one of those jobs is a wasted mind. If we could put those minds to work on something meaningful think what we could achieve.

jiggy20117• 14 years ago

I have a feeling that many low barrier jobs will end up being stuff that is either dangerous or morally gray (I forsee a booming market for sex work for example). So a lot of stuff that people wouldn't be comfortable with minors doing.

columbo• 14 years ago

Well Stanislaw Lem's Memiors of a Space Traveler (24th Voyage) suggests we will all be flattened into glass discs and placed in random locations over the planet.

Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=1DNVzphAHD0C&lpg=PA24&#...

nathan_long3• 14 years ago

More importantly, how will people learn basic job skills, like "show up on time" and "do what you're told" if all the traditional first jobs are automated?

alwaysabove5• 14 years ago

Isn't that what schools do? Or actually, parents before you get to school age?

Evbn6• 14 years ago

Without basic jobs, "basic job" skills are irrelevant.

Plenty of jobs don't have the two rules you mention.

KaoruAoiShiho• 14 years ago

Learn programming and do some spec work.

digitalsushi• 14 years ago

I don't know the first thing about statistics, but I know that the set of people reading this website are in a selection problem- everyone here could probably learn to program and go some spec work. For each person here, there are some ratio of other people that cannot do this work. Why they cannot is undefined. Maybe it's as simple as they find it boring or have a low dedication. But I believe it is a fact that there are some number of people who cannot simply ramp up their mental aperture and get a better profession.

blhack• 14 years ago

This is the future. It's not just highschoolers that can't fund their pot habits (ha), it's adults who can't put food on their family's table.

tomjen34• 14 years ago

Nobody can make money at all if they refuse to think about how they can create value and then do it.

In other words, if you expect your life to continue as it has always done, it won't.

Dove3• 14 years ago

It's 2020. Lots of teenagers don't have jobs and would like them. Someone starts a new business based on the available cheap labor.

Dog poop scooping? Personal couriers? Game testing? Something we haven't thought of because the relevant industry doesn't exist yet?

Economies aren't static. You can always find something useful to do.

jkeel• 14 years ago

I agree. Even now (2012 - almost 2013) there are still lots of services needed but when I was a teenager I unfortunately kept looking for a type of job that my friends had instead of looking for a need to fill (I eventually did land a very different job though working alongside field workers).

Today I've seen adults in their 30's and 40's jump out of the IT industry to start their own business scooping dog poop out of back yards and making enough money to live on. Same thing with cleaning swimming pools. There are lots of services they could provide.

jlarocco• 14 years ago

I'd love to see enough jobs automated so that when somebody asks, "But what about the people who do those jobs now?" the answer is "Everybody in the remaining jobs drop down to 20 hours a week, the unemployed take up the other 20 hours a week, and we all enjoy more leisure time." I don't see it happening, but it would be nice.

It's a little disappointing that despite immense advances in technology and production, and increased efficiency, all we're achieving is having people toil the same amount as before, but doing something else.

alexkus• 14 years ago

> So how is a teenager supposed to fund his pot habit in 2020?

Learn how to maintain/fix robots.

swalsh• 14 years ago

Can't you see the trend emerging today? Entrepreneurship is "cool" and every year seems to be ever more encouraged. At the same time, the internet is leveling everything. Barriers to entry are being plowed across the board. For example look at Arduino, a lot of the things people are making with it aren't exactly amazing. But consider how many posts you've seen of people with 0 experience in electronics, doing things that previously would have been "advanced".

That trend is only going to continue. Think about scaling a new website today, I can go from idea to scalable infrastructure without ever leaving my chair or breaking the bank. Imagine how 3D printing, and other new technologies are going to enable a new generation of people to do cool things.

None of this stuff is out of the grasp of teenagers either. I would not be surprised if you start seeing more and more stories about teenagers building new things, and making a few bucks while they're at it. They've always had the creativity, and drive. But now they have the capability.

Look at youtube, i've been watching videos made by teenagers that look better then most movies made in the 1980's. SLR's, and super high quality video, plus cheap computers & applications are enabling amateurs to do near professional quality stuff.

ippisl2• 14 years ago

Both with the simplicity of the web, and the relative simplicity of building simple apps with good tools , we didn't see a great number of teenagers making money from building web sites or mobile apps.

It would probably makes more sense to outsource building a site to someone from low-cost country that have gained experience than to a local teenager. The same sense probably operate on arduino development and 3d design by teens.

And teen entrepreneurship didn't scale for web-develpoment or mobile apps, no reason to think it would scale this time.

ebiester3• 14 years ago

More importantly, what about mentally challenged people? Already today, there are many people now who cannot function on their own, the jobs for which they were qualified have dried up. How many people can we support on disability as job requirements keep rising?

Evbn6• 14 years ago

Labor income is a trivial portion of the cost of care for a mentally disabled person. They could do volunteer work instead, with only the slightest change in lifestyle.

codva• 14 years ago

It sounds like they are a long way from actually operating a restaurant. This is just speculative hype.

"Momentum Machines – the minds behind the burger maker — have expressed plans to create their own “smart restaurant” chain, serving burgers made by their own crime-fighting cooking robots. According to the company’s site, the technology will provide “the means for the next generation of restaurant design and operation.”"

skywalk• 14 years ago

Highly suggested essay regarding food automation in the future: http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm

bmohlenhoff• 14 years ago

Also by Marshall Brain, a somewhat-related thought-provoking short story about a theoretical future where robots displace the minimum wage workforce: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

preinheimer• 14 years ago

James Bolivar DiGriz will come along and make the first order for a porcuswine burger I'm sure.

R_Edward• 14 years ago

Not exactly kitchen-free, is it? You've got to have food storage areas, produce washing stations, produce prep stations, garbage disposal, and even if the actual grinding, cooking, and sandwich assembly functions are all contained within the robot, you're still going to want to house that somewhere out of reach of the general public, making that area a de facto kitchen.

I wouldn't worry too much about jobs--you're still going to need people to wash, inspect, prep and load the produce, as well as the meat grinders and bun burners. And there better be someone in there to disassemble the robot periodically to give it a good thorough cleaning and reassemble it.

Breakthrough• 14 years ago

I agree, poor choice of title... That being said, a throughput of 1 burger every 10 seconds is pretty impressive given the final product. By fast food standards, maybe not so quick, but look at the ingredients they're using - I'd argue they're actually real!

Also, I love the conclusion in the article - "After all, how 'gourmet' can you get when your cuisinier is made of cold steel and plastic?" I don't know what the author uses to prepare her food, but I guess gourmet somehow means I should prepare my food with wood utensils over an open fire.

ajmarsh• 14 years ago

Wow it's McSwiney's from the Stainless Steel Rat books.

lazyjones2• 14 years ago

Robots in a restaurant benefit only the owner, not the customer (esp. when they burn the burgers like in the pictures). When robots are able to cook proper meals, they'll be in our homes to do so, because we'll want to save time and money and not walk to the next fast-food restaurant.

Jabbles• 14 years ago

You're conveniently forgetting the ~20 years or so when robot chefs are so expensive only world-class restaurants can afford them. Then full-time eateries and supermarkets, then cafes, and finally cheap enough to buy for your home after years of billions of dollars of investment in the technology.

maratd2• 14 years ago

When it comes to computers, first they come big and bulky. They're not user-friendly. They're industrial.

Yes, you'll have robots cook you a meal at home eventually. This is just the first step. I don't want that massive thing in my kitchen. When it's tiny, portable, and user friendly ... then it's fine.

> Robots in a restaurant benefit only the owner, not the customer (esp. when they burn the burgers like in the pictures).

I've had plenty of humans make me a shitty burger. The good thing about machines is that once you tune them, they'll make the same exact burger, every single time. That's a huge benefit to consumers. Now I won't have to eat someone's bad day!

lazyjones2• 14 years ago

> The good thing about machines is that once you tune them, they'll make the same exact burger, every single time. That's a huge benefit to consumers. Now I won't have to eat someone's bad day!

OTOH, the robots will ignore your complaints and never try to be friendly for a higher tip ...

6ren• 14 years ago

Interesting, you don't think of Krispy Kreme as making robot donuts.

Curious that Macdonald's, with so much careful specification of all processes, hasn't done this, at all. e.g. fry/remove/salt fries. (though their standard coffee is mostly automated). Macdonald's is so well-placed, I can only assume it isn't actually cost-effective for them. Maybe it's worth it for Momentum, for the PR? Or, by starting from scratch, they can make radical changes? Or, it isn't happening? (it's just a "concept" so far).

Finally, Larry Niven wrote a short story about automated restaurants "Intent to Deceive" (1968).

ippisl2• 14 years ago

Macdonald's recently introduced touch screens as cashiers in europe. They didn't do it in the u.s. .My guess is thy didn't want the bad PR. Maybe similar motivations exist for lack of robots.

But maybe the simplest explanation is that big businesses are not very much optimized for innovation, so it took a startup.

Evbn6• 14 years ago

Holy wow that is chauvinistic. McDonalds is an incredible innovator in efficient production of comestibles.

Evbn6• 14 years ago

McDonalds has been advancing robotic preparation at minimal marginal cost for decades, and they continue to do so.

potatolicious• 14 years ago

McDonald's does automate their production processes to a large extent - the fries machine requires very little human oversight apart from taking it out when done.

The trouble with robotics is that it's expensive and time consuming to scale, and deals poorly with variance, at least for now.

If your McDonald's is a smash hit and you're experiencing much higher than expected traffic, you can scale horizontally by quickly hiring more workers. All of the tricky bits of producing the product (e.g., correct portioning, correct frying, correct cooking) are already automated, so this labor force is easy to bring up to speed.

Compare with a robotic McDonald's, where you'd freak out, order a new burger-maker-matic from your vendor, and wait 6 months for it to arrive.

Or perhaps worse, you have a maximum capacity of 1000 burger/hour, scaled for your lunch-time rush, and those machines are idling the rest of the time. In a normal human environment you just bring in fewer people during the off hours - but with a robotic work force you are always scaled for peak demand. In businesses that are periodically peak-y this is incredibly inefficient.

tshadwell• 14 years ago

Interesting article, though the author's picture is definitely swearing at me.

shabble• 14 years ago

ObRef: Automated fresh pizza vending machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_lxiU8eLM

kevinSuttle• 14 years ago

HOLY Old Georgie, it's PAPA SONG'S.

World's First Kitchen-Free, Robot-Run Fast-Food Restaurant

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