Robot waiters in Kenya create buzz, and concerns about what it means for human labor
www.voanews.com
Industry expert says hospitality has room for mechanized and human labor
  • randon31415@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    2 months ago

    In the 60s they had pressurize tubes running to your table with the food. But the person putting it into the tube had to know what table your were sitting at. 70s came around and the process of just yelling out the person’s name to come up and get it was found to be more efficient. Don’t see how this could be more cost efficient than that - unless it is at a fancy restaurant. Then there are other jobs that the waiter does beside transporting food.

  • OmegaLemmy@discuss.onlineEnglish
    112·
    2 months ago

    Robots incur more costs when you realise you can always just hire a waiter and not deal with robot maintenance and purchasing costs

    • ITGuyLevi@programming.devEnglish
      7·
      2 months ago

      It will all boil down to what kind of maintenance is required. A robot for $50k would pay for itself in saved wages in under a year, even less if it collected tips. A lot of smaller diners (Waffle/Huddle/Waddle/etc) typically have super low staffing requirements (line cook + 1 or 2 servers per shift, occasionally more) and could totally use robots due to the simple layout and standardization of the restaurants.

    • Sneezycat@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      192·
      2 months ago

      The problem is that the wealth generated by the robots is going to the owners, not to the workers that lose their jobs, as always. Otherwise it’d be great.

          • Usernameblankface@lemmy.worldEnglish
            9·
            2 months ago

            I’d rather see them doing something they enjoy for a fair wage while being treated like a human being. Universal Basic Income had already been mentioned in this thread, why is begging on the streets the only other option?

  • ABCDE@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 months ago

    What it means… well, just check Japan. Restaurants where the chefs would be replaced if they could make it automated.

  • Wrongdoer4094@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    As a tech enthusiast and software developer I think this is amazing! I would love to have them in my hometown in Spain :)

    • jpreston2005@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      AP News is basically the only media source I really trust. Their reporting is always factual and with as little bias/editorializing as possible.

  • atthecoast@feddit.nlEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    Korea will have to come up with solutions as the birth rate has been low for a long time