Courtesy of Mish.
With increasing frequency I see articles on how robots are taking jobs once held by humans. Typically I batch a few of them up for comments, and I have a new set now.
Last week, on the manufacturing front I reported “Baxter” the Robot Out to Get Your Minimum-Wage, No Benefits, Part-Time Job, Because He’s Still Much Cheaper; Fed Cannot Win a Fight Against Robots.
Alpha the Custom Burger Flipping Robot
Here is a similar story in the service industry to consider: Robot Serves Up 360 Hamburgers Per Hour
Alpha machine from Momentum Machines cooks up a tasty burger with all the fixins. And it does it with such quality and efficiency it’ll produce “gourmet quality burgers at fast food prices.”
With a conveyor belt-type system the burgers are freshly ground, shaped and grilled to the customer’s liking. And only when the burger’s finished cooking does Alpha slice the tomatoes and pickles and place them on the burger as fresh as can be. Finally, the machine wraps the burger up for serving.
Alpha churns out a painless 360 hamburgers per hour. Saving money with Alpha is pretty easy to imagine. You don’t even need cashiers or servers. Customers could just punch in their order, pay, and wait at a dispensing window.
For their next model Momentum Machines plans on adding a custom meat grinding feature so it can mix different meats – 1/3 pork, 2/3 bison sounds like a tasty combo – in the same burger. They’ll also give it gourmet cooking abilities that seasoned chefs use such as charring the burger while retaining its juiciness.
The company plans on launching the first ever restaurant chain with a cook staff made entirely of robots. But not only might we soon find Alpha’s creations at local burger joints, but the company is also targeting convenience stores, food trucks, and somehow even vending machines.
Robot Wars in China
China Daily reports Chinese robot wars set to erupt
Recent research conducted by the consultancy Ernst & Young LLP suggests that the average annual labor cost per worker rose to more than 40,000 yuan ($6,400) in 2011, from less than 25,000 yuan five years ago.
Given the context, it’s easy to calculate the tradeoffs of getting a robot. “In fact, industrial robots are already cheaper than workers in China’s eastern regions,” said Wang Tianmiao, who heads the expert panel of robot technology under the State High-Tech Development Plan….
