Will Robots Invade Restaurants of the Future?

Robots in American pop culture date way back into the early 1900s. While being a terrifying vision of possible robotic future, it has not come to forwishen thus far. Instead, humanity classed robots into a tool for the automotive industry and other industrial jobs. The technology is largely cast into walled gardens utilizing copyrights and intellectual property law to protect from being copied, something that is common practice with many large corporations acting to protect their investments.

Source: Spyce

Robotics are more commonly known for building vehicles in factories. So it comes to a shock to some that these innovative robots are making their way into the kitchen. A few startups exist in the US, experimenting with new robotic technology to help humans in the food industry. Each uses different kinds of automation with specialized robots helping to reduce repetitive tasks that would usually need to be completed by humans.

Spyce, created by former MIT students seeks to automate things even further inside a space that is already in a revolutionary phase of changes similar to the changes at McDonalds. Building off what works, they designed a self-cleaning, and cooking wok that combines robotics and humans to produce consistent quality food.

Excited by the new ways robots can help to automate human labor in restaurants, YouTube channel "Now You Know" set out to Boston to sampled this new robotic food . Innovation inside the food industry worries some as it does remove human jobs from the workforce. It's a touchy subject for many. Either way the industry continues to progress forwards meaning for less work by humans as time goes on. Robotic cleaning, cooking, and even landscaping could be come more and more of a reality as the cost of technology falls over time.

With many companies spending large amounts of money trying to solve this problem, one would think things could mature quickly. Although, I'm not as convinced of this. I'm of the thinking "Dumb AI" slows down the progression forward. It does garner attention but it doesn't move the ball forward. As having to train robots is the most time-consuming and expensive process. Artificially intelligent robots would be able to adapt to different conditions and make judgments that others could not be able to do as easily.

Imagine a robot that did not have AI try it's luck cooking different meals by itself. It would be impossible with the current technology as a human will have to train each motion and step into the robot. Keeping robots from doing more than one task at a time without human interference or programming. In the future we may see a company come about that can merge both artificial intelligence and mechanically efficient robotics and automate more common tasks humans do.

Source: Spyce

The question then becomes will the population accept this slow but radical shift, possibly causing massive decreases in available jobs. Seeing most of the benefits everyone already enjoys from automation in the market economy already makes it difficult for me to imagine where new jobs will come in the future. If we give so much power to corporations who manufacture run and keep up these robots, who is to say they would have our best interests at heart. These corporations will own a large percentage of labor and jobs, affording them the capital and will to buy government favor. Is this a future you are willing to be apart of?