Chinese restaurant with 18 robot staff delights noodle-lovers

[fallstuff]

Serving humanity, one diner at a time: Chinese restaurant with robot staff delights noodle-lovers

They say robots will one day serve mankind - in which case you can consider this an entrée.

For if you pay a visit to this restaurant, in downtown Harbin, China, you will find 18 robots - from a waitress to a cooker to an usher - ready to ensure your dining experience is perfect.

The restaurant has 18 types of robots, each gliding out of the kitchen to provide your dish, with specialty robots including a dumpling robot and a noodle robot.

When a diner walks in, the usher robot extends their arm to the side and, with a sci-fi flourish, says 'Earth Person, Hello, Welcome to the Robot Restaurant.'

The future is now: The restaurant in Harbin, China, uses 18 different types of robots, including dumpling robot, noodle robot, cooking robot, waitress robot and usher robot

After the diners have ordered, the robots in the kitchen set to work cooking.

Once the dish is prepared, a robot waiter, which runs along tracks on the floor, carries it from kitchen to table.

Prepared dishes are placed on a suspended conveyor belt and when the plate reaches the right table the mechanical arms lift it off and set it down.

As they eat, a singing robot entertains diners.


All the robots in the restaurant were designed and made by the Harbin Haohai Robot Company.

Chief Engineer Liu Hasheng, said they invested 5 million Yuan (about £500,000) in doing the restaurant, with each robot costing 200,000 to 300,000 Yuan (around £20,000 to £30,000).

He comments: 'Staff in the computer room can manage the whole robot team.

'After the busy times during the day, the robot will go for a "meal", which is electricity'.

Liu added that after a two-hour charge the robot can work continuously for 5 hours.

The restaurant now provides a menu with more than 30 dishes, and for the average cost for a diner is £4 to £5.

In 2010, another robot restaurant opened in Jinan in northern Shandong province, where robots resembling Star Wars droids circle the room carrying trays of food in a conveyor belt-like system.

More than a dozen robots operate in the restaurant as entertainers, servers, greeters and receptionists.

link

Serving humanity, one diner at a time: Chinese restaurant with robot staff delights noodle-lovers | Mail Online

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

RobotZ.

 

[Fanling Monk]

As I always insisted, the shrinking of working age population is not going to a problem in the future. Automation-computer-robotic took shape 4 decades ago in America and will be wide spread in the next few decades so the less working population the less unemployment.

 

[sweetgrape]

Very cute, I enter into the thread just to see where is the robot from!! we made it, very great!!

 

[S10]

As I always insisted, the shrinking of working age population is not going to a problem in the future. Automation-computer-robotic took shape 4 decades ago in America and will be wide spread in the next few decades so the less working population the less unemployment.

How will those extra unneeded labour forces feed themselves if they do not have a job? Obviously in today's economic structure you can't survive without having an income.

 

[Sonyuke_Songpaisan]

sweet. if they can change the robots into pretty girls looking, that will be better

 

[rcrmj]

how the robot going to take the dish out of the tray?```'third' hand?

 

[xuxu1457]

well smell

 

[Fanling Monk]

How will those extra unneeded labour forces feed themselves if they do not have a job? Obviously in today's economic structure you can't survive without having an income.

I don't have the figures at hand, but I estimate automation-computer already are taken, perhaps, 20% of jobs that were done by human 30 years ago. Most of them are back office jobs ( although off shoring are not in our discussion).

30 years ago there used to a 'telephone operation' job where 5,000 girls sit in a huge midtown Manhattan office answering customers' inquiries. This segment of job market that employed millions across America is gone now because of computers. A 'Little Debbie' pastry manufacturing facility that used to employ 5,000 people before, now uses 50 technicians because of automation/computer. So America didn't lost all those jobs to China as most of them claim but rather to automation/computer. If their auto industry doesn't have a strong union to protect the worker I'm sure it would've went robotic like Japan.

Of course there are many jobs an not be complete automated, examples of that are plumbers, doctors, etc.

There is no easy solutions on this and that's why unemployment is a major problem in matured economies and there seems to be no quick fix. A company does what's best for itself and that's to reduce the workforce which accounts for the biggest expenditure.

 

[OrionHunter]

Hmmm...Good idea but this would result in layoffs further acerbating unemployment!

But of course that would take time as each robot costs the Earth and most can't afford them. Perhaps by 2100, there would be robotic armies too and by 2300, a world with a robot as its supreme leader with a robotic cabinet!

The future Supreme Leader?

 

[KRAIT]

The day may come when couples will prefer having a robot than a child.

 

[kawaraj]

this is cute, nice to see the servibot.

hello, cutie,

do they take orders too?

 

[WS-10 Engine]

How will those extra unneeded labour forces feed themselves if they do not have a job? Obviously in today's economic structure you can't survive without having an income.

land, labour and capital are finite resources(its not unlimited).

technology frees up labour to do other things.
imagine if agriculture machinery technology did not advance(and thus productivity increased) and the whole poulation was working in agriculture, there would be hardly anyone to work in industry such as manufacturing and construction and in services sector.

technology allows increase in productivity(more output with same or less input).

as new industries emerge like the IT sector during the 1990s, more people will be employed in those sectors. human innovation will always create new sectors for people to be employed in. ofcourse you need a good education to enter those advanced sectors. few decades ago who would have thought people could be employed in doing things with computers/IT.

technology is a beautiful thing, it increases efficiency and make human life easier, and saves time(another vital thing) so that you can do more things in a day. eg microwave heats in 2 minutes whereas using a fire to heat food will take ages.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

land, labour and capital are finite resources(its not unlimited).

technology frees up labour to do other things.
imagine if agriculture machinery technology did not advance(and thus productivity increased) and the whole poulation was working in agriculture, there would be hardly anyone to work in industry such as manufacturing and construction and in services sector.

technology allows increase in productivity(more output with same or less input).

as new industries emerge like the IT sector during the 1990s, more people will be employed in those sectors. human innovation will always create new sectors for people to be employed in. ofcourse you need a good education to enter those advanced sectors. few decades ago who would have thought people could be employed in doing things with computers/IT.

technology is a beautiful thing, it increases efficiency and make human life easier, and saves time(another vital thing) so that you can do more things in a day. eg microwave heats in 2 minutes whereas using a fire to heat food will take ages.

Decreasing marginal productivity of technology and increasing maintenance costs are a big problem with just using technology. In the past, you could actually hand solder electronics and make computers yourself. Today, everything's on ICs that can't be repaired in any way; if they fail, you have to toss it. More and more energy (and thus more and more money) is required just to stand in place. Eventually increasing complexity will result in negative profit and then the whole system collapses.

There are natural analogs for this: core collapse during a supernova... extinction of deer on a deserted arctic island...

 

[Sasquatch]

sweet. if they can change the robots into pretty girls looking, that will be better