“Restaurants are placing big, experimental bets on robots that stir-fry, flip burgers, mix drinks, cook ramen, bake pizza, deliver meals to diners and whisk away the dirty dishes,” reports Axios:
At the National Restaurant Association’s recent big annual show in Chicago, tech companies showed up in force selling labor-saving robotics. Among the winners of the association’s kitchen innovation awards: the ‘PizzaBot,’ which boasts that it can ‘accurately dispense your most expensive and labor-intensive toppings.’ Another was I-Robo2, a robotic stir-fry machine that can prepare 30 meals an hour. And then there’s the Alpha Grill, which can cook 200 hamburger patties an hour — and then clean itself. Also on display were a ramen vending machine and an AI robot that can automatically season and package french fries, tater tots and chicken fingers….
Droids that trundle into the dining room to serve food — or take dirty plates back to the kitchen — were also on ample display. Examples include the 4-foot-tall Dinerbot from Keenon, which has three serving trays and can carry up to 88 pounds, and the Servi from Bear Robotics, which can carry two trays and a tub for used dishes….
Some big names in the restaurant industry are going all in on robotics.
- Sweetgreen in 2021 acquired a robotic food-prep startup called Spyce and, two years later, opened its own automated restaurant called Infinite Kitchen.
- The founder of Chipotle, Steve Ells, has started a takeout chain called Kernel where the robots do most of the cooking.
These robots cost a lot. But if labor costs rise, more workers will be replaced with robots. In California, the minimum wage for fast-food workers was recently raised to $20 per hour, which led to a loss of about 10,000 jobs and the planned elimination of another 1,300 jobs. “El Pollo Loco and Jack in the Box announced that they will speed up the use of robotics, including robots that make salsa and cook fried foods,” reported the Hoover Institution.
A robot is saving tulip fields in Holland by detecting diseased flowers early. Researchers have also developed robots to pick cotton. That may eliminate the need for cotton farmers to buy mechanical harvesters that cost $1 million and weigh 30 tons, compressing soil and thus sometimes harming soil health.
Robots with artificial intelligence are spreading on Japanese farms. In the U.S., farming robots now use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour. Drones with artificial intelligence will make farming easier.
Robots are already being used for food preparation, such as the salad-making robot used by the Sweetgreen restaurant chain. Robot waiters are increasingly being used in South Korean restaurants, which are facing a labor shortage.
Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repair damaged cells. Nanorobots are also being used to fight cancer. “In a major advancement in nanomedicine, Arizona State University scientists…have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply.”
Last year, doctors used a surgical robot to carry out incredibly complicated spinal surgery. They also did the first robotic liver transplant in America.
