AI and automation are impacting more than just cashier jobs in the food
service industry.
By Laurel Deppen
As artificial intelligence (AI) technology continues to advance,
many Americans fear that soon their positions will be filled by robots.
However, it's not just factory positions that robots are beginning to fill—food
industry jobs are becoming increasingly automated as well.
The
first jobs to be automated will be those of the cashiers. According to a Forbes
report, fast food giant McDonald's
plans to add mobile ordering and kiosks to 1,000 stores a
quarter for the next seven or eight quarters. Now, however, robots are
beginning to take over food preparation as well.
While
this trend is beginning to make its way into our daily lives, it isn't new. A Japanese
robot named Yaskawa-kun has been serving soft serve ice cream
for years, as noted by Kotaku. The robot isn't the only one of its kind—ice
cream robots have been popping up in other countries including Singapore,
China, and Canada.
It's
not just ice cream. Robots are affecting the way we experience food across the
globe and in eateries that serve everything from pizza to health foods.
A
downtown Boston restaurant called Spyce houses
seven robotic cooking pots, as reported by the Associated Press. After the food
is finished and ready to be served, the robotic pots wash themselves with water
jets before a new order begins, further limiting human jobs. Spyce continues to
up the tech by allowing customers to order their food on a touch-screen menu,
the report noted.
Similarly,
San Francisco-based restaurant company Eatsa almost
exists entirely without human workers. Customers place their orders through an
iPad and the food is dispensed through an automated machine.
French
company Ekim has
begun to cause a stir in the pizza industry by implementing a
"pizzaiolo" robot that mimics the motions of human pizza pros. As
Reuters reported, these robots have three arms to make more pizzas in a more
efficient way.
The traditional American pizza experience is being ruptured as
well. Domino's recently announced the DRU— Domino's Robotic
Unit. According to Domino's, the DRU is an autonomous delivery vehicle designed
to keep the pizza at an ideal temperature while navigating itself to the homes
of customers.
The
rise of robotic dining experiences is due to not only to developing technology,
but also to hungry and busy customers who are willing to skip human interaction
to get their food. For now, though, it will be a while until robots take over
our entire dining experience because human labor is still much cheaper than the
technology.
The big takeaways for
tech leaders:
·
The growing trend of robotics in
food is starting to eliminate jobs in food service, starting with cashier jobs
but moving into food preparation.
·
While it is growing in
popularity, robotic food service won't eliminate human workers yet due to its
high cost relative to human labor.
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