If you want to get a picture of the future of work, it might be this: a feline cartoon displayed on an iPad-like screen, perched on a vertical aluminum or plastic frame on wheels and forever at your table rolls. The robot will also sing “Happy Birthday” to you. And look there, it has your beer.
You can check it out for yourself at several Dallas stores, including La Duni restaurant on McKinney Avenue, the owner of which told the Dallas Morning News that robots saved him thousands of dollars a month in labor costs and the trouble of finding enough human servers have occupied his restaurant in a narrow market for low-wage workers.
The machines are built in China by Pudu Robotics. But they are programmed and delivered here by the Plano company American Robotech, which has so far sold or rented around 30 of its robots to regional companies, mainly restaurants. They lease for around $ 500 a month and sell between $ 10,000 and $ 17,000 per pop.
Jackie Chen, co-founder of American Robotech, says the robots can perform a variety of functions, but their basic skill is simple: delivery and display. The KettyBot can display advertisements on its large screen while it zooms in on a specific area. The BellaBot, the one with the feline face, has trays to hold its supplies.
At restaurants like La Duni and Ari Korean BBQ in Carrollton, that means dishes. The robots are essentially bussing tables that either bring you an order or clear your plates. You’re still placing your order and leaving (hopefully) a generous, real tip on a real person. However, the robots are quick learners. Name your SLAM technology (Simultaneous Location and Mapping Solution).
“In the beginning we have to push the robot around the room,” says Chen. “You scan the entire room with a laser and can then create a 3D map in your memory. And then we’re going to use some tools to mark, ‘OK this is table one, this is table two.’ After we have completed all these settings, the robot has everything in its memory. “
The robots are customizable. At La Duni they have names (Panchita, Coqueta and Alexcita) and are programmed in Spanish. If you wish, you can have the robots speak French in the tone of your choosing. You can upload your favorite songs for the robot to play. You can choose any image you want to display on the screen.
With their standard smiling little faces, the robots are kind of cute too. Perhaps the cuteness makes it harder for us humans to fear a robot riot, or the possibility that the machines will come for our jobs.
Chen says we shouldn’t worry. Not about a robot uprising – I failed to ask about it – but about the displacement of workers through automation. American Robotech’s slogan is “Robotics for Better Life”. Think of a washing machine, he says. We no longer wash our clothes by hand because a machine does that for us.
Courtesy American Robotech.
“Robotics does repetitive things that maybe nobody wants to do it anymore,” says Chen. “The delivery man, the food runner, doesn’t even get tips from customers. Nobody wants to do that, especially not after COVID. “
The (human) waiter in the dining room can serve more tables with the help of robots, says Chen.
The server doesn’t have to share its tips with a robot, which sounds pretty good. (The question of what happens to the man who delivered the food for a meager wage remains open.)
The robots have proven to be reliable in the restaurant sector, says Chen. American Robotech’s robots also recently performed at an event in the AT&T Discovery District, where they delivered cupcakes and exuded their charm. The company is working on robots that can clean floors or deliver things to rooms on different floors of a hotel.
Chen says he gets a lot of calls from business owners who are having trouble finding staff and want to know what all of his robots can do. Are there robots that can act as vending machines? That can cook? Can that write articles for the news section of a local magazine? (OK, the last one I made up.)
No. At least not yet.
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