Some restaurants having staffing problems and are hiring robots to serve their customers. University of Houston Robotics Expert Dr. Aaron Becker says they haven't totally taken over yet! "The humans are doing the hard parts. Human cooks are cooking the food, then grabbing awkwardly-sized plates onto the 'vehicle' and then other humans are placing them on the tables." Dr. Becker says robotics are going to be a bigger and bigger part of our lives in the future - especially for jobs that are dangerous, dirty or just plain dull. He suggests you get ready. There are going to be a lot of jobs that will be changing. That is why to stay viable, you must always continue to keep learning."
The hospitality industry is seeing staff shortages and at least one restaurant in Florida is replacing servers with robots. Becker says this is nothing new. "I have seen some of these thing while I visited Japan about 5 years ago. Maybe we Americans are behind some other people on this game!" Dr. Becker reminds us they can't operate things on their own. "In difficult situations, the robots must switch back to 'manual control.' There are partnerships between automation and humans at every level here.
He says robots are especially good in situations that are dangerous, like a police bomb squad, dirty, like hospitals with a possibly dangerous mess and dull like the dishwasher in your kitchen.
Remember, though, robots don't take vacations, breaks or call in sick. Are you able to say the same about yourself?
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