Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing • Hacker News Board

Re: Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

#51

Post by zeumo » Fri, Aug 28, 2026, 9:54 AM UTC

smugglerFlynn wrote: post #4

monkeydust wrote: post #3

> Many people enjoy hand-crafted pizza, though, I suggest. Doesn't a machine making your dinner take away the human connection we might otherwise feel with food? " Not just pizza/food ...but this applies to emails and written documents now.

"I have really enjoyed that hand-crafted email" is not something you hear from actual people in real life. I am saying this non-ironically as I understand what you are talking about, but very few people are geeky about how the document or email is written and thought out. Which is the whole reason we see these insane adoption levels of AI slop documents and emails nowadays.

People may not say that, but they are more likely to read the hand-crafted email over the LLM-generated one.

Re: Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

#52

Post by dakolli » Fri, Aug 28, 2026, 9:55 AM UTC

thrownawaysz wrote: post #15

I've had my fair share of shitty human made pizza so this kind of sounds like the autonomous taxi news cycle to me Thousands of car crashes a day > not a news A Waymo crashed > national news Humans making shitty pizza is not a news. But robots burning a pizza is a news. It'll get better.

I prefer when people employ their fellow neighbors and uplift their community with their enterprises.

This type of automation is inherently selfish and should be discouraged, im glad he lost 200k, that 200k could have been used to help employee a few college students who would go onto provide way more value to their community than a robot ever would.

Honestly if you see a company with robots like this, they hate their communities and are inherently selfish and greedy. Do not support them.

Re: Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

#53

Post by kakacik » Fri, Aug 28, 2026, 9:55 AM UTC

master-lincoln wrote: post #16

jimbob45 wrote: post #9

A local pizza place sells premade dough and toppings. We just order that and cook it ourselves. It’s not perfect but it’s exactly the way we want it and we get to bond over making it. If I’m going to blow pizza-level calories in a meal, I can’t imagine going back at this point.

Good pizza is all about having a good hot oven. Without it I see no benefit of using these fresh ingredients vs frozen pizza. "Making" the pizza with a premade dough and pre-cut toppings is just a 1 minute operation to spread sauce and throw some toppings on it isn't it? Not much bonding there in my eyes...

Not everybody has such... low effort palate so to say. Its not easy to have it once one tasted some properly well made food.

Don't do to France or Italy is my recommendation in all honesty, ignorance is a bliss.

Re: Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

#54

Post by jhbadger » Fri, Aug 28, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

cryptonym wrote: post #41

thrownawaysz wrote: post #15

I've had my fair share of shitty human made pizza so this kind of sounds like the autonomous taxi news cycle to me Thousands of car crashes a day > not a news A Waymo crashed > national news Humans making shitty pizza is not a news. But robots burning a pizza is a news. It'll get better.

Most pizza made today are robot made in factories, it has been the case for decades. Shit-tier pizzas and didn't improve over time.

Are you talking about frozen pizza? That's always rather disappointing. Even chains like Dominos let alone good local pizzerias make their pizzas to order by people.

Re: Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

#55

Post by cindyllm » Fri, Aug 28, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

trueno wrote: post #47

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #25

"I'll have no soul on mine please" :-) Food should be prepared with love. From when the seeds are sown, to when it's arranged on the plate.

My mom's from a third world country and food is literally her way of showing love and yea i dunno i find robotics interesting but i find myself pretty unamused at a lot of automation attempts in the world that just carry this thick undertone of "fuck people", especially when the chances of UBI are virtually zero in The Default Country. Just feels kinda gross for people to champion the "Doubt all you want but the tech…

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Re: Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

#56

Post by tietjens » Fri, Aug 28, 2026, 10:03 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #30

tietjens wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that tough to make pizza dough and that's usually where kids have the most fun.

It does however have a lead time of a day. It's interesting to see how many breakpoints there are on "partially prepared" food though, like the meal kits vs the old cake-in-a-box etc.

It'll rise in 6 hours if you leave it out of a fridge.

Re: Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

#57

Post by delis-thumbs-7e » Fri, Aug 28, 2026, 10:05 AM UTC

I had Pazzi-robot made pizza next to Pompidou in Paris few years back (it is not there anymore, case anyone wonders). I found it fun to watch the arms flip the dough behind the glass and the pizza tasted… Good, actually. Obviously pretty basic, but a lot better than your average fast food pizza-like garbage. Is it equal to good Italian trattoria or Pizzeria da Michele in Napoli, well oviously not. But for the price and speed and, well, hygiene, it was pretty ok.

However, the economics of the place are what I questioned even then. Would I go there for any reason except curiosity? No, not really, I prefer to have a pizza date in a real restaurant. Also those robots cost according to the article upwards of $100k, to which you must add power and maintenance, you can hire quite a few pizza chefs with that money. So not only it need to be faster and better than your average pizza baker - the most time of making the pizza is the time it spents in the oven, which is also critical - it needs to brimg in crowds as well in order to be profitable.

So yet again this seems to me a dumb way to use automation and robotics. Either you have to make those robots out of cardboard and make them last forever, or the financials just do not even out and you just make average pizza at a huge loss. Just because you can automate somethong does not mean you should.

Re: Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

#58

Post by delis-thumbs-7e » Fri, Aug 28, 2026, 10:07 AM UTC

_puk wrote: post #37

rimliu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good old "It'll get better".

If there's financial incentive for it to, why wouldn't it?

There’s physics for one. The dough takes the temperature and time it takes to bake in the oven, the rocket needs certain ampunt of propulsion to fly etc.

Re: Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

#59

Post by pjc50 » Fri, Aug 28, 2026, 10:08 AM UTC

trueno wrote: post #47

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #25

"I'll have no soul on mine please" :-) Food should be prepared with love. From when the seeds are sown, to when it's arranged on the plate.

My mom's from a third world country and food is literally her way of showing love and yea i dunno i find robotics interesting but i find myself pretty unamused at a lot of automation attempts in the world that just carry this thick undertone of "fuck people", especially when the chances of UBI are virtually zero in The Default Country. Just feels kinda gross for people to champion the "Doubt all you want but the tech…

For me, I'd want to see agricultural stoop labour automated away. It is literally back-breaking and therefore often done by temporary or illegal immigrants who can be abused without legal recourse.

Re: Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing

#60

Post by master-lincoln » Fri, Aug 28, 2026, 10:09 AM UTC

abbadadda wrote: post #24

master-lincoln wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good pizza is all about having a good hot oven. Without it I see no benefit of using these fresh ingredients vs frozen pizza. "Making" the pizza with a premade dough and pre-cut toppings is just a 1 minute operation to spread sauce and throw some toppings on it isn't it? Not much bonding there in my eyes...

> "Making" the pizza with a premade dough and pre-cut toppings is just a 1 minute operation to spread sauce and throw some toppings on it isn't it? Not much bonding there in my eyes. I bet you’re fun at parties!

If you meant this ironically you would be spot on ;)