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A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

nytimes.com

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Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#61

Post by saboot »

astrodust wrote: post #45
statictype wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's different is that the button was being pushed by a human. That human gets paid a salary and earns a living. And that human could presumably choose not to push the button if the expresso machine tries to become sentient (in theory).

That human can, if properly trained and motivated, recognize when the coffee being served isn't coming out right. They can interface with customers and resolve complicated human problems, de-escalating when necessary to find a good outcome. A robot has no way of knowing if the coffee will taste good or contains rat poison. It's just going through the motions. If it serves you a dud drink you can't argue with it, you…

Why do we need an extra person? There's already a human present, the customer. Let them submit the feedback and fix their coffee at the same time.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#62

Post by csydas »

ekianjo wrote: post #20
sho wrote: post #18

I'm bullish on food robots in general, but I have to say that as a fan of caesar salad, the output of that robot fails to impress. It looks exactly like what it is - a bunch of ingredients randomly dropped in a bowl. The lettuce hasn't even been tossed with the dressing! I wouldn't pay for that, and IMO this robot has a long way to go before I'd agree it can make a "mean" salad.

Yeah, robots for food preparation I have seen in Japan are way more impressive than this one. Calling this a robot is an insult to properly designed robots. I would expect the salad to be mixed properly before it delivers the dish, at least.

This one also didn't seem very clean in its operation - it was shooting stuff everywhere outside of the bowl and I didn't see any cleaning mechanism come through to mop up the mess. I'd be a bit more impressed on this if the end result didn't look like something made by one of PeeWee Herman's contraptions.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#65

Post by yann63 »

true_tuna wrote: post #5

Yes. All the jobs. Drivers, luggage handlers. The salad cook is just another in the long line of manual jobs that can be done quicker, better, cheaper by a robot. So now what? What job do we guide our children into? What jobs are left as the fall through for kids who decline formal training? I don't know, but we need to answer that question quickly.

Is it the question we should ask?

I'd prefer to ask another question: is it time to change our society, to go away from paid jobs? A job is one of the things that currently defines us, one of the first questions you ask someone you just met is often to know what job they are in.

If all jobs were automated, we could have more interesting occupations: taking care of our childrens, elders, neighbors, growing our garden, reading, art, etc. Many sci-fi authors saw the job being automated and society changing toward this. The question is how to we make the transition.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#66

Post by jamesrcole »

astrodust wrote: post #45
statictype wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's different is that the button was being pushed by a human. That human gets paid a salary and earns a living. And that human could presumably choose not to push the button if the expresso machine tries to become sentient (in theory).

That human can, if properly trained and motivated, recognize when the coffee being served isn't coming out right. They can interface with customers and resolve complicated human problems, de-escalating when necessary to find a good outcome. A robot has no way of knowing if the coffee will taste good or contains rat poison. It's just going through the motions. If it serves you a dud drink you can't argue with it, you…

> A robot has no way of knowing if the coffee will taste good or contains rat poison

Eventually automated systems ought to be able to do this better than most people can. Why couldn't there be engineered sensors that could detect such things very well?

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#67

Post by jamesrcole »

dvdhnt wrote: post #12
true_tuna wrote: post #5

Yes. All the jobs. Drivers, luggage handlers. The salad cook is just another in the long line of manual jobs that can be done quicker, better, cheaper by a robot. So now what? What job do we guide our children into? What jobs are left as the fall through for kids who decline formal training? I don't know, but we need to answer that question quickly.

> The salad cook is just another in the long line of manual jobs that can be done quicker, better, cheaper by a robot. Allow me to be sentimental for a moment. I agree that some jobs, perhaps even most, can be done "better" by a robot. At least, if we're defining better as more cheaply or "to spec". However, when I go to a nice restaurant, I go because I enjoy the Chef's style, their ability to express their art thro…

Here's an alternative perspective to consider: what if the artistry is in the design of the dishes, and the automated systems could be used for implementing that design. That could lead to good food being cheaper and more accessible to more people.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#68

Post by TeMPOraL »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #54
greglindahl wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an argument for having a higher-value problem-solving employee around, not an argument for having several lower-value button-pushing employees around. Fewer, higher value employees has been the trend in many industries for the past few hundred thousand years.

Or for better sensors on the robot. There's no fundamental reason it can't tell if the drink is correct.

The fundamental reason it can't tell if the drink is correct is that "correct" is in the eye of the beholder. You cannot trivially formalize expectations any random human would have of a drink made by human.

You can, however, force people to lower their expectations until they can be trivially formalized. That's what happens with tea/coffee vending machines. The dispensed drink is really bad, but it's uniformly bad, and since people don't expect quality coffee from a vending machine, they don't complain.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#69

Post by npgatech »

Rainymood wrote: post #64

Does anyone else think it's utterly annoying I can not pause the video (or gif) or whatever it is? I can't even skip forward. What is this, NYT?

That was painful. It is one of those things that you can't just stop watching (I was expecting Sally to spin the salad) and I waited..and waited...waited.

Horrible user experience.

  - Can't tell how long the clip/gif is
  - Can't skip ahead
  - Can't go fullscreen
  - No sound
WTF.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#70

Post by j7ake »

jamesrcole wrote: post #66
astrodust wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That human can, if properly trained and motivated, recognize when the coffee being served isn't coming out right. They can interface with customers and resolve complicated human problems, de-escalating when necessary to find a good outcome. A robot has no way of knowing if the coffee will taste good or contains rat poison. It's just going through the motions. If it serves you a dud drink you can't argue with it, you…

> A robot has no way of knowing if the coffee will taste good or contains rat poison Eventually automated systems ought to be able to do this better than most people can. Why couldn't there be engineered sensors that could detect such things very well?

Because there is no theory linking interaction of molecules to flavour yet, although there are some preliminary work from some labs on this (with beer)
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