The Robot Servers Are Here To Take Your Order

The idea of robots serving us in restaurants is something that people may baulk at, but it's not actually unrealistic. When you consider how well self-serve checkouts in shops can go, theoretically, it makes sense that more automation would happen, and with the wage crisis sweeping across parts of the world at the moment, it looks like some places are giving up on upping wages to attract people, and are just buying robots instead.

You'd think it'd be simpler to pay people what they're worth, but hey, that's business. There are some specific robots being used that are being supplied by a company called American Robotech, and they make four different robots that can help keep a restaurant running. While we still think it'd be good if people could just be paid more, this could potentially be good news.

Robot Rock

As reported by Business Insider, one customer of American Robotech is renting three robots for $15 a day each. You'll note that this is substantially cheaper than people, but they're often being used in a way to help make the work easier for the staff who are there, or even as a selling point themselves.

There's a lot to be said for making work easier for the people who already work in a given place, and it's the logical first port of call for any automation. After all, there will nearly always need to be someone keeping an eye on things.

The thing is, these robots can basically only carry things from place to place. They need assistance at each end, so they're not going to replace people. It's an interesting situation, because it should make everyone who is involved work a little less intensely. Robots, in general, should be something that becomes part of the norm, and could well lead us to a more utopian future, assuming those with money don't mind, you know, paying taxes.

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The start of increased automation

If you automated all of the jobs that could be automated, there would be an unimaginable number of job losses. This would mean that people would be unable to pay bills, though products in general would theoretically become cheaper if they cost less to make.

The only way this could work is if countries moved towards some form of universal basic income. A system like that would mean that people would still get paid, and jobs would become less a part of our identity and simply something we do for less hours in any given week.

It sounds like a far off fantasy, but it is, theoretically, something that could happen now. Until that point though, robots may well help people struggle less at work, but maybe everyone could just be paid fairly until we sort out something more desirable?

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