New San Francisco restaurant has factory-style "burger bot" making all its hamburgers

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/21/new-san-francisco-restaurant-h.html

3 Likes

Amazed at how some people will say “If this robot can make burgers for $15 an hour, raising the minimum wage will destroy all those jobs!”
But if the robot - a homemade robot can do it for $15 a year (or so) now, what happens next year when the new robot can do it for $13 an hour. Automation is just getting cheaper.
By that logic, minimum wage should be going down each year to compete.
This guy seems to be keeping his staff busy and useful. When McD’s switches to order kiosks and burger bots, what will they do?

1 Like

But they’re not made with love.

8 Likes

A ‘robot restaurant’, Spyce, just opened here in Boston, where ‘robot’ woks cook mixed bowls created by Daniel Boulud and chefs from his restaurant.

1 Like

Would like to have seen more about the robot.

7 Likes

The thing that comes to my attention is the beautiful wood work.
Beautiful and ingenious, however it’s wildly impractical for a kitchen.
Those spaces in the support system are going to be next to impossible to clean and keep free of dust and spider webs.

3 Likes

I wonder what those folks will say when it’s their own job that’s on the automation chopping block. It looks like it’s going to go far beyond flipping burgers.

3 Likes

3 Likes

You know where this is headed, right?

“Fish and plankton and sea greens and protein from the sea …”

10 Likes

Yeah, “protein from the sea”, sure…

15 Likes

Bring it on

3 Likes

Thankfully, work somewhere besides McD’s.

Nailed it!

@KathyPartdeux, don’t be so sure…

2 Likes

2 Likes

Yeah, the burger this thing made was a friggen mess.

From the looks of the video, it was pretty precisely made except that the cheese melted and got a bit onto the container (oh no! tragedy) and the ketchup slid onto the bun a little when the guy flipped the lid closed to put the two halves together.

1 Like

people get fired for that

2 Likes

No-one can live in SF on anything even close to minimum wage (or $16 an hour either). Robots are basically going to be the only way to get anything that used to be a minimum wage job done in that city. Shame it’ll immediately spread to places where all of the above is not true…

3 Likes

Perhaps that’s part of what the staff does.

1 Like