The Friday Dinner
Served by a robo waiter
I looked around after settling in my seat. The Italian restaurant, a block away from the Sears tower, was packed with the Friday evening crowd. Everyone was enjoying their food and company.
I was not there for the food. The restaurant was famous for its robo waiters. After many embarrassing missteps, every other restaurant pulled the plug on their robo waiters but not this one. Somehow this restaurant was able to make it work. My boss at the Robotics Weekly had asked me to have a first-hand experience and write about it, so here I was.
A robo waiter walked up to me and bowed. It said, “My name is Pete and I’ll be your server for the evening. Do you want anything to drink?” There was nothing robotic about the way it moved and talked. It was all very human.
For the next forty-five minutes, I saw the best demonstration of robotic technology. Whatever I said and did, Pete was able to handle it gracefully. I tried to throw Pete off with some of my standard tricks, but nothing worked. I came out truly convinced that the restaurant had created a successful playbook for robo waiters.
It was 4:30 am in Mysore, a small town in south India about 8250 miles from Chicago. Rajkumar, a tall man in his 20s, removed his VR headset and VR hand gloves. He collapsed exhausted into a plush sofa, muttering, “Phew, they are not paying me enough to do this work remotely!”
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