Robots in a restaurant. Is it all that bad?

The thought of artificial intelligence becoming an everyday part of the restaurant industry is something many do not ponder. In reality, it is only a matter of time. In my previous post I discussed how robots would take away from the dining experience if they were used to replace servers and bartenders. But what about kitchen staff? While the obvious downside would be the loss of thousands of jobs for cooks, there is a potential benefit for owners as well as the front of the house staff.

Artificial intelligence in the kitchen could eliminate any human error made by humans. Along with this the time to prepare food could be drastically reduced. Michael Dempsey wrote on his blog post, “For labor, robots can create efficiencies to help scale the servers or cashiers, enabling them to improve the customer experience.” What he’s saying here is that with robots automating the process of cooking food, servers would be able to focus more on their tables and less on the food. As a server myself, I am constantly checking on the kitchen to make sure my table’s food is being cooked correctly and on time. If I was able to delete that part of my job, I would have an abundant amount of extra time to focus on my table’s needs.

A second benefit would be directly for the owners. The sheer amount of food that is wasted because of human error is ridiculous. Seeing it with my own eyes, there are always piles of food in garbage cans from cooks overcooking it, cutting it the wrong way, or simply spilling it. AI would be able to decrease this immensely or possibly even end it completely. This would result in owners saving incredible amounts of money by not having to buy as much food.

So, would AI in the restaurants really be all that bad? That is for you to decide, but with these reasons it might not be so bad after all.

Dempsey, Michael. “How to Win with Robots in Restaurants .” Medium.com, Medium, 3 Jan. 2018, medium.com/@mhdempsey/how-to-win-with-robots-in-restaurants-9c984f2ee3d1.