> Is this not just a gimmick? You still need people on hand to take over if the robot has an issue, I don't see how it would reduce labour costs.

"take over IF the robot has an issue" is exactly how it reduces labor costs.

2020: 10 waiters, waiting tables. You're on the hook for each of their salaries.

2030: 10 robots, one human waiter passively overseeing the cluster. You're on the hook for minor parts/occasional repair for the robots, and one person's salary.

Its not about a 100% staff elimination, but a large overhead reduction ensuring the few humans you're keeping around are more efficient overall for dollars generated in revenue versus the all-human staff before.

Plus, in certain cases, like kiosks replacing cashiers at fast food establishments, there's now one less qualification needed from employees (good social skills), increasing the pool of acceptable options you can hire where before some of those candidates would have been unsuitable for the job.

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preg_match 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Wait staff already makes two bucks an hour in the US. It’s basically as cheap as cheap labor gets. It will take a while, and very cheap robotics, to make robot waiters worth it financially.

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rightbyte 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How about just handing out plates over the counter to the customers. But then again McDonalds have table service now so what do I know.

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SoftTalker 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're on the hook for more than a supervisor. Depreciation, financing, or lease payments on the robots is a big one.

And what do the robots do? Wheel the food to the table, where the customers then need to reach for the plates and pass them around? Not a great experience. Or actually set the plate in front of each diner, without dumping it, like a human waiter does? Much more sophisticated and expensive robot.

	▲	danaris 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed; it seems like the market niche for this would be relatively small. It's not fast food, because customers pick up their own food from the counter there. Ditto with fast casual. Fine dining restaurants would see huge drops in business if they tried to replace human wait staff with robots. (Unless they're already doing some kind of futuristic theming.) So you're targeting low-end table-service restaurants...to replace their below-minimum-wage wait staff (remember, tipped minimum wage is something like $2.30 federally) with robots that don't get tips, do require a hefty up-front investment and nontrivial maintenance costs, probably a subscription with the company that sells them, and are likely to have a lot of problems especially for the early adopters—things like dropping meals, crashing into tables, crashing into customers, running over toes, purses, and small children... This really seems like it's something that's going to work for a few gimmicks, but not in any widespread manner within the foreseeable future.

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Jtarii 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Okay so you go to a restaurant, who takes your order? The robot? Does it have a touchscreen like in mcdonalds were everyone has to spend 2 minutes awkwardly mashing the screen. Then the robot brings you the plates, then you have to put your own plates on the table, then how do you signal that you are ready to pay? Does every table have a button that you press to summon the robot again? Then you have to put your plates back on the robot?

Who the fuck would go to a restaurant like this.