Fast Food Robot Builds the Perfect Burger

[Kanzler]

San Francisco-based robotics startup, Momentum Machines aims to revolutionize the fast food industry with an automated burger machine. While preparing for the launch of their new restaurant chain, they don't have to worry about potential chefs because they plan to start the world's first "smart restaurant" chain where all cooking is done entirely by robots. The company proudly boasts on its product page: "Our alpha machine replaces all of the hamburger line cooks in a restaurant. It does everything employees can do except better."

Saving money by eliminating staff is by no means a novel concept, and for anyone who has eaten a burger at McDonald's knows it has been decades since human hands have played a role in shaping burger patties. The revolutionary Momentum Machines promises to automate the entire burger making process while adding customized options that aren't currently available to fast food restaurants. Not only does their machine form and cook patties but it also slices the toppings to order, assembles the burger and even bags it up for waiting customers. As an added bonus the company promises that their technology will allow for the custom patties, composed of meat ground to order and combined in whatever combination the diner so desires.

Single-item menus, zero line cooks and almost no wait times, Momentum Machines proposed restaurant is entirely minimalist and tailored to improve upon the guests' experiences. Capable of pushing out approximately 360 burgers an hour, the machine takes up only 24 square feet, allowing for more spacious seating areas and hopefully more time spent improving the overall dining experience.

Wow. What do you think?

As a business practice, will it sink or swim? Do you see it as a worthy investment, saving money in the long run or a gimmick? Is it economically viable? Will customers /want/ to patronize such an establishment or will they long for the human touch? Would there be some sort of compromise, like having human cashiers to provide a face to the machine?

Is this something that could be adopted by the big fast-food chains? After all, McDonalds found its fortune by creating machines that mechanized food preparation back in the mid 20th century - will this kick off a new revolution in the fast-food industry? What does this mean for the workers that work the cash register or in food preparation? Would it cause the elimination of these jobs? Is that a bad thing?

https://www.psfk.com/2012/11/burger-making-robot.html

 

[PokemonLeagueChamp]

Lovely. So the jobs at places like McDonald's(which probably make for a lot of the "job growth" counts)are going to be made obsolete by robots. I mean, the place has always had garbage food, but with this, we won't even be able to say it provides job openings that people sometimes need to get on their feet. It'll just be a factory, cranking out garbage that some people will pay to shove down their own throats.

 

[Flushed]

Didn't work well in Jimmy Neutron or Spongebob, maybe they're trying to tell us something. Do we know that this machine is absolutely perfect? All it takes is one screw up to tear the whole thing down. One human error can be solved with a firing. But even so, I think of this catches on, the amount of jobs that are cut outweighs any chance for profit. If you lay off that many people that has to somehow mess with the economic equilibrium.

 

[Mark Kamill]

As long as that thing doesn't enter the fine dining market, I'm totally cool with it. Okay, not totally cool, seriously wth, so many families are tied to low end jobs like MickieDs. As said above, this will have serious implications on the economy.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

This isn't going to end well; I just know it. It just shows people's reliance to artificial intelligence to do their jobs for them, which will negatively impact the economy due to some workers requiring to learn engineering, which they may haven't learned back in their education system, in order to fix these machines in case they malfunction.

 

[LoudSilence]

IForOneWelcomeOurNewRobotOverlords.jpg

I thought about the job situation too, but just because employees aren't handling our hyper-processed salty "meats" doesn't mean they won't have anything to do, right?

I think every form of machinery or computer requires at least some sort of supervision, however periodic or hands-off. There could be some more unique jobs introduced that don't require much intervention with the "food", and I think people would be pretty happy with that, no? I don't think burger flippers like flipping those burgers (unless there are real-world Spongebobs out there), they might appreciate other roles and the job itself may seem more appealing on the whole.

Then again I don't know if this will really go anywhere. It might cost more to install and maintain machines like these as opposed to just paying people minimum wage to get the job done. You also can't put a price human interaction -- even scripted "how are you today"s and a smile can make a big difference in someone's day, and most importantly, make them want to return. Automation has simplified a lot of processes, but this is one simplification that isn't really necessary and probably won't be too welcome beyond small-scale gimmick value.

 

[Poki]

Kinda reminds me of Jimmy Neutron's episode: Men at Work.

 

[Rezilia]

Just waiting for that "Service Economy" to crack...

I called it. Just waiting for it to happen, which will be any day now.


Remember my whole rant about machine-based standards for proper communist economies to work? This is just the beginning.

 

[twocows]

I've been waiting for the robotic fast food revolution. Maybe now my fast food will actually look and taste like it's supposed to instead of like some nasty squished thing.

 

[Aeroblast]

This whole unemployment talk is distinctly reminds me of the Goobacks episodes from South park. "derrr terrrrk errr jrrrrbs!"

I don't really think this will be mainstream for a long while, if ever. Restaurant is just too big of a business to be watered down to a machine IMO.

 

[Kanzler]

You know what? I just realized something.

This occurs against the backdrop of fast food upscaling. It seems to be the trend throughout fast food markets that customers are preferring a more higher-end casual dining experience than the strict-fast food experience of the previous century. We can see this with McDonald's revamping their store designs throughout the country, emerging popularity of higher-end outlets like Five Guys and fast-casual brands like KFC Eleven, the emulation of Starbucks (McCafe comes to mind), just to name a few examples. Of course this is a new trend, but if it continues, it could create a vacuum in the lower-end market that could be fulfilled by serviceless options like this.

Perhaps there's space for these machine-burgers to be competitive after all? After all, how many of us really care about that Wendy's cashier or the KFC fry cook? Would the experience change much if they were done without?

 

[Rezilia]

Perhaps there's space for these machine-burgers to be competitive after all? After all, how many of us really care about that Wendy's cashier or the KFC fry cook? Would the experience change much if they were done without?

If the machines say things like "Thank you. Have a nice day." and "Here's you order, DEAR customer." etc, the customer service will actually be BETTER than what we have with humans.

 

[LoudSilence]

This occurs against the backdrop of fast food upscaling.

It's true, but I think the point still stands about desiring human contact on some level. We probably won't care about the robot handling our orders in the kitchen (maybe even prefer it), but in the end we're still going to want to be greeted with a smile.

If the machines say things like "Thank you. Have a nice day." and "Here's you order, DEAR customer." etc, the customer service will actually be BETTER than what we have with humans.

Haha, it's true, though; providing good service isn't really taken too seriously anymore. I've actually gotten grunts before in response to my "have a nice day", and I honestly didn't feel like returning to those specific locations as a result.

(they weren't fast-food restaurants but the idea still applies)

 

[Negix]

What would be really surprising is if these robots did the orders using fresh ingredients in a specific time. Fast food is the primarily cause of health problems, obesity and plugged arteries leading to heart attacks. If they were to make these robots do a miraculous job of dishing out excellent foods using fresh ingredients, well, I welcome them so. Just think of how much more clients they would have if the customer service was great and the food is exceptionally good. I sincerely doubt it, but it is a possibility.

 

[LoudSilence]

What would be really surprising is if these robots did the orders using fresh ingredients in a specific time. Fast food is the primarily cause of health problems, obesity and plugged arteries leading to heart attacks. If they were to make these robots do a miraculous job of dishing out excellent foods using fresh ingredients, well, I welcome them so. Just think of how much more clients they would have if the customer service was great and the food is exceptionally good. I sincerely doubt it, but it is a possibility.

Unfortunately there's no correlation between who handles the food and the quality of it; cheap, unhealthy ingredients are how the they are able to sell at at the prices they do, employees just follow instructions. Deep fried, salt-laden items coupled mayo/sugar based sauces are what people come for, so you're not going to see this being changed any time soon, unfortunately.

 

[Krazzikk]

Although this is a good idea for the company as they will save a lot of money, I believe this would hurt the economy greatly as fast food restaurants employ so many people. McDonalds alone employs over 440,000 people, and if all those people were laid off, there would be a great downfall in our economy.

 

[Plumpyfoof]

Finally! Something that can do my job for me.

Everybody in the service industry should get redundancy cover really fast, because I sure as hell am!