Robot Waiters in Guangzhou Fired for Being 'Clumsy'

By Jocelyn Richards, April 6, 2016

Recent events suggest artificial intelligence may not be quite as, er, intelligent as we first thought – not yet, anyway.

Between Microsoft’s millennial chatbot that turned into a racist sex addict on Twitter in less than 24 hours and the poor mechanical squad killed by Fukushima’s radiation, it would seem that robots, at least for now, possess many of the same inevitable flaws as humans.

China’s ‘robot waiters,’ so celebrated in the media last year, are a prime example. While some mechanical servers, like Tete – a robot in Qingdao – can communicate over 200 words and have “no trouble delivering dishes,” others aren’t so lucky. But again, like humans, the skills of robots are predestined by their genetic makeup (read: program quality) and that, unfortunately, may vary.

According to NetEase (news.163.com), two restaurants in Guangzhou that once enticed crowds with their robotic waitresses have since closed their doors. Another chain, 合味来, is still open but now employs only flesh-and-blood staff members, explaining the robots were “fired.”

A spokesperson for the restaurant claimed the bots couldn’t “carry soup well” and only walked in a straight line, which, obviously, caused problems. The machines also had trouble dodging other staff members and were "clumsy," frequently knocking things over.

robot-waiters

Some guests even criticized the robots as being too “mechanical” in nature and not “human” enough, to which we say, wait – what?!

The owner of a hot pot restaurant in Baiyun District, surnamed Liang, explained that most shops don’t actively recruit robots – they do so out of desperation.

Earlier this year, for example, Liang had six full-time waiters in her restaurant. After the Chinese New Year holiday, however, only one returned to work. Liang was forced to consider the automated alternative in order to maintain regular business.

As criticisms of the cold nature and ineptness of mechanical staffers abound, experts are coming to a similar conclusion: maybe robots are best left to behind-the-scenes, repetitive tasks after all.

And with China transitioning towards a more service-oriented economy, perhaps training humans in customer relations – not robots – is the country’s best bet for success.

[Images via Gizmodo]