Your dinner will now be served — by a robo-waiter that responds to being stroked like a cat.
The droid can hold trays of food, glasses, bottles and cans on its shelves, finding its way through the restaurant using guiding markers on the ceiling.
The £9,000 robot was one of thousands of gadgets unveiled in Las Vegas at CES, the world’s biggest tech showcase. Ben Zheng, marketing director of Chinese robotics firm Shenzhen Pudu Technology, said: “She works in restaurants, like a delivery robot from the kitchen to the table. The customers are really happy to see her, they think it’s something that only happens in the movies.”
The firm behind the BellaBot says the rising popularity of such droids is set to transform the service industry.
When the meal is ready to leave the kitchen a worker punches in the table number on the robot’s screen and it rolls over to the diner. Customers then see a cat-like face on its screen and can pet a touch-sensitive panel and ears. It has already been deployed at Haidilao Hot Pot in the Trocadero in Piccadilly Circus.
Mr Zheng added: “People are still needed to help the robot take the food from the tray, we don’t want to replace people, we want to help them so waiters don’t have to walk so much every day.”
It comes amid concerns that the growing artificial intelligence sector is removing jobs as it undertakes administrative tasks for a fraction of the price of a human. McDonald’s is testing voice artificial intelligence to take drive-thru orders while people bag up the burgers.
Steve Koenig, of the Consumer Technology Association, said: “By adding intelligence to automate one part of this task, taking the order, we really ameliorate the stress of this job.”
- Mark Blunden flew as a guest of Virgin Atlantic, which flies the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner daily from Heathrow to Las Vegas. virginatlantic.com
