Robots that can cook are in growing demand in the United States. The increased demand comes at a time when eateries are trying to put some distance between their workers and customers during the coronavirus health crisis.
In a few weeks, White Castle restaurants will test a robot arm that can cook french fries and other foods. The robot, called Flippy, is a product of Miso Robotics, a company based in Pasadena, California.
White Castle and Miso have been discussing a partnership for about a year. Those talks intensified when COVID-19 arrived, said White Castle Vice President Jamie Richardson.
Richardson said the robot can free up employees for other jobs like cleaning tables or taking food delivery orders. A touch-free environment is also increasingly important to customers, he said.
"The world has just reshaped in terms of thoughts around food safety," Richardson said.
理查森说：“人们对于食品安全方面的看法发生了改观。”
Flippy currently costs $30,000, with an additional $1,500 required for monthly service. By the middle of next year, Miso hopes to offer the robot to restaurant operators for free but require a higher monthly fee.
Robot food service was becoming popular even before the coronavirus pandemic. Hospitals, college dining areas and other places tried to meet demand for food while keeping labor costs low. Robot chefs appeared at places like Creator, a restaurant in San Francisco.
Now, some say, robots may become necessary for the food service industry.
现在，有人预测，机器人可能成为食品服务业的必需品。
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says the risk of getting COVID-19 from touching or eating food outside the home is low. Yet there have been several outbreaks of disease reported among restaurant employees and customers.
Vipin Jain is the co-founder and head of Blendid, a Silicon Valley startup company.
维宾·贾恩（Vipin Jain）是硅谷创业公司Blendid的联合创始人和负责人。
"I expect in the next two years you will see pretty significant robotic adoption in the food space because of COVID," Jain said.
贾恩表示：“预计在未来两年内，由于新冠疾病，食品领域的机器人应用将会形成规模。”
Max Elder is research director of the Food Futures Lab at the California-based Institute for the Future. Elder wonders about the future of robots once the pandemic has eased.
"Food is so personal, and it needs to involve humans," he said.
他说：“食品领域非常私人化，并且需要人类参与其中。”
Elder also worries about other problems in the food system - like outbreaks among meat industry workers or workers collecting fruit and vegetables.
埃尔德还对食品系统中的其他问题表示担忧，如肉类行业工人或果蔬产品采摘工人间的疫情爆发。
He also talked about the limits of automation – the process of replacing human workers with robot workers.
他还谈到了机器自动化的局限性——用机器人代替人类作业的过程。
"We can't automate our way out of the pandemic because the pandemic affects much more than what can be automated," Elder said.
埃尔德说：“我们无法通过机器自动化摆脱疫情，因为疫情的影响远远超过自动化能够涉及的范围。”
Automated food companies say that they are not trying to replace human workers. At White Castle, Richardson says Flippy will give restaurants the ability to move workers to drive-thru lanes or redeploy them if other employees call in sick.
But, some observers say, robots can lower the demand for labor. At the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, café workers used to spend six hours per day making salads, notes Tonya Johnson, the school's director of nutrition services. But two years ago, the university added a Sally, a kind of robot that now makes around 40 salads per day. By adding Sally, the school was able to remove a job opening in its cooking staff, Johnson said.
"I think the pandemic has made us realize how much we need more equipment like Sally," Johnson said.
约翰逊说：“我认为疫情让我们意识到，拥有萨利这样的设备的重要性。”
Miso Robotics co-founder and chief Buck Jordan said fast food restaurants are already having trouble finding workers, partly as a result of a shrinking population of young workers.
/1 
鄂公网安备42010202000179号 )