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posted by cmn32480 on Monday March 12 2018, @10:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the would-you-like-fries-with-that dept.

Burger-flipper has job safety from the AI automation robots. Test runs of Flippy the Burger Flipping robot apparently didn't last more than a day, before Flippy was let go. Apparently he wasn't fast enough, lacked social skills and other workers had to work around him and his giant burger flipping arm. Flippy 2.0 (or whatever) will probably return one day with new burger flipping artificial intelligence, an improved arm and one of them funny Hawkings-like voice boxes so he can chit-chat with the other co-workers.

"Mostly it's the timing," he said. "When you're in the back, working with people, you talk to each other. With Flippy, you kind of need to work around his schedule. Choreographing the movements of what you do, when and how you do it."

(1) https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2018/03/07/flippy-burger-flipping-robot-break-already/405580002/

Previously: Burger-Flipping Robot Will Grill Meat in 50 Fast Food Restaurants


Original Submission

Related Stories

Burger-Flipping Robot Will Grill Meat in 50 Fast Food Restaurants 127 comments

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

The kitchen assistant, known as 'Flippy', was designed by a startup called Miso Robotics which specializes in "technology that assists and empowers chefs to make food consistently and perfectly, at prices everyone can afford."

[...] Flippy uses feedback-loops that reinforce its good behavior so it gets better with each flip of the burger. Unlike an assembly line robot that needs to have everything positioned in an exact ordered pattern, Flippy's machine learning algorithms allow it to pick uncooked burgers from a stack or flip those already on the grill. Hardware like cameras helps Flippy see and navigate its surroundings while sensors inform the robot when a burger is ready or still raw. Meanwhile, an integrated system that sends orders from the counter back to the kitchen informs Flippy just how many raw burgers it should be prepping.

Flippy in action!

Source: http://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/burger-robot-flipping-meat-0432432/


Original Submission

A New and Improved Burger Robot’s on the Market—and Everyone Wants One 88 comments

A New and Improved Burger Robot's on the Market—and Everyone Wants One

Three and a half years ago, a burger-flipping robot aptly named Flippy, made by Miso Robotics, made its debut at a fast food restaurant in California called CaliBurger. Now Flippy is on the market for anyone who wishes to purchase their own, with a price tag of $30,000 and a range of new capabilities—this burger bot has progressed far beyond just flipping burgers.

Flippy's first iteration was already pretty impressive. It used machine learning software to locate and identify objects in front of it (rather than needing to have objects lined up in specific spots), and was able to learn from experience to improve its accuracy. Sensors on its grill-facing side took in thermal and 3D data to gauge the cooking process for multiple patties at a time, and cameras allowed the robot to 'see' its surroundings.

A system that digitally sent tickets to the kitchen from the restaurant's front counter kept Flippy on top of how many burgers it should be cooking at any given time. Its key tasks were pulling raw patties from a stack and placing them on the grill, tracking each burger's cook time and temperature, and transferring cooked burgers to a plate.

The new and improved Flippy can do all this and more. It can cook 19 different foods, including chicken wings, onion rings, french fries, and even the Impossible Burger (which, as you may know, isn't actually made of meat, and that means it's a little trickier to grill it to perfection).

And instead of its body sitting on a cart on wheels (which took up a lot of space and meant the robot's arm could get in the way of human employees), it's now attached to a rail along the stove's hood, and can move along the rail to access both the grill and the fryer (provided they're next to each other, which in many fast food restaurants they are). In fact, Flippy has a new acronym attached to its name: ROAR, which stands for Robot on a Rail.

Previously: Burger-Flipping Robot Will Grill Meat in 50 Fast Food Restaurants
Flippy Takes a Lunch Break

Related: Robotic Kitchen Opens in Boston


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by AndyTheAbsurd on Monday March 12 2018, @11:28AM (8 children)

    by AndyTheAbsurd (3958) on Monday March 12 2018, @11:28AM (#651295) Journal

    It's like looorg didn't even read the article. Or had a point to make. Here's some more relevant quotes from the article:

    After word got out about a human-replacing robot that could grill as many as 2,000 burgers a day, the Cali Group, which operates the Cali Burger chain says it was swamped with more interest, both from curious diners and potential robot buyers, than it could handle.

    When news coverage about Flippy went viral, the Cali Group said it realized it needed to spend more time on training humans to keep up.

    Emphasis mine on that one, to point out that it wasn't entirely the robot at fault.

    "People who work in fast food aren’t scared of robots. What’s really scary is getting paid so little we need food stamps and public assistance to take care of our families," says Rosalyn King, a McDonald’s worker from Detroit who is active in the union-backed Fight for $15 movement.

    Once Caliburger works the kinks out, Flippy robots will certainly take jobs away, says Julie Carpenter, a research fellow with the Ethics and Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, Calif. But she doesn't see fast food going 100% robotic. Restaurants will still need cashiers, people to open and close up, and workers for other tasks.

    --
    Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
    • (Score: 2) by Ken_g6 on Monday March 12 2018, @02:56PM (4 children)

      by Ken_g6 (3706) on Monday March 12 2018, @02:56PM (#651350)

      You can't replace cashiers, but you can outsource them. All you need is a kiosk with a dollar bill reader, change returner, a touchscreen, a camera and microphone, and a button on the touchscreen that says, "Talk to a person". That button starts a video call with a person in a call center, who can do the kiosk ordering for you if you don't want to or if you have problems with it. One call center can handle many store locations, with fewer cashiers. Plus if the company is really cheap they can outsource to a country with low wages.

      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday March 12 2018, @04:26PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Monday March 12 2018, @04:26PM (#651402) Journal

        You could replace a lot of the cashiers: voice recognition takes a standard order, one cashier takes non-standard orders (such as my 'no bun, no cheese, lettuce wrapped burger' order) (although you could replace a human for that as well).

        The computer prints out what you ordered and asks for confirmation: you click yes. Order is totalled, feed money into machine and change is given (or debit, etc) and order is sent to kitchen staff.

        Flippy does burger's, humans do order.

        1. No fry cook
        2. No cashier
        3. No irate customer for cashier to deal with, so fuck you customer AND staff
        4. Profit!

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Monday March 12 2018, @09:23PM (2 children)

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Monday March 12 2018, @09:23PM (#651530) Journal

        You can't replace cashiers

        Sure you can. I can drive up to my local McDonald's (which is quite rural, by the way), slip into a parking space, enter my order in the app on my phone, submit it, and a few minutes later out it comes. I never leave my car or bother with the drive-through. Fully automated order-taking, parking space destination selection, and payment – other than my input to it. Inside McDonald's, the order shows up on the computer, they cook/prep it, bag it, and deliver it. Rinse and repeat. No cashier involved.

        All the remaining fast-food tasks will fall to automation eventually. It's just a matter of time. And likely not much of that, given the economics.

        • (Score: 2) by darnkitten on Wednesday March 14 2018, @03:50AM (1 child)

          by darnkitten (1912) on Wednesday March 14 2018, @03:50AM (#652143)

          McDonalds was testing this for drive through ordering when I worked there about two decades ago, but, at the time, the technology wasn't there.

          Now?...

          • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday March 14 2018, @02:33PM

            by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday March 14 2018, @02:33PM (#652386) Journal

            at the time, the technology wasn't there. Now?...

            It definitely is now. It works for both parking-space and drive through, as well as walk in and pick-up. I can set up multiple favorite items, customized with extra pickles and/or no bun or whatever, have my order queued up and ready to go, and fire it off with one click when I'm about to run over there (we live nearby) or when I get there. You just tell the phone app where you want to pick up - drive through, inside, or at a parking space.

            It cuts way down on errors with orders, particularly special orders, and it eliminates the whole make-a-payment sequence (they have the CC on file via the app, so it "just works.")

            I have to say, there's not much else I can see that they need to do for this end of the process. It's all remote – the menu and specials are downloaded every time you use the app, and that affects the speed of the app somewhat, but it's not obnoxious.

            Inside the McDonald's they already have automation filling all the drink orders; a robot drops a cup, ice, fills it, tops it off. The server slaps a lid on it and there you go.

            I noticed yesterday that Subway now has a sign on the door advertising pre-ordering via an app. Haven't tried that yet, but if they get it right it'll save a lot of waiting in line, which I would appreciate. Waiting in line isn't exactly the high point of my day. :)

    • (Score: 2) by looorg on Monday March 12 2018, @03:07PM

      by looorg (578) on Monday March 12 2018, @03:07PM (#651356)

      I guess we just saw the news differently, I saw it more like funny "haha the robot failed" news then anything else. Certainly so since it had already made news previously when it was announced a while back. So yes I focused more of the fun reasons why it failed aspects then talking about production numbers or anything of the kind.

      That said I thought my original titles was funnier then the one that was chosen.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @03:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @03:20PM (#651359)

      So the robot was defective. It lacked a second hand with a whip attachment...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @07:04PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @07:04PM (#651478)

      "Restaurants will still need cashiers, people to open and close up, and workers for other tasks."

      they will need like 1, maybe. that's it. instead of whining for a higher minimum wage (screw you and the government whores you rode in on), you could, idk, learn a viable skill?

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 12 2018, @12:40PM (9 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday March 12 2018, @12:40PM (#651310)

    So, this big weird lookin' dude comes in to your workplace with a loud attitude about how he's going to replace all of you and work for free... how well do you think the staff is going to work with him?

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Monday March 12 2018, @01:55PM (8 children)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 12 2018, @01:55PM (#651326)

      What I don't understand about this burger flipping robot thing as an overall meme is when I was a little kid in elementary school we took a field trip to Burger King and they demonstrated their burger cooking robot which was a steel conveyor belt that slowly ran frozen burgers over a large gas grill and then flipped them and grilled the other side. So this was deployed and working in 1980 plus a very small integer in the midwest at Burger King, and we're optimistic that someday in the late 2010s someone will RE-invent a mechanical burger maker?

      Obviously the 1980 model had mechanical feedback loops to run the flames at a standard rate etc and you could replace 50 pounds of perfectly reliable gears and stuff with 5 pounds of much less reliable sensors and microcontrollers.

      There seems to be a lot of media attention for how Flippy the robot has perfected flipping burgers whereas Burger King had perfected their flipping machine, AFAIK, somewhat before our field trip in the very early 1980s.

      So... what exactly is going on here? I haven't been paying close enough attention to figure it out.

      I kinda like grilled chicken and in the 80s my grandfather had a nice rotisserie for his grill and maybe in the 20s I could LARP as inventing the worlds first robotic grilled chicken maker, as long as everyone carefully forgets "Boston Market" restaurant chain etc.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 12 2018, @02:23PM (7 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday March 12 2018, @02:23PM (#651340)

        Agreed - we've been making robots for 100+ years, they just usually don't have arms and fingers, etc. and usually go by the name "machine."

        Having experienced a few months of fast food service many decades ago, I want to know when they'll have "robots" that can autonomously:

        - change the fry vat oil
        - mop the kitchen floors
        - take out the garbage
        - scrub the dumpster

        and worst of all: handle an irate customer.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday March 12 2018, @04:52PM (6 children)

          by bob_super (1357) on Monday March 12 2018, @04:52PM (#651418)

          "Take out the garbage" could be done by a conveyor belt.
          Changing the oil just doesn't seem to need to happen, according to my experience (yuck), but a drain and a dispenser aren't exactly advanced tech, according to my home washers.
          Mopping the kitchen floors is a roomba-like Job, which becomes less necessary when you automate everything
          Scrub the dumspter? Let's just rinse it with a bleach nozzle.

          "Handle an irate customer" is the easiest, in theory: Give them a screen to order, and deliver exactly what they order, without the errors that naturally creep in when humans handle twenty things at once. Sure, my dad will still get angry at the shitty unreliable touchscreen interface, but that's not the same level of personally irate as you implied.

          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 12 2018, @06:18PM (4 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday March 12 2018, @06:18PM (#651459)

            Seems like you might have less fast food employment experience than me - which, to be less would basically be none, but....

            Garbage comes in plastic bags - tying a cheap plastic garbage bag is the first useful skill I learned in Fast Food. To convert that to a conveyor belt would be even messier than the current process and just give you a conveyor belt to clean (inside the wheels, etc.) - remember: most garbage actually comes from the consumer-public side of the operation, so anything wet and messy that can be spilled, will be spilled in the least convenient places possible.

            Fry oil surely does not get changed as often as it should in many placed, but if it NEVER gets changed, oh my - that's going to require a new fry vat in a short time. Now, plumbing the drain to the outside oil disposal tank would require oil piping and pumps - which might come close to the cost of a humanoid robot to build and maintain. Remember, shoestring doesn't just describe the fries, it's also the budget the owners give the managers to work with: stop-cock valve drains hot used oil into a heavy-ass bucket which gets clumsily carried across the messy/slippery kitchen floor out to the oil reclamation tank outside. At least today the replacement oil doesn't come in big white chunks labeled LARD.

            Roombas can barely handle pet-hair, we tried a Scooba (mopper) in 2004 - it wasn't worth the effort to maintain, trying a new one that is supposed to arrive this week, but it's more of a swiffer wet-jet damp mop thing. Fast food kitchen floor mopping involves a big hot bucket with strong grease cutting soap - the roomba-like robot that could do that would be too big to fit under the sink, or reach many of the places that need reaching. Maybe the robots could be neater while they make the food, but spill happens, and food-prep spill can need some serious mop.

            Bleach nozzle - now I know you're trolling, is the robot going to operate this nozzle? Unless it's a pressure-washer, stuff is going to stay stuck to the surfaces. If it is a pressure washer, you're going to need a pretty skilled maintenance tech to keep it operational.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 12 2018, @06:26PM (3 children)

              by bob_super (1357) on Monday March 12 2018, @06:26PM (#651463)

              Not trolling, just pointing out that those are menial tasks with technical solutions.
              Many of those solutions haven't been cost-effective enough to replace a no-benefits minimum-wage job in most of the US. That's more a judgment on the ability to get an endless supply of desperate no-benefits minimum-wage workers, than an inability to automate those tasks.

              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 12 2018, @07:39PM (2 children)

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday March 12 2018, @07:39PM (#651488)

                Well, for once, I'll side with the "how much are you willing to pay for that burger?" crew...

                Sure, we could fully automate McDonald's today, we have the technology, but it would more than triple the capital cost of the restaurant, in exchange for reduced (not zero) labor rates - and the labor you need will be more technically skilled and harder to boss around - not a very attractive proposition for most franchise owners who are used to being able to be the smartest guy in their operation - not that they are the smartest guy, just that they don't _need_ anybody smarter than them to keep the money flowing.

                Once you've invested all this money in your Robo kitchen, there's little liklihood that it will help you sell significantly more burgers (even a risk of less), so now you are looking at a 3x+ ROI period for your initial investment (because labor costs, while important, are not the bulk of the issue...), and with 3x ROI time, it doesn't take a genius to see how that's going to slow down expansion and growth of your empire. We had neighbors in their mid 20s whose parents "gave them" a Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts store to operate, with the expectation that after they got that one in good shape, they'd be expanding to an additional 3-5 stores in the next few years... that's a pretty typical pattern, store owners are no longer content to own and operate one good location - as owners they want continuous expansion. You would think that robot workers would be welcomed as a predictable labor pool, but they're just too expensive right now.

                The answer to "how much are you willing to pay for that burger" is answered by the majority of the burger buying market with "as little as possible." We're not going to get significant automation until automation can make the burgers for less, instead of more.

                --
                🌻🌻 [google.com]
                • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 12 2018, @09:10PM (1 child)

                  by bob_super (1357) on Monday March 12 2018, @09:10PM (#651525)

                  Agree with you, but you side-stepped my point:

                  > not going to get significant automation until automation can make the burgers for less, instead of more.

                  or ... run out of people willing to work for peanuts. Unskilled immigrants and teenagers take jobs that don't pay a living wage nor benefits, allowing owners to cash in.
                  In places where the minimum wage is rising, and in those states debating single-payer (tiny CA), storefronts using the "labor is not the bulk of the issue" business model may soon have another look at partial automation, if they want to keep the Dollar Menu.

                  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 12 2018, @11:17PM

                    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday March 12 2018, @11:17PM (#651575)

                    run out of people willing to work for peanuts.

                    Oh, are you in the U.S.? In the U.S. we squeeze the social programs until cheap labor drips out. These namby pamby minimum wage increasing states can play their utopian pipe dream games, in good 'old Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi - you won't be runnin' out of cheap labor before doooomseday. When the locals get too rich to be bothered, they'll just let in a few more illegal Mexicans and have 'em work off the books. Trump won't be president forever.

                    --
                    🌻🌻 [google.com]
          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 12 2018, @07:48PM

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday March 12 2018, @07:48PM (#651492)

            Sure, my dad will still get angry at the shitty unreliable touchscreen interface, but that's not the same level of personally irate as you implied.

            My first irate customer ordered "peg legs" (Long John Silver's) at 9:30pm. Peg legs take 5:30 to cook, so about 7 minutes from order to bag out the window. During this time, Mr. Rate informs me that he's left his kids home, alone, and he needs his food now. I explain that peg legs take a long time to cook because of the bones in them, and they're almost ready. When he gets the bag, he looks inside and comes back with a "I can't give these to my kids, they've got BONES in them." I offer the boneless planks, but they will take another 4 minutes to cook... Mr. Rate leaves mumbling something about never coming back. So, as a human operator, the next time a customer ordered Peg Legs, I had a mini-conversation "the ones with the bones?" "yes, those." confirming the decision, which is something that a robot _could_ learn from a company trainer, but not likely self-taught OJT.

            Most irate customers will be taking out their self-inconsistency on the machines, calling the machines misleading or even faulty, making extra messes for the machines to clean up, even vandalizing the place. Decades of "the customer is always right" service policies have trained them that they get free and reduced price stuff when they get pouty, and some places will even reward them for apparent dementia.

            --
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  • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday March 12 2018, @02:42PM

    by richtopia (3160) on Monday March 12 2018, @02:42PM (#651344) Homepage Journal

    There was no pictures of device in the article, but in the past the burger robots I have seen are typically pursuing large premium hamburgers. The target market needs to be a very controlled product with repeatable results; what I would pursue is White Castle. Since the hamburgers are so thin you can easily model when they are done, and they are so uniform in size the end effector of the robot can be more custom to the task.

    In other industries businesses have come to similar conclusions: robots are good at repeatable tasks with little deviation, while humans are good at dynamic tasks with variation. The problem for robots in eateries should not be how to integrate the robot into the current workplace, but how to adapt the menu to leverage automation.

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