Robots are not suited for all jobs, yet…

How would you like a coffee shop where you order with a smartphone app and your order is processed by a robotic arm instead of a person? A hotel that employs no humans and all tasks are performed exclusively by robots? A car without a driver? A shop without sellers?

Although to most of us this sounds like a sci-fi movie, in reality it is the world we live in today. Hotels that staffed exclusively by robots and no humans are already operational, driverless cabs are already circulating in many American states and robots have replaced baristas in many coffee shops.

Robots are replacing humans in every industry, if the robot’s labor-hour cost is lower than the cost of a man-hour.

But the opposite trend also exists. Henn na Hotel in Japan, the first hotel in the world staffed exclusively by robots, is operational since 2015. However, the hotel’s management is currently considering the retirement of most of the 250 robots in service and their replacement with human staff.

When robots where first implemented things did not go as expected. The luggage-carrying robots could not climb the stairs, while the restaurant robots where continuously malfunctioning. As a result, the man-hours wasted to repair the malfunctions were costing more than the benefit of using robots.

Furthermore, the robots were not able to communicate as a human. In many cases guests who chose the hotel simply to experience something different were forced to leave because they could not find anyone to answer to basic questions.

Nevertheless, the general trend in the tourism industry is more automation and therefore an increasing participation of robots in the production process. Many hotels are now using advanced machines that reduce the operating costs of the hotel and offer better services to guests, like check-in robots for example. Some airports have started testing robots as parking valets.

However, it is important to distinguish between the services that will be performed by robots and those performed by humans. Robots, for the time being at least, are not suited for all jobs.

A robot can make the coffee ordered by the customer thorough an app in his smartphone, with the exact proportions desired, however the waiter must be a human able to communicate and understand the customer’s concerns. However, as technology advances an ever increasing number of jobs will be taken over by robots. A robot waiter may not be able to answer all questions, it can however speak hundreds of languages and respond in the customer’s language, whatever that may be.

It is certain that the future belongs to artificial intelligence, however the era in which robots will hire robots is probably still distant.