Getting flippy with hamburgers

In the past, I have written at length about the dangers of robots. Sure, robots look all cute and stuff in the Jetsons cartoons, but they are a lurking, societal timebomb just waiting to go off and destroy humanity. We are the agents of our robotic destruction, though. By insisting on increased wages for fast food employees, we have hastened the day when our Big Macs will be served to us by soulless machines that lack humanity and don’t even suffer from acne. 

A burger chain called CaliBurger has replaced its human hamburger flippers with a monstrosity named “Flippy” the robot. Flippy is essentially a mechanical arm that holds a spatula.  Flippy uses thermal imaging and 3D optics to determine when to flip the burgers. It then places the perfectly cooked patties on a hamburger bun. If the order calls for cheese or other toppings, the robot will summon a human to put it on. I’m wondering about the nature of this human summoning. Does Flippy crack a robotic whip?

JOB ALERT!  Hamburger robot cheese slave. Earn $15 per hour putting cheese slices on up to 150 hamburger patties hourly when summoned by your evil hamburger robot overlord. May also be required to put onions, pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes on the food product. Incorrect placement of hamburger toppings may result in instant vaporization by robot master. No smoke breaks.

The McDonalds Corporation has already begun placing ordering kiosks in its restaurants. Customers can use the kiosks to order their food without having to speak to a human being. Kiosk ordering is consistent with current trends in a society in which people prefer online interaction to actual human contact. McDonalds Corp insists that the kiosks will not cause its employees to lose their jobs. The corporation will move its employees to other positions within the restaurant. Sure. Other positions such as robot slave.

There was a story in the news last year that McDonald's was opening a restaurant in Phoenix that was completely run by robots. The restaurant was to be a prototype that, if successful, would herald the takeover of thousands of other restaurants with robots. Thus, McDonald's would no longer have to deal with human error, human hygiene, human laziness, human theft, or human wage protests. But, where is the fun in that?

The story turned out to be fake news. There is no robot restaurant in Phoenix. The real robot hamburger restaurant is in a secret government underground laboratory in New Mexico.

I haven’t been to any restaurants with hamburger ordering kiosks yet. I’m wondering how they can program these things to duplicate the wonderful experience of having a friendly human take your order. Is there a selection list that includes getting the order wrong, taking forever to fill it, adding a human hair, and spitting in your food if they don’t like you?

There are some experiences that just can’t be duplicated by robots.

Well, if they can replace the cashier and the hamburger cooker, how long before the rest of the positions at a fast food restaurant gets replaced? Surely, it can’t be that hard for evil scientists to design a robot that can put cheese slices on a burger. The fully automated McDonalds restaurant story may have been a hoax, but how long before it isn’t?  Once the fast food industry figures out how to eliminate all its annoying and overpaid human employees, they will only have one thing left to do to make the entire industry perfect. That is, they will have to figure out how to replace the human customers with robotic ones.