Will the New Burger Bot Replace Fast Food Workers?

   By SheSpeaksTeam  Aug 26, 2014
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As the world becomes more automated it’s not surprising to hear about a robot that can make fast food hamburgers more efficiently than a person. A start-up company in San Francisco called Momentum Machines is touting their latest creation – a burger-slinging robot that can create custom burgers faster and more efficiently than the most experienced line cooks.

Reviewed.com takes a look at the burger bot and how it may eventually function in our fast food futures. The robot is said to be able to cook custom burgers, slice all of the toppings and place them on the bun, and package the end result in a bag. The robot is being called “a self-contained assembly line” and is capable of making 360 burgers per hour. And even with hand-washing regulations in place, the robot is more dependably sanitary than humans.

Momentum’s co-founder Alexandros Vardakostas is sure that his machine will wow fast food chains and can lead to the extinction of the line cook. He says, “Our device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient. It’s meant to completely obviate them.”

In recent years many cashiers have been replaced by automated touch-screens and self-checkout, will the same be in store for fast food workers? And is replacing workers with machines really good for the economy? Momentum’s website is quick to point out their plan for workers displaced by their burger bots. The site says, “Our goal is to offer discounted technical training to any former line cook of a restaurant that uses our device. We will certainly need more engineers to design new devices and technicians to service a growing line of automated restaurant solutions.”

The Momentum company also highlights some reasons why robots can actually enhance the economy saying, “The issue of machines and job displacement has been around for centuries and economists generally accept that technology like ours actually causes an increase in employment. The three factors that contribute to this are 1. the company that makes the robots must hire new employees, 2. the restaurant that uses our robots can expand their frontiers of production which requires hiring more people, and 3. the general public saves money on the reduced cost of our burgers.”

What do you think of the new burger bot?

Would you be happy to let a robot take care of your next burger order or do you think we should leave this to the line cooks?
 

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