You Read Correctly! Robots Challenge Human Hands as Baristas!
What would you do if you walked into your local coffee shop and instead of a person taking your order there was a friendly robot waiting for you to give your order.
A kiosk is located in the coffee shop to take the order. It inputs your order into the robot for the barista crafting process to then begin.
After receiving your order it would then proceed to make what you requested and set it back on the counter for you, calling your name or order number once it was finished.
It pours the liquid, stirs it, puts additions into the order and then places it on the counter for the customer to pick up once it's completed.
Scary or Exciting, Maybe Both!
There's a long list of different ideas and opinions about our society changing to be more automated.
Movies have skewed our view greatly as well as stories told in books that have broadcast many robotic and AI advancements as evil, or genocidal.
However reality is much different, as robots in place right now are almost always in fixed positions, only respond from human input, and are pre-programmed by the company that created them.
It's also important to note that even in the face of how many robots have already been placed in manufacturing and other industries robotic workers still make up less the 0.5% of the workforce.
You can also never replace the true artistry of a barista, as they put their love into each cup, allowing every single cup made to be unique and created specifically for the customer requesting it, but I wouldn't mind at all if I had a Starbucks robot putting out a consistent coffee for me each time I ordered.
I feel about the same with a human making my coffee at Starbucks as well, as each creator has benefits and drawbacks.
The biggest benefit to robotics for coffee is speeding up and automating the coffee process for each order. This will allow a higher volume of customers for the company.
The greatest drawback that I see is that the coffee ordered will be consistently the same. That means it's never worse... and it's never better. This is also the advantage of having a human barista, because to me it's worth getting a few mediocre coffees for that one cup'a'joe that simply blows your mind.
The Controversy.
My father was a man who was in the same IT career path as I followed in, and technology and the advancements of computers were nothing strange to him, but when it came time to begin replacing a percentage of cashiers at Wal-Mart with semi-automated systems that we checked ourselves out with he refused to use them.
He would always state "I'm not doing their job for them." and he had a fair point, but I also found that using them got me in and out of the store faster which was something I was always looking to achieve.
Like I said already, there's so many different ideas and opinions on the matter of robotics and innovation, but at the end of the day we have to sit down first and look inward at ourselves to see how it makes us feel.
Do we feel good about it? Did it make our experience better or worse? And finally what was the quality of the end product for as as the consumer?
The second thing we always have to look at is the big picture. How is it affecting society?
Are we able to produce more or less? Are the jobs being lost being replaced by higher paying more technical jobs?
My Opinion Summarized.
At the end of the day society will continue to advance as it always has, and businesses and government will always be looking at their bottom line to find ways they can produce more, faster, and cost less.
When it comes to profit society will almost always opt in for profit.
I personally think it's a good thing, because while some low pay jobs get replaced by robotics in generates jobs that pay vastly higher amounts of robots technicians, engineers, and programmers.
I also am ALWAYS for technological advancement that less us get more FRIGGEN CAWFEE to more FRIGGEN PEOPLE.
Coffee is love and coffee is life at Friggen Cawfee. And I love it all.
Happy sipping my fellow coffee lovers!
Thanks for stopping by Friggen Cawfee and reading this article! As always, I’m more than glad to help answer your questions and provide input for all your coffee questions.
You can email me at Mark@friggencawfee.com
– Mark, Friggen Cawfee Connoisseur