Burger-Bot: Robotic Skill On The Grill

The coming decades will inevitably be powered by many automatons, particularly in fields that hold little appeal to humans. Now, the stereotypical "burger-flipping" gig may be outsourced completely to machines, thanks to a new robot.

Momentum Machines' meat-managing masterpiece is not humanoid, and it doesn't need to be. It doesn't want to be your friend, give you travel advice, or monitor your house or body. It wants to make burgers. Lots of burgers, and fast. An assembly-line style setup of burger-building materials (patties, buns, lettuce, tomato, cheese, etc.) are lined up, and well-engineered robotics (the creators have experience at Tesla and NASA) take over from there.

According to singularityhub.com, the average fast food restaurant spends $135,000 a year on human burger-flippers. With living, breathing workers, there is sickness, margin for error, strikes and accidents to consider. However, one Momentum could alleviate all that trouble (and not make snarky remarks at mean managers, either.) One 24-square-foot Momentum machine can spin out a burger every ten seconds, or 360 per hour.

Momentum cofounder Alexandros Vardakostas doesn't mince words about the company's mission. “Our device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient. It’s meant to completely obviate them.”

There's little dispute that this may soon become the norm for many by-rote professions. However, Momentum isn't completely coldhearted about their orchestrated robot takeover. They plan to ally with vocational schools to offer (better) job training for those who have been replaced by their robot.  Perhaps the ousted kitchen hands can go into a more lucrative field with their new knowledge...maybe robotics?

Today, they build burgers...tomorrow, a new empire!

Source:http://blog.agupieware.com/2014/08/burger-bot-robotic-skill-on-grill.html