Flippy the Burger bot

[FaxModem1]

The Telegraph

Burger-flipping robot replaces humans on first day at work
53 Comments
Watch | Meet Flippy - the robot that can cook the perfect burger every time
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Mark Molloy
9 MARCH 2017 • 10:42AM
A burger-flipping robot has just completed its first day on the job at a restaurant in California, replacing humans at the grill.

Flippy has mastered the art of cooking the perfect burger and has just started work at CaliBurger, a fast-food chain.

The robotic kitchen assistant, which its makers say can be installed in just five minutes, is the brainchild of Miso Robotics.

“Much like self-driving vehicles, our system continuously learns from its experiences to improve over time,” said David Zito, chief executive officer of Miso Robotics.

“Though we are starting with the relatively 'simple' task of cooking burgers, our proprietary AI software allows our kitchen assistants to be adaptable and therefore can be trained to help with almost any dull, dirty or dangerous task in a commercial kitchen — whether it's frying chicken, cutting vegetables or final plating.”

Cameras and sensors help Flippy to determine when the burger is fully cooked, before the robot places them on a bun. A human worker then takes over and adds condiments.


More Flippy robots will be introduced at CaliBurgers next year, with the aim of installing them in 50 of their restaurants worldwide by the end of 2019.

CaliBurger say the benefits include making “food faster, safer and with fewer errors”.

So, will other fast food chains follow suite? Or will this be an anomaly?

[The Romulan Republic]

Flippy the unemployment robot.

You know, I'm not normally one to advocate these Luddite-type positions, but we might need to seriously start looking at laws prohibiting the replacement of workers with robots, at least in certain jobs.

Would do more good in the long run, and cause less harm, than passing laws to keep immigrants out. At least until the point that AI rights become an issue, anyway.

That or pass guaranteed basic income, pronto.

Because otherwise, we're looking at a large percentage of the population that is unemployed, or self-employed doing things that won't necessarily make a lot of money, simply because their are no jobs to be had. And if our only response is telling them that they're parasites who need to support themselves, or that its the fault of the dirty foreigners, well... those are the sort of conditions from revolutions and authoritarian regimes are made.

[Gandalf]

If it works out to be a profitable change, I don't see why it won't spread. There's money to be made in not relying on humans with their unprofitable characteristics.

There will still be a demand for "hand made" foods, but a lot of people just want a burger without the human touch.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, I think that in the not too distant future (barring a global catastrophe that upends everything), we will be looking at a lot of this kind of thing, with work for humans being relegated to more of a niche market for "authentic human-made" goods and services. Like how you have people who will pay more for an authentic Italian pizza instead of going to a fast food joint, or buy artisanal crafts/goods.

But that won't employ everyone who needs a job. Which means we need to fundamentally rethink our economy, and either restrict these sorts of technologies, or implement some sort of guaranteed basic income or something.

[Raw Shark]

What does "perfect burger" even mean? I like mine bloody rare, while my dear sainted grandma would send it back if it wasn't a lump of charcoal. Can the workers instruct Flippy to do those things, or does it just spit out a medium done burger every time?

[Gandalf]

What does "perfect burger" even mean? I like mine bloody rare, while my dear sainted grandma would send it back if it wasn't a lump of charcoal. Can the workers instruct Flippy to do those things, or does it just spit out a medium done burger every time?

It's probably the fast food style standardised burger. The one you buy because you know exactly what you're getting, providing someone hasn't fucked it up.

Then again it shouldn't be hard to program one for rare/medium/well etc.

[Patroklos]

If you watched the video it's not just performing preprogrammed movements but rather using cameras. So once it maps out the grills hot/cold spots it will be able to reliably cook a burger to .1 degrees just using timers alone. If we start talking temperature probes and infrared cameras it will be in four star steak houses in no time. In this case though fast food just cooks the burger standard anyway.

This is inevitable, but just like car automation the workers are accelerating the process via severely misundertanding their industry. Fast food workers, though they employ a good number of people, still represent a small porption of overall paid wages as well as primary earners. Wait until they have advanced telepresence worked out and teachers become a expert niche field instead of a liberal arts sump (in this country, said as a liberal arts major). The same with large parts of the law profession. Even doctors actually. That's when it will start to be really noticed

[The Romulan Republic]

Eh, for me, honestly, a good burger is more defined by what else is added to go with the meat than by how thoroughly the meat is cooked.

But I'm sure they'll eventually find a way to program a robot with every nuance of master burger-making, if it gets them out of having to deal with workers who demand inconvenient things like salaries and rights.

[Raw Shark]

You can ask McD's to make you a rare or well-done burger, it just takes longer because they have to custom make it for you instead of just grab one off the warmer. It holds up the line and people will glower at you, but fuck them. My grandma did it every time we went there.

[mr friendly guy]

Machines are already replacing some human jobs at Macca's. You can order what you want from a machine. When I tried it, the machine wasn't working so I went back to the good old fashion way of talking to a human. Sometimes its just better to talk to people. Haven't tried a machine since.

[TheFeniX]

No offense, but you guys are crazy:
1. Using the McDs burger as a reference for anything but a way to introduce calories and fat into your body is a lost cause. I've had maybe 10 burgers from there in my life. They all had 1 thing in common: zero flavor. I get a burger with cheese. Eating a McDonalds burger: every one was juicy, but the only thing I could taste was the cheese. Neither the meat nor bun had any flavor. My mouth was getting angry at me: "I know this is meat, but meat HAS A TASTE."

There's a reason McDs throws tons of pickles, mustard, and ketchup on their burgers. Because otherwise it be tasteless. It's like those shitty Cheeseburger Pringles my wife brought home once. False advertising out the ass. Ugh. If I wanted pickle flavored chips, I'd buy pickle flavored chips.

2. The idea that a burger needs "something to go with it." If you can't cook a burger that can stand between two buns (preferably toasted, no butter required) MAYBE with some American Cheese: you've failed miserably. Sure, maybe a little black pepper or Liquid Smoke (if you want to be all fancy), but if you can't throw a chunk of beef on a grill and make it tasty without going through 50 steps, step away from the grill. Cooking a good burger is not Rocket Surgery.

I get shit all the time because my burger is cheese and (maybe) mayo. Because if I can't enjoy just that, I don't want your burger.

[FaxModem1]

The problem is that for millions of Americans and customers in other nations, burgerbot's method of making a burger will be just fine, and it being greasy tasteless drivel doesn't matter.

[K. A. Pital]

Bring that Butlerian Jihad on.

On a more serious note, this is totally expected. As programming machine movements becomes easier, and fine operations that are usually done by human hand are mastered at both software and hardware level, more and more low-paying jobs are going to be wiped out.

[His Divine Shadow]

Only way forward really if we want to disrupt and replace the system. It's a goddamn fucking depressing future if we'll have to have people working as burger flippers in the future in order to make a living. Eventually UBI will need to become a reality. And with that, the destruction of tax havens and in general the halcyon days of rich people being over.

[His Divine Shadow]

1. Using the McDs burger as a reference for anything but a way to introduce calories and fat into your body is a lost cause. I've had maybe 10 burgers from there in my life. They all had 1 thing in common: zero flavor. I get a burger with cheese. Eating a McDonalds burger: every one was juicy, but the only thing I could taste was the cheese. Neither the meat nor bun had any flavor. My mouth was getting angry at me: "I know this is meat, but meat HAS A TASTE."

Must be something wrong with McD in america. I think McD burgers are fine, not great but I got nothing negative to say about them, I quite like having a quarter pounder. I can definitely taste meat and salt.

[Patroklos]

Only way forward really if we want to disrupt and replace the system. It's a goddamn fucking depressing future if we'll have to have people working as burger flippers in the future in order to make a living. Eventually UBI will need to become a reality. And with that, the destruction of tax havens and in general the halcyon days of rich people being over.

Oh I can think of quite a few other solutions that can be tried when there is a perception that there are too many people to be useful. They have been tried many times throughout history. They probably will be again.

[The Romulan Republic]

That might be the approach Bannon and his ilk would prefer, but doing that on that kind of scale would probably bring nukes into play in our modern world.

I would think most people are sane enough to vote for UBI over mass murder and possible armageddon, but you never know with Republicunts.

[Crazedwraith]

The cinema near me can't keep both of halves of their slushy machine working regularly.

So the real question I have is how reliable is a burger bot? What's its ratio of up time to maintenance needed.

[Patroklos]

That might be the approach Bannon and his ilk would prefer, but doing that on that kind of scale would probably bring nukes into play in our modern world.

I would think most people are sane enough to vote for UBI over mass murder and possible armageddon, but you never know with Republicunts.

No political stripe is immune to such methods when shit gets real (real or percieved or self induced), even in modern times.

I am pretty sure I had I been challenged I could have predicted your rely word for word btw.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'll simply say that, at present, their is only one political faction in America that targets large groups of vulnerable people routinely, and while your attempt to defend them is entirely predictable for you, I do wonder about your motives for doing so.

Edit: But you know, its rather premature to speculate on who might commit genocide to keep the population down. That's some serious New World Order conspiracy theory bullshit. Especially when a couple pieces of legislation could largely mitigate the problem.

[ray245]

Burger flipping is an under utilisation of labour to begin with. The problem is figuring out how to make better use of labour in the first place.

I mean you have America, a first world developed nation with complete literacy rate, and the best a large number of people can do is flipping burgers?

[FireNexus]

The cinema near me can't keep both of halves of their slushy machine working regularly.

So the real question I have is how reliable is a burger bot? What's its ratio of up time to maintenance needed.

Those machines tend to go through automatic defrost cycles every twelve hours or so, I guess to prevent the contents from over-freezing and destroying the mixing mechanism. It's less noticeable when you have four or five of them you can stagger at 3-hr intervals.

Source: I used to work at 7-Eleven and customers gave me shit about it any time their favorite flavor was melted.

[Lagmonster]

The news made mention of something a few days ago, related to this, that I'd been meaning to bring up. Apparently, Bill Gates (among othres) have suggested the idea of robots being required to pay income taxes. I haven't even the foggiest how such a scheme would work, but it introduces the idea that jobs lost to robots don't also remove money from the system to pay for social services.

[TheFeniX]

Must be something wrong with McD in america. I think McD burgers are fine, not great but I got nothing negative to say about them, I quite like having a quarter pounder. I can definitely taste meat and salt.

Or maybe just Texas. All I know is that if you're looking for a fast-food burger, McDs is the bottom of the bottom tier over here. I can't think of a chain that sells burgers that doesn't make one that blows McDs out of the water. Even Jack in the Crack.

It's like they perfected a system of cooking that leaches away all that's good in the world and replaces it with a huge serving of tasteless grease. And that's weird because A. I love greasy burgers and B. grease has taste. How does their grease not have a taste?

Edit: Best Sausage Biscuits and Hashbrowns you can get through a drive-through though. McDs has save more than a few of my shitty morning drives. I also think I've only been sold one bad drink from them: too much CO2, not enough syrup. I heard they have the best coffee as well, but I don't drink that garbage.

Burger flipping is an under utilisation of labour to begin with. The problem is figuring out how to make better use of labour in the first place.

Burger flippers don't just flip burgers at a fast food restaurant. You basically have to do everything except manage. They even take turns sweeping the floors/cleaning up. It's not exactly hard work, but the workers aren't keeping food chains from raking in big profits.

Each of these corporations was profitable during all of the last three fiscal years, and each of them now earns profits that are substantially higher than their pre‐recession levels.

I mean, I know people look down on fast food workers, but they don't actually hire a person to JUST cook burgers. That would be stupid.

I mean you have America, a first world developed nation with complete literacy rate, and the best a large number of people can do is flipping burgers?

Yea, it's like 1/4. And it hasn't exactly gotten better under any major U.S. party control, Democrats or Republicans. The myth that fast food workers are all young kids looking to earn a bit of scratch while living at home with mommy and daddy is just that: a myth. The average worker is well into his/her 20s and trying to make a living. Much like Wal-mart, I'm sure that fast food chains rely on the government to pay their workers a living wage through subsidies.

I think Chick-fil-a is the only place I routinely notice young and "preppy" workers. It's like the GAP of fast food chains. Or more like a Hooters that will also hire good looking guys and won't make you puke yourself to death after eating there. They seem to exclusively hire high-school cheerleaders and varsity football players. Good food though.

[K. A. Pital]

McDonalds has very good coffee. There's a centralized supply system and the stuff is simply good.

Also to people despising this type of labour - like everyone will get a nice clean clerk job. Heh. Not enough of that stuff to go around even among the educated.