Ah, the promised potential of the robotic helper. We all need an occasional hand living our day to day lives, especially if you’re a small-time business owner trying to get back by in the restaurant industry during a global pandemic. How are you expected to wait on customers when you’re meant to keep at least two metres away from them at all times? Well, remember when we were talking about robots a few seconds ago…

To ensure that business can continue as (kinda) normal, the Royal Palace, a restaurant in the Netherlands, has begun using a pair of robots as waiters. The duo can perform all the basic functions of a flesh and blood employee such as greeting customers, serving food and collecting dirty dishes yet one has to question whether setting them to work washing said dishes is a good idea. They even greet customers with a friendly, “Hello and welcome” so if someone could just hack into those things and install a Dalek voice mod, that would be greatly appreciated.

Look, given the admittedly creepy idea of being served food by a robot, one has to imagine that they’re not about to become commonplace just yet. Oh, and the price, we doubt they’re exactly cheap to employ and run. Leah Hu, who’s family owns the Royal Palace says, “I’ve had negative reactions, such as saying it makes it impersonal…We are often busy and cleaning tables and the robots give us an extra hand. We are not disappearing. We are still here. They will always need people in this industry.”

While we’re still a couple of decades away from robots actually being advanced enough to replace restaurant works, it’s still kinda spooky seeing the process take form. We’re not saying this is how the Terminator movies started but SkyNet wasn’t built in a day, right?

(Source: Associated Press)