The fall of robots

I wrote about the rise of “gimmick” robots back in November here. In that blog post, I discuss how I am not a fan of barista and pizza making robots as they are more akin to a novelty gimmick rather than serving a real purpose.

My biggest issue with these gimmick robots are on two fronts: 1) it is highly unlikely they are actually cutting costs, and 2) I have yet to see a robot make coffee or pizza better than a human. Compare that to driving robots who are statistically safer than human drivers. That is what I mean by gimmick robots.

I am revisiting this post as two news stories came out earlier this week.

CafeX, the start-up that makes the robot barista machine, is now closing all 3 San Francisco locations and cutting staff. They seem to be pivoting towards placing their machines in airports now. While never great news, this may be a good business decision as placing an unattended robot in an airport is undoubtedly much safer than on Market Street in San Francisco. They may actually achieve cost cutting and automation in this case.

Zume Pizza, the company that makes robotic pizza has announced that they are cutting 50% of their staff and refocusing efforts on packaging and helping restaurants automate production and delivery systems. This seems to be the end of the pizza vans with robots making pizzas in the back. As another SoftBank company, this is another blow to the SoftBank reputation as most of their portfolio companies continue to cut staff.

Perhaps we’ll look at these companies 10 years down the line as the first pioneers of the robotic service industry as we may be ahead of time at this point. Hopefully the future robots focus on doing things better than humans at less of a cost or this trend will never catch.