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Comment by Zigurd | Hacker News Reader

I'd bet my lease gets reviewed by an AI before I eat a robot-cooked meal.

Food is variable and dirty and the downside risk of not being clean is pretty bad, even acknowledging that robots will always wash their hands.

Maintenance, risk, and general exposure to meatspace, in every sense, means that knowledge workers will probably be the first to be automated out of a job.

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Unless you just eat stuff grown by you or very small-scale farmers, robots are already touching your food. From the combine harvester that picks it up, to the conveyor belt where it's selected, cut, washed and pre-cooked [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC32345D87EF2F305

Sure, but it's the difference between power and complete automation. A "robot" washes my clothes, but folding my clothes reliably is beyond the state of the art as of now. I suspect robot chefs might be on that level of difficulty, plus they would have to keep a very general purpose arm clean. Meanwhile automated translation, which is a very difficult problem, has good-enough automation.

I don't really agree. Ultimately making food is an extremely repetitive process (at least for fast food) and that's where AI excels.

I think that if the robot is really transparent and there's a human inspecting, then people will be willing to live with it.

Reviewing your lease could be tricky because it could involve lots of external variables, cultural differences, changes over time, interactions with the law, and so on.

Your lease being reviewed... if you mean by some kind of robot lawyer then I doubt it. Lawyers have the best trade union and have successfully resisted the Walmartization of their trade for decades and I can't see that changing in the US at least.

What if the robot runs out of disinfectant and nobody notices or cares?

Robots are only as clean as the company that owns and inspects them permits them to be.

Giving the robot a disinfectant-level sensor, delivering an alert when it's low and refusing to operate if it can't do so cleanly, would be trivial compared to the rest of the endeavor, and will probably be required the FDA or equivalent, eventually.

Yes, because no mechanical parts have ever malfunctioned, ever.

Do you trust minimum-wage teens to follow procedure to the letter every time? In this arena at least, I feel like it's a wash between malfunctioning robots and stressed-out, underpaid workers.

I feel like they're more inclined to snitch if things get bad. Machines don't do that.

I've worked retail before, and I'd bet money on a machine running perfectly forever before a fast food employee blowing the whistle on a dirty kitchen.

What if employees at a restaurant run out of disinfectant or doesn't wash their hands after visiting the restroom? What if no one notices or cares? :)

An employee might be so disgusted by this they blow the whistle on the place and get it inspected.

A robot can't and won't do this.

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