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Walmart Is Reportedly Testing a Burger-Flipping Robot (yahoo.com) 78

Posted by BeauHD from the doubling-down-on-automation dept.
Flippy, a burger-flipping robot that's been trialed in a number of restaurants this year, is coming to Walmart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, to see whether or not it's the right fit for its in-store delis. Yahoo News reports: Flippy is the world's first autonomous robotic kitchen assistant powered by artificial intelligence from Miso Robotics, a two-year-old startup. Flippy got a gig at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles with vending food service company Levy Restaurants, part of Compass Group, to fry up chicken tenders and tater tots. Through the World Series, Flippy churned out 17,000 pounds worth of the fried foods. It's able to fry up to eight baskets of food simultaneously. "Walmart saw what we were doing and said, 'Could you bring Flippy from Dodgers Stadium to our Culinary Institute?'" Miso Robotics CEO David Zito told Yahoo Finance.

In practice, a Walmart associate would place a frozen product on the rack. Using visual recognition technology, Flippy identifies the food in the basket and sets it in the cooking oil. The machine then "agitates" the basket by shaking it to make sure the product cooks evenly. When the food is finished cooking, Flippy moves the basket to the drip rack. An associate then tests the food's internal temperature. A few minutes later, the associate can season the food before it hits the hot display case. The reason Walmart is looking at the robot is so it can do some of the more mundane and repetitive tasks at the deli. The robot is supposed to serve as an "extra set of hands," letting the associate spend less time putting potato wedges and chicken tenders in fryers and more time on other services like taking customer orders and prepping other foods.
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Walmart Is Reportedly Testing a Burger-Flipping Robot More

Walmart Is Reportedly Testing a Burger-Flipping Robot

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  • ...income. 'Bots can't talk back...top-level executives like that...and the fact that they can fire a few more people, instead of paying them a decent salary.

    I like to be able to CONVERSE with my food preparation humans. But, on the other hand, I don't believe Walmart is hot on good food, prepared by experts, to the customers' preferences, and tasty and nutritious to the buyer, either!

    • Dude.. it's Walmart, what do you expect?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      At least read the summary.... gee.

      You can CONVERSE. The robot described it little more than a mechanical deep fryer. It isn't replacing the person taking the order. Second, the whole.... 'tech improvements cost people jobs' has been proven false time and time again. Every single improvement in technology since the advent of harnessing fire could be explained as costing someone their job, yet jobs still exist. As someone who has worked at Walmart for a very long time, I've seen a lot of technology intro

    • You vote with your dollars (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2018 @12:16AM (#57784384)
      People love to blame companies or executives for things like this, when it's their own damn fault. Top-level executives may make the decision to try out ideas like this, but whether the idea succeeds ultimately depends on what the customers do.
      • If customers predominantly value conversing with the people preparing their food as you theorize, then this idea will flop.
      • OTOH if customers would rather have a burger which costs 10 cents less, then this idea will take off and the human burger flippers will lose their jobs.

      You don't just vote in elections. Every time you buy something, you're voting with your dollars. Businesses just chase your dollars. Ultimately it's you who determines what direction companies and executives take. It just doesn't feel like you're in control because like with elections, nearly half the people lose almost half the time. Walmart grew into the behemoth it is because people preferred to buy cheap Chinese products rather than more expensive American-made products. If you think Americans are buying Chinese-made goods because Walmart opted to carry them instead of American-made goods, you have cause and effect reversed.

      • Why would I buy a human-flipped burger if it will cost less than a robot-flipped burger?

        Weren't you, bleeding hearts, always complaining how Walmart exploits employees?

        Here, no exploitation, at least, at this spot.

        Or are you some kind of luddite?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        People love to blame companies or executives for things like this, when it's their own damn fault. Top-level executives may make the decision to try out ideas like this, but whether the idea succeeds ultimately depends on what the customers do. (...) If you think Americans are buying Chinese-made goods because Walmart opted to carry them instead of American-made goods, you have cause and effect reversed.

        While I in principle agree with you, it's a bit much to pretend companies are innocent bystanders who do nothing but follow the changing tides of customer wants and needs. Companies do their best to bury negative aspects of their products, you can see this with sticker price manipulation where they've slashed the quantity, hidden costs in fees, accessories, consumables and so on. They'll constantly try to cut corners using cheaper components, not doing things properly and skimping on QA. And that's just the

      • While people that engage in burger flipping for purposes of personal gain might all be wonderfully erudite and full of fascinating facts to discuss, the question becomes, unless you work at the same place they do, when was the last time you jumped the counter and went back into the kitchen to chat with one while they cooked your burger?

    • I like to be able to CONVERSE with my food preparation humans.

      When was the last time you conversed with your food preparation human?

    • There's a reason those burger places are not named "In-and-Out Conversation" or "Conversation King". You go there to get a burger, not to converse with food-preparation people.
  • I just did a spit-take all over my monitor and keyboard when I read that.

    • I just did a spit-take all over my monitor and keyboard when I read that.

      Yeah, I read that on my phone and - let’s just say I’m glad this phone has an IP68 rating.

  • The lower middle class, Walmart's key demographic, in general is pretty jittery about automation making their jobs obsolete. Reminding them via a baker-bot is not good for business.

    It's the kind of thing say Burger King should pursue, not Walmart. While Burger King may lose some customers to the mentioned spook-factor, it can carve out a niche by using the automation to be cheaper than competitors. You'd gain enough customers by being cheaper to compensate for those lost due to the spook-factor. You'd be t

    • Yeah but if it brings the dollar menu back, then people will be arriving in droves.

    • Wal-Mart shoppers have already proven beyond any reasonable doubt that they care only about one thing, low prices. They do not care about quality, selection, service, environmental impact, the effects on other retail establishments, or personal pride. Why do you think they would care about burger flipper jobs? All they care about is a cheaper burger. If they cared about anything else, they'd go somewhere else.

      FYI, Wal-Mart's demographic is the lower class, though lots of lower-class individuals mistakenly t

  • Back when I used to work on those giant microwave ovens for them, the local McDonalds restaurant got a robot to cook their fries. It worked, but apparently not as efficiently as teenagers and senior citizens, so it was gone after several months. That was about 25 years ago, BTW.

  • I'm actually pretty sure robots can do a better job of it, too, eventually. Stuff them with sensors, perfectly seasoned, juicy burger every time. And no one will spit into it if they happen to be having a bad day.

  • But why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kriston ( 7886 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @10:36PM (#57784076) Homepage Journal

    But why?

    McDonald's has been using clamshell grills over 30 years.

    • Every single time I picked to the back of McDonalds, I see people literally flipping burgers.

      What the heck are you talking about?

  • Flippy churned out 17,000 pounds worth of the fried foods

    Around 21,000 dollars, then?

  • "Flippy moves the basket to the drip rack". Unlike its human counterparts that just dump grease and fries together on the serving table. Man I hate that at any fast food place I go to!

  • Huh? (Score:2)

    by Shotgun ( 30919 )

    I don't think this is for burgers. First, aren't the burgers cooked on a conveyer through an oven, like all the pizza's are cooked? And second, burgers aren't cooked in a deep fryer, are they?

    This sounds more like a conveyer to dunk "food" (and please, let's use that term lightly) in a deep fryer. Seems like that should be a fairly simple machine, too. Can you really call that a "robot"?

  • Robots are much better than humans â" not because of cost. I would pay MORE for robots. Humans have HR dangers. They might sue you, the might sabotage you, they have conflicts with each other. Forget al the BS and drama of dealing with humans. Go with robots.

    As for jobs, just tax the robot and provide humans with income (basically the rvso they dont blackmn

  • Dipping frozen shit in oil is not cooking. Call me up when a robot can actually make real food.

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