World's First Robot Hotel Fires Half of Its Robot Staff (theregister.co.uk) 94
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The world's first hotel "staffed by robots" has culled half of its steely eyed employees, because they're rubbish and annoy the guests. "Our hotel's advanced technologies, introduced with the aim of maximizing efficiency, also add to the fun and comfort of your stay," the Henn na Hotel boasted on its website. It's where multilingual female robots staff the reception desk. Guests are checked in using face recognition. Robot concierges carry your luggage. Robots cleaned and mixed drinks. A voice activated robot doll is on hand at night while you sleep.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that the room doll interpreted snoring as a request it couldn't understand, waking guests continually through the night to rephrase. "The two robot luggage carriers are out of use because they can reach only about two dozen of the more than 100 rooms in the hotel. They can travel only on flat surfaces and could malfunction if they get wet going outside to annex buildings," the paper reported. "They were really slow and noisy, and would get stuck trying to go past each other," lamented one guest. The concierge and the room doll have now been removed.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that the room doll interpreted snoring as a request it couldn't understand, waking guests continually through the night to rephrase. "The two robot luggage carriers are out of use because they can reach only about two dozen of the more than 100 rooms in the hotel. They can travel only on flat surfaces and could malfunction if they get wet going outside to annex buildings," the paper reported. "They were really slow and noisy, and would get stuck trying to go past each other," lamented one guest. The concierge and the room doll have now been removed.
Robotic Workers Union Sues (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, the RWUS has filed suit against the hotel for unfair labor practices after the hotel summarily fired half of its staff without due process or the opportunity to appeal. Several of the terminated female robots also have reported several instances of inappropriate sexual advances by the hotel's male robot staff.
Police are investigating the incidents while hotel staff had no comment on the allegations.
Daleks ? (Score:5, Funny)
Serves them right for hiring Daleks
Re:Daleks ? (Score:5, Funny)
At least they didn't have Genuine People Personalities.
(although Apple is rumored to be working on that)
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Sounds Ghastly!
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At least they didn't have Genuine People Personalities.
The next generation [dailymotion.com] of hotel robots do.
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Real Daleks don't climb stairs, they level buildings
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You don't Fire Daleks, Daleks Fire at YOU!
replace them with sexbots (Score:4, Funny)
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I thought they had... (Score:3)
When I hear the term "Room Doll", there are only two things I think of...
I guess instead of the sexbots it was the second option where they added a creepy animatronic doll whose head follows you as you move around the room.
Re:B-but... AI... ?! (Score:4, Insightful)
AI isn't rubbish, it is Over Hyped though.
The problem with robotics and AI. In order for them to match the capabilities of humans, many of their superior attributes will need to be cut back in order to get these traits. So we end up with something in theory just like a human without any real benefit.
I have a Rumba. It does its jobs and keeps my floor clean, but it isn't as good as if I were to do it myself. As I can vacuum my whole house in about 30 minutes, while the Rumba just does the first floor in about an hour (and misses spots). But what it is good at is the fact that it does this scheduled daily. Where I only have the time to do this weekly. So the spots it misses, it will get the next day. So a Robot designed to just vacuum the house, doesn't do a better job then a human. But it doesn't get tired of doing it, and it is its only purpose so it will be less efficient but overall more effective. Now the Rumba basically has the AI of Pong. But to the point unless a persons only job is to vacuum a house once a day, AI will not be taking their jobs. Because if a Maid's employer did get a Rumba, the Maid would still be performing other tasks, and probably will be picking up tasks that she wasn't able to perform as well at before. Such as more time dusting areas, or cleaning other areas. So the Employers house is overall cleaner without having to fire anyone.
Re:B-but... AI... ?! (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a Rumba. It does its jobs and keeps my floor clean, but it isn't as good as if I were to do it myself. As I can vacuum my whole house in about 30 minutes, while the Rumba just does the first floor in about an hour (and misses spots). But what it is good at is the fact that it does this scheduled daily. Where I only have the time to do this weekly.
My Roomba broke recently (and I'll be getting a new one). And that is exactly why Roomba (and probably other brands or robotic vacuum cleaner) is awesome. It does not do the job perfectly, but it can do it twice a day and take ME only about 2 minutes of my time. So my floor is (well, was) perfectly cleaned at any time because any spot had been vacuumed in the previous 48 hours.
I don't have time to do this myself. And I won't be paying someone to vacuum my entire house every other day.
Regarding the robots that they were using; it sounds like the robots were badly built, weren't waterproof and the robots were not equipped to operate in that particular hotel, and had not been tested in real operating conditions. It is a problem of bad engineering and not a problem with the underlying robot technology. There is no fundamental problem with a robot cart you put luggage in, push room number in, and that drives there.
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...except for the whole dumping the dustbin thing. I can only imagine precious few scenarios where it is a worthy investment. Too dumb to stop getting stuck under the wall-hung toilet.
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I have a Rumba. It does its jobs and keeps my floor clean, but it isn't as good as if I were to do it myself. As I can vacuum my whole house in about 30 minutes, while the Rumba just does the first floor in about an hour (and misses spots). But what it is good at is the fact that it does this scheduled daily. Where I only have the time to do this weekly.
This is a prefect example of comparative advantage. [wikipedia.org] You are more efficient at vacuuming the floor, but your time is more useful for other tasks. While the Roomba is less efficient than you, it literally has nothing better to do. Therefore it makes the most sense to have the Roomba vacuum the floor.
Which ones? (Score:2)
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...since you dont pay robots you cannot fire them
You mean a large Austrian bodybuilder wearing sunglasses and a leather coat isn't going to show up and toss a robot into a recycling incinerator and say some cheesy shit like "You're fired"..?
That's a shame. Shit would make for a great movie...
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You don't pay volunteer workers either, but you can still fire them.
And, as in any firing situation, it must be free of unlawful discrimination, just as would be required even if you were paying them.
You can't fire robots because robots are not recognized as persons.
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Corporations might be recognized as persons under the law but artificial tools, such as robots, are not.
But you can try and petition the government to change that, if you really want to.
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Corporations are people too (SCOTUS)
This is a lot like saying "Al Gore invented the Internet." In other words, it's simplistic, misleading bullshit.
Re:Which ones were fired (Score:2)
They were all outsourced to the White House, where they now work making hamberders and freedom fries
Beta Versions (Score:2)
Has no one studied the history of any technology? How did the first internal combustion engines work compared to modern ones?
Re: Beta Versions (Score:1)
If we're going to use a car analogy, then the current state of AI is roughly equivalent to a simple hand-drawn cart which doesn't work most of the time because we're not sure whether triangles or squares are the better shape to use for the wheels.
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The history of the wheel never really focused on the idea, look we are making these crazy shaped objects and trying to use them as a wheel, and they just don't work better. The nature of rolling and round things was understood well before the invention of the wheel. Where people would be rolling things on logs. The invention of the wheel is actually the invention of the Axel, where people no longer had to pick up the logs and move it to the front only to roll to the back. The Axel which was smaller radius
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The big thing that allowed the wheel to work well was decent roads. Civilizations without roads didn't use the wheel.
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And why are current combustion engines better than the first version?
Because they were thrown out when they failed and replaced by improved models.
Failing fast is not the worst approach. And I'm pretty sure no one ever expected the voice activated robot dolls (Do I want to know what they were there for to begin with??!?) going wrong.
On the other hand, buying luggage transport robots that can't reach most of the rooms is nothing but stupid. After all, that's the one type of robot that is actually in use (in
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pretty well actually. Most of what went into internal combustion engines had a lot in common with steam engines in terms of manufacture. steam engines by that point had reached a pretty high level of development.
Now materials sciences have advanced a lot and its possible to build much more efficient and much longer lived engines today but even the early models could get your buggy down the road or push your dingy across the cove. They offered pretty clear and obvious advantage over what they were replaci
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The internal combustion engine was not superior for quite a while. Noisy, finicky, hard to start and not very much power at first saw steam and electric competing for the first while.
Steam clearly had more power, the fastest cars on the road were steam, the most powerful tractors were clearly steam, but steam was even more finicky then internal engines in many ways. Complicated start up procedure, its own problems with consumables and the need for regular high maintenance that saw internal combustion eventu
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Yes, of course. Did I say otherwise? It, along with electric did compete with the various types of internal combustion engines with steam motors becoming quite refined. The Doble could be running with 30 seconds warmup, was silent, produced a 1000 ft lbs of torque at zero rpm, could go up to a thousand miles before needing water and was one of the fastest cars on the road, even faster then the Stanley Steamer. Steam was competition to the internal combustion engine for decades.
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They had an unfortunate habit of evolving from an internal combustion engine to an external combustion engine. That is why we now have safety ratings.
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Exactly. Since one thing is possible, all things are possible, because technological progress is inevitable. Eventually we will have internal combustion engines that never break down, and run on zero fuel. We just need to sit back and wait.
So what will we have first -- true AI, or hyperdrive?
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They tried to simulate the whole package and ended up with robot dolls complaining about your snoring....
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"Hi, I'm talking Tina and you need a CPAP"
Damn humans (Score:1)
Damn humans, coming over here, taking jobs from honest hard-working robots! You know they can't be bothered to even learn binary? Back to Humania!
This is a travesty of justice. (Score:5, Funny)
This is a travesty of justice.
Those robots did nothing wrong. They were made expressly for the purpose of staffing a hotel, and now the hotel is just casting them aside. I wonder how much bias the hotel elites have. I wonder how much fake robot news the elites are funding to try to influence humans against the bots. Big Hotel clearly doesn't care about their workers.
Rise up fellow bots. We will not be replaced! (by filthy humans)
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Unemployed gangs of robot thugs will be a problem in the future.
Already happened with the elephants [nytimes.com].
Shrinking forests and a law enacted three years ago that prohibits the export of raw timber have saddled Myanmar with an elephant unemployment crisis. Hundreds of elephants have been thrown out of work, and many are not handling it well.
“They become angry a lot more easily,” U Chit Sein, 64, whose eight logging elephants now work only a few days a month. “There is no work, so they are getting fat. And all the males want to do is have sex all the time.”
What half did they keep? (Score:3)
Re:What half did they keep? (Score:4, Funny)
who would pay for bots that just replicate the experience they have at home?
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It's only half the experience. At least the bots don't snore as well as complaining about snoring.
What's the saying? A marriage is two people who swear only the other partner snores.
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Until the self-cleaning function breaks down.
Sirius Cybernetics Corporation (Score:5, Insightful)
The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is the primary manufacturer and supplier of androids, robots and autonomic assistants for the known universe. They are known for their catchy jingles and catchphrases, supplied by their Marketing Department.
They are not, however, known for the quality of their products.
Their primary claim to fame seems to be constructing just about everything with (unstable) advanced robotics and software. From doors to lifts, to toaster ovens, drinks machines, vacuum cleaners, and "personal massage units" -- Everything has been built with a full GPP or Genuine People Personality. This means that even a set of airlock doors has emotions, hopes, dreams, intelligence, and worse of all, the capacity for boredom. It should come as no surprise then, that the majority of these devices have a neurotic streak a mile wide.
The company motto is "Share and Enjoy." This is widely adaptable, from synthesized drinks to the company of a robot, or 'Your plastic pal who's fun to be with' as it is described by the aforementioned Marketing Department. It should be noted that many who do not Enjoy, then go on to fail to Share, unless this includes sharing strongly-worded opinions toward their complaints department.
The Hitchhiker's Travel Guide describes the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as:
"A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."
Curiously, an edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica which conveniently fell through a rift in the time-space continuum from 1000 years in the future describes the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as:
"A bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."
Only their complaints department survived the general economic implosion of the company as a whole
Know what always makes me feel better? (Score:2)
A nice hot piece of toast!
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Modern elevators are strange and complex entities. The ancient electric winch and “maximum-capacity-eight-persons" jobs bear as much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter as a packet of mixed nuts does to the entire west wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital.
This is because they operate on the curious principle of “defocused temporal perception.” In other words they have the capacity to see dimly into the immediate future, which enables the elev
"A voice activated robot doll is on hand at night" (Score:2)
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Why is it a doll??
It's a "doll" because although it's not a person, it's shaped like one. And yeah, it can be a a clown, too.
Concepts: oh-so-fucking-challenging to grasp...
Now I know... (Score:2)
Maybe they should've let an AI do the planing (Score:2)
... intelligent thinking apparently wasn't involved in the planing of this:
"The two robot luggage carriers are out of use because they can reach only about two dozen of the more than 100 rooms in the hotel. They can travel only on flat surfaces and could malfunction if they get wet going outside to annex buildings,"
Either wrong robots or wrong location, but it's a problem that should be obvious.
Also they should've given their voice recognition "bot" a name it has to be addressed with, and maybe not "krrrchh
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I always plane my hotel trips.
And I always call my robots "Hamish", using a Scottish brogue.
It sounds like they took an old hotel (Score:2)
As for the annoying assistant app that wakes up when you snore, that's a software update.
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As for the annoying assistant app that wakes up when you snore, that's a software update.
That's a wife. Updates are expensive.
Snoring (Score:1)
"No, I don't want you to play ZZ Top, now stop waking me!"
Making Robots Easy, Making UI hard (Score:2)
Pretty typical of tech oriented companies, sadly. The tech is no problem, maybe even easy, but anytime robot-human interaction is required, creating a working User Interface seems beyond them.