This is pretty wild! If I ever decide to finally plant a garden to get great summer tomatoes, then I just might have to try this!
Never pull weeds again — this robot can do it. pic.twitter.com/diR77GCRj4
— CNET (@CNET) July 14, 2017
This Chinese Robot Army Isn’t Quite What I Was Expecting They say the art of making authentic Chinese noodles from scratch is nearly extinct. If you watch this video from “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” of one of the few people left who can truly do it (it starts at about the 2:18 mark), you’ll understand why. Much like many other aspects of the ever expanding nation though, rather than lament or dwell upon what was, they are instead moving forward with incredible speed and extreme ferocity. How does one do that in something like the noodle making industry? Why robots of course.
That’s a noodle making robot that frighteningly resembles Ultraman. Now while they can’t make the noodles from scratch (yet) what they can do is slice the noodles with an accuracy and quickness that allegedly outstrips the average human chef capabilities. They’re cheaper than the average chef as well, with the figure being tossed around that a cook costs $4,700 a year while one of these robots will only set you back $2,000. But surely no one is going for this right? Replacing trained chefs with machines that can only act in a limited capability? Well in case you haven’t been paying attention to world industry the last several decades, of course they are. Since manufacturing has started in 2011, 3,000 of these machines have already been sold, and more are in production. These robots are obviously pretty far away, technologically speaking, from completely replacing chefs, but the fact that they are taking jobs at any level right now is pretty incredible. Ignoring the gross moral questions that replacing humans with robots in these positions raises, you also have to consider that if this trend takes off in full, the restaurant industry will suffer long term for it. It takes years of hard work for chefs to become great, or even good, and this prevents entry level cooks from gaining the practical experience needed to start that path. In certain parts of Japan, if you want to cook sushi, you must first cook nothing but rice for years and years before you are even allowed to touch a fish. It’s not the point a machine could make the rice better, the rather that the chef must gain the necessary appreciation and technique of one of the most base and essential parts of the meal before moving on the part of the star making part of the dish. Oh, and by the way, giving a robot glowing pulsating yellow eyes, a furrowed brow, and a knife under any circumstances is not cool. In fact, that whole design seems excessive for a machine that’s only function is supposedly to shave noodles. Are we really supposed to believe that’s this things only purpose?
Yeah, and the “Chopping Mall” robot just flips pizzas |
