Hotel Robot Delivers Room Service Snack
Today in you’re old now: Hotel Robots are a thing, can confirm existence, did go viral with this video. This past week, I was staying at a hotel in Silicon Valley and placed an order for a toothbrush. The front desk asked me if I’d prefer a human or hotel robot delivery. So obviously I jumped on the uncanny valley express and requested the hotel robot.
The future is now. Source: backtothefuture.wikia.com
I went to the hallway to record the video while my BFF stood in the doorway to receive the delivery. Out of the elevator popped this cute autonomous little bot, fitted with a glowing circular floor light and cute almond-shaped eyes. It came up to the room, triggered a room service call to let us know it was there, and then produced the cutest noises in the world. Its lid popped open and my BFF grabbed the snack and then it zoomed back off to the elevator.
Beyond the Hotel Robot
For context, the cooking + robotics world has been exploding. There are already sophisticated robots capable of cooking up to 2,000 recipes, like this little guy from Moley Robotics which is scheduled to release in 2017. This could have huge implications for cooks, for better or worse. Having access to these robots at home might make people cook less (frown), but conversely it may expose households to new types of food, or act as a living recipe demonstrator (smile).
Big data is even playing a huge role in this world, with IBM Chef Watson. Also referred to as “Cognitive Cooking,” Chef Watson analyzes recipes and their historical variations to determine new, unique dishes. Steve Abrams, Director of Watson Life, expanded on this phenomenon by adding, “It is able to understand the underlying science of how things go well together and extend the creativity of human beings.”
Hospitality-related robots are the future, but I believe they will be benevolent overlords. Did I mention the cute noises!?
