Hotel sacks incompetent robot staff
It was supposed to be the harbinger of a future in which artificial intelligence would perform the services formerly provided by humans. The world’s first ‘‘robot hotel’’, however, has been forced to sack many of its mechanical staff because they were irritating and incompetent.
The Henn na (Strange) hotel opened to much fanfare in southern Japan in 2015 but has since mothballed more than half of its 240 robots and replaced them with humans, because they simply were not helping. Rather than reducing the need for living staff, they slowed things down, created problems and got on the nerves of guests.
One visitor reported being woken in the middle of the night by an in-room robot named Churi, which continually asked him to repeat what he had just said. Churi had mistaken his snoring for indistinct speech.
Two robots in the form of dinosaurs that were supposed to check in guests were unable to perform a crucial task: copying the passports of arriving foreigners. A pair of robotic bellboys were unable physically to reach many of the hotel’s 100 rooms and malfunctioned outside in wet conditions.
The head of the company operating the hotel, Hideo Sawada, told The Wall Street Journal: ‘‘When you actually use robots, you realise there are places where they aren’t needed or just annoy people.’’
One hotel worker told the newspaper: ‘‘It’s much easier now that we’re not being frequently called by guests to help with problems with the robots.’’
The main hotel building still has plenty of robots, although some no longer appear to function. One humanoid figure is propped against a self-playing piano in the lobby but does not touch the keys.
Reviews on Tripadvisor spoke of automated lawnmowers at the hotel going haywire, and ‘‘multilingual’’ automatons that were unable to understand any language. ‘‘I think Siri is much smarter,’’ one said, referring to the iPhone personal assistant.
Japan leads the world in personal robots designed to interact with humans for entertainment, information and service. They are used in nursing homes to help with physical rehabilitation, lift residents out of bed and amuse them with jokes and dances. Robot dogs and cats provide companionship to the elderly, people with allergies, and those for whom a living, breathing, excreting animal is too much bother.
‘‘There are places where they aren’t needed.’’