Shop hires robot assistant... then fires it after just a week
THERE have long been fears that machines could one day take over the world.
But if a recent experiment involving a robot’s attempts to become a shop assistant are anything to go by, we don’t need to be too concerned just yet.
Fabio recently became the first robotic assistant to be employed by a British store, but was sacked after only a week.
The ‘ShopBot’ was taken on at Margiotta, in Edinburgh.
He got off to a promising start, charming customers with high fives, hugs and greetings of ‘hello gorgeous’.
But Fabio began irritating and confusing shoppers at the upmarket store over the following days.
When one asked which aisle the beer could be found in, the robot gave a vague answer: ‘It’s in the alcohol section.’
And despite his best efforts, the background noise in the busy supermarket made it difficult for him to understand customers. Aware that the first day at a new job can be stressful for anyone, his understanding employers moved him from the aisles to a sampling role.
However, Fabio became too enthusiastic when handing out tasters of pulled pork, which alarmed customers.
‘We thought a robot was a great addition to show the customers that we are always wanting to do something new and exciting,’ said Elena Margiotta, who runs the chain of shops with father Franco and sister Luisa.
But Fabio was clearly outperformed by his human colleagues. While he managed to persuade two people to try a pork snack, his colleagues racked up twelve.
‘Unfortunately Fabio didn’t perform as well as we had hoped,’ said Luisa. People seemed to be actually avoiding him.’
The robot also struggled to move around the shop fluidly and sadly his bosses were left with no other choice than to let him go.
Dr Oliver Lemon, from Heriot-Watt University’s Interaction Lab which created Fabio, remained positive about the experiment which was documented for BBC programme Six Robots And Us.
He said: ‘One of things we didn’t expect was the people working in the shop became quite attached to it.
‘We thought the opposite would happen and they’d feel threatened because it was competing for their job. In actual fact [staff] thought it was an enhancement because it was able to deal with frequent and boring requests, like customers constantly asking where things are, which I think they found helpful.’