SALAD-MAKING ROBOT MAY CUT GERMS, JOBS
Diners use robot’s touchscreen to choose lighter fare.
Salad bars are magnets for bacteria and viruses. Even if the sprouts and ranch dressing aren’t tainted, the serving utensils could be.
The Silicon Valley startup Chowbotics has devised what it says is a partial solution. Its device, which it calls Sally the Salad Robot, is aimed at reducing the risk of foodborne illness by assembling salads out of precut vegetables stored in refrigerated canisters.
Diners use a touch screen to place their orders, choosing from a menu of recipes or designing their own salads. The machine calculates the number of calories per salad and drops the veggies into a bowl in less than a minute. There is less human contact with the food.
But as a growing number of food- and drink-slinging robots have begun interacting with diners in the San Francisco Bay Area, Deepak Sekar, the device’s inventor and the founder and chief executive of Chowbotics, has faced questions about whether his machine will put people out of work. He denies that will happen.
Sekar insists that his company’s focus — which is on the salad bar market instead of restaurants more broadly — means Sally won’t be a job killer.
He says workers at salad bars could restock the robot, which holds enough ingredients for 50 salads before it needs to be refilled. And, he says, restaurants can continue with their usual food preparation methods — relying on kitchen workers to do the chopping or buying precut vegetables.
In offices, the gadget could be a source of new jobs, Sekar says.
“You’re going to get fresh food in, and you’re actually creating jobs for people who refill the canisters in these offices,” he said.
Nonetheless, robot-induced unemployment is a mounting concern. Bill Gates recently made a case for taxing companies that own robots, which could delay their implementation and provide some money to retrain people whose jobs are lost. The San Francisco board of supervisors is considering a so-called robot tax.
“We could be looking at over 50 percent of jobs disappearing in the United States over the next 10 to 15 years,” said Jane Kim, a San Francisco supervisor.
“And it’s not jobs going abroad, or offshoring of jobs. It’s robots.”
There is evidence that automation can have a devastating effect on employment. Commercial robots have already begun to eliminate jobs, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Boston University study published in March. Researchers analyzed the effects of industrial robots on local labor markets in the United States from 1990 to 2007, and estimated that adding one robot per 1,000 workers has led to unemployment for up to six workers and has caused a decrease in wages by up to 0.50 percent.
Some unions are discussing their own strategies for contending with a robotclogged future.
“It’s something our union and many unions are still studying,” said Ian Lewis, research director for Unite Here Local 2, a union that represents hotel, food service, restaurant and laundry workers
in San Francisco and San Mateo, California. “We’re absolutely concerned and trying to grapple with it.”
Sekar said his robot has the potential to save money for small businesses that install it in office kitchens alongside appliances such as coffee machines.
Walking a couple of minutes within a building to a salad-tossing robot instead of venturing outside for lunch would mean shorter work breaks and increased productivity, he said. He calls Sally “the smallest and most affordable cafeteria an office can have.”
The robot is being tested in the office of the Redwood City, California, technology incubator GSVlabs and at Calafia Café and Market A Go-Go, a restaurant in Palo Alto, California, with an attached market owned by Charlie Ayers, who is the Chowbotics executive chef.
This fall, Chowbotics will begin fulfilling orders for 10 robots, priced at $30,000 each, Sekar said. He envisions his robots producing healthy meals in convenience stores, airports, hotels, hospitals and universities.
“You’re seeing the momentum of Silicon Valley behind it,” Sekar said. So far, Chowbotics has raised $6.3 million in venture funding from various investors.