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I, robot am serving your coffee （680 words）
By Tim Bradshaw
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It can be hard to figure out how terrified of robots and artificial intelligence we working humans ought to be — very or extremely?
It depends on how far ahead you want to look. McKinsey believes that less than 5 per cent of today’s occupations are candidates for full automation using “current technology”. However, the consultancy also estimates that 45 per cent of the activities people are paid to do could be automated by using “already demonstrated technology”.
The latest occupation in the robots’ firing line is the barista. Café X, a new shop in San Francisco’s Metreon mall, delivers a coffee, from bean to finished cup, without human intervention.
The robocup, as I call it, works in place of human coffee makers and servers. It strikes at the heart of one of San Francisco’s prime directives: that we all must queue at artisanal coffee shops.
A few years ago, a wave of venture capital and tech wealth steamed into the city’s homespun coffee-shop market. Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, for example, became an investor in Sightglass Coffee, which has three slick bleached-wood bars in San Francisco.
But Café X forgoes this aesthetic in favour of utilitarian industrial chic.
Its whole site — one robot, a couple of tables and a few chairs — is tucked into a corner of the mall next to the lifts that go to the cinema upstairs; it is where you might find a photo booth.
Visitors expecting humanoid robots like those found in Japanese department stores will be disappointed. For “robocup” is a mechanical arm of the kind you can see in a car factory, encased in a glass booth. Behind the arm are tubes of coffee beans of different varieties and roasts, a stack of paper cups and two coffee makers that would not look out of place in an office kitchen.
I bought a flat white using an app that Café X has set up for customers’ orders. Next to the robot there are two iPads with credit-card swipes. Futuristically, it does not take cash.
Speed and multitasking are the robot’s advantage over humans. It can produce two cups simultaneously in less than a minute. This is ideal for Snapchat or Instagram. Many Café X customers enjoy filming the process on their phone, even though robocup is more like a giant coffee machine than a robot barista.
Because it can cut out the humans, it is also pretty cheap: $2.25 for a straight espresso or $2.95 for a latte, about a dollar less than a brew at one of the city’s hipster coffee shops. Swapping Peet’s for Verve coffee beans adds a dollar but flavoured syrups and sugar are free.
People were in the queue ahead of me, and the app said my coffee would take three minutes. Barely a minute later, or so it seemed, my brew was ready. I entered a pin code from the app on to a screen fixed to the robot’s booth. The giant arm spun round, picked up my cup and placed it on a small platform. It then slowly lowered my coffee into the opening where I could grab it.
The preparation was hardly theatrical. The arm took a cup and put it under the coffee maker, which poured in the espresso and the milk, then picked it up again and put it to the side while I tapped in my code.
It is hard to fault the coffee. It tasted as good as any flat white I have had in San Francisco, helped by the freshly ground beans and a good temperature of milk.
Verdict
Café X’s decision not to give its barista human characteristics such as a voice or anthropomorphic form may make it less attention-seeking than some robots but it plays to its biggest strength: efficiency. After queueing for as much as 15 minutes at high-end coffee shop Blue Bottle just a few blocks away, Café X seems almost instantaneous.
When I want chit-chat or a heart in the foam, I can go elsewhere for that. The rest of the time, Café X’s robotic utilitarianism is welcome.
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