AUDIO: THE ROBOT BARISTA
At San Francisco’s new Cafe X, they have a robot barista. Tap your desired beverage, flavor and artisanal bean on a phone or kiosk screen. That beams the order to one of six robot arms, which grabs a cup, pumps in some syrup and pops it in front of one of its coffee-brewing cores, which grind beans and foam milk into an espresso confection. In 22 to 55 seconds, depending on the order, the arm lowers the cup on a hydraulic pedestal, which then is handed off to you. The robots can make about two orders a minute. An 8-ounce robot latte runs $2.95, 40 cents less than a short latte at Starbucks.
(video: http://www.wsj.com/articles/robot-baristas-serve-up-the-future-of-coffee-at-cafe-x-1485781201)
* For an extra nickel, the robot barista will even spell your name wrong on the cup.
* You get your order in 22 to 55 seconds? Who has that kind of time?
* Six robot arms. Instead of Employee of the Month, they have Robot Arm of the Month.
* When the robot arms get into a spat, they arm wrestle.
* Just make sure you don’t get the snooty barista robot arm on the end.
* Is this the end of human baristas? Starbucks has to be seeing the writing on the foam.
* Now baristas need a drink, and it isn’t coffee.
* Remember when they said all the new jobs were lesser paying service industry jobs? Well, guess what? Those are about to go away, too.
* If you want a job in the next century I’ll tell you what field to go into: Robot repair.
* Unless of course, they come up with robots to do that too.
* Hey, as long as we’re going high-tech with this why not have a drone just drop the coffee drink off at the house?
CLIP: The Robot from Lost in Space makes coffee for Dr. Smith.
