廣州餐廳機器人服務員被炒魷魚

Out of three Guangzhou restaurants that used robots to serve customers, two have closed and the third has fired its robot waiters, Workers' Daily reported.

根據《工人日報》近日報道，廣州曾經有三家餐廳使用機器人服務顧客，目前其中兩家已經關門歇業，剩下一家的機器人服務員已被"炒魷魚"。

While the robot waiters were an excellent gimmick to get customers through the door, they were not quite so good at their programmed task of serving food and drink to customers, according to staff.

根據餐館員工反映，雖然聘用機器人服務員是吸引顧客的很好的噱頭，但是機器人是按照已輸入的程序招待顧客，服務並不到位。

"The mobility of the catering staff was great, we initially recruited six for service, but after a year we only retained one," says a hotpot restaurant supervisor named Ms Liang.

一家知名餐館的主管說道：“此舉動爲了迎合顧客固然是好的。剛開始我們僱傭了6位機器人服務員，但一年之後我們只留下了一個，”

A staff member said the robots couldn't effectively handle soup dishes, often malfunctioned, and had to follow a fixed route that sometimes resulted in clashes.

一位餐廳員工表示，機器人服務員端不好湯水多的食物，經常出現故障，只能沿着固定路線送餐，有時會造成碰撞。

A customer also said the robots were unable to do tasks such as topping up water or placing a dish on the table.

一位顧客也表示，機器人服務員有些服務做不了，比如加水或者將食物放在桌上。

The current state of robotics and artificial intelligence means that the technology is not quite advanced enough for robot waiters to work effectively, one expert notes. Quoted by the Shanghaiist website, Zhang Yun, a specialist at Guangdong University of Technology, says that while robots are good at repetitive tasks in manufacturing, they're still unable to perform autonomously in jobs such as waiting which require interaction with unpredictable humans.

相關專家表示，目前的機器人科學和人工智能狀況並不能支持機器人很順利地完成機器人服務員工作。根據Shanghaiist引用廣東科技大學的一名專家張雲的話，雖然機器人很擅長在製造業的重複性工作，但是在服務員這樣需要和人面對面交流的工作方面，卻不能操作自如。