Businesses in South Jersey and around the country utilize robots, AI to help customers
Robots and AI technology assist us in our every day lives.
How about Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, and Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service? Or AI assistants at stores that help you shop? There’s ChatGPT, a conversational AI technology that can assist you with tasks such as composing emails, essays and web code.
Then there are robots that are used in restaurants to help deliver food or act as hosts. They’re used in hotels. They’re used as hospital receptionists in some countries. Some stores even use robot security guards. Of course, they’ve been used for years in the automotive industry.
“First of all, while we have AI-powered robots, it is important to separate the two from each other,” said Robi Polikar, Ph.d., a Rowan University electrical and computer engineering professor and department head. “Both robotics and AI have developed over many years as two separate fields. Long before AI became a household word, we had robots powering much of our manufacturing capabilities, from automotive and aerospace to biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. The AI revolution, however, added a new capability to robots: autonomy. Today, AI-powered robots can function autonomously with little or no human involvement, they can make intelligent decisions even in scenarios that we humans may not have considered.
“For many of us who work in machine learning and AI, using such a technology to power robots was not a matter of if, but when, and hence was well expected. Using AI to help robots function autonomously is one of the obvious applications for AI.”
Robots/AI used in restaurant, hotels and store settings
California-based Bear Robotics introduced its Servi robot in 2021 and expects to have 10,000 deployed by the end of this year in 44 U.S. states and overseas, the Associated Press reported. Shenzen, China-based Pudu Robotics, founded in 2016, has deployed more than 56,000 robots worldwide.
“Every restaurant chain is looking toward as much automation as possible,” Phil Zheng of Richtech Robotics, an Austin-based maker of robot servers, told the AP. “People are going to see these everywhere in the next year or two.”
The robot helping customers at Smashburger in Maple Shade has been much-talked-about on social media. When powered on, the robot has a “face” that looks like a cat. It is used to deliver food to tables.
Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao in Cherry Hill at Towne Place at Garden State Park has two robot servers, Bela and Ketty.
Their robots go tableside where the server helps offload the food. One of the robots also has capability of guiding people to tables but they don’t use that function.
Sprouts Farmers Market in Marlton currently has an AI shopping assistant that works on your phone and is voice enabled. The technology can answer just about any shopping question you can come up with, everything from recipes, to nutritional value, keto friendly options and more.
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Sprouts declined to comment on the technology, specifically, but instead issued a statement saying, "as technology continues to evolve, Sprouts is always exploring new and innovative ways to improve our customer experience while providing joy in healthy living.”
Robotic pets are a thing
Polikar said once technology sufficiently matures, the advantages include “significant cost reduction and efficiency, as many of the difficult, complex, repetitive tasks can then be handled by robots faster and at less cost. Of course, that can also be considered as a significant disadvantage since folks who currently do those jobs will need to find a different line of work.”
He says we’ve seen just the tip of the iceberg on what AI in general and AI-powered robotics in particular, can do.
“Perhaps far more consequential than using AI-powered robots in restaurant industry, I can also envision AI-powered robots doing complex surgery (much of that technology is already in place), flying aircraft or other vehicles, or providing health and other house care to elderly,” Polikar added.
There are even robotic pets available that provide emotional support, he noted.
“Also, while I mentioned using AI-powered robots as restaurant helpers, health aids or emotional support animals, I do think that it will be a long while (if ever), AI will be able to provide the genuine human touch, empathy, sincerity, or emotional sensitivity and response for those cases where such uniquely human qualities matter.”
Automation will replace human workers
Robots and certain technology don’t always work, though, for some business models.
According to an Associated Press article, Chili's introduced a robot server named Rita in 2020 and expanded the test to 61 U.S. restaurants before halting it in August 2022. The chain found that Rita moved too slowly and got in the way of human servers.
There was also a viral video recently of a woman in China angrily smashing a robotic hospital receptionist repeatedly with a plank wood. The robot had been used to check in patients.
Walmart said it expects about 65% of its stores to be serviced by automation by the end of its fiscal year 2026. It made the announcement days after revealing plans to lay off more than 2,000 people at facilities that fulfill online orders.
There are some critics who fear that automation will continue to take jobs away from humans. But, Polikar says that it is inevitable.
“Every technological innovation has taken jobs away from those who used to do those tasks,” Polikar states. “There is no reason to think that will stop, and frankly, there is also no reason to work doom and gloom. We, the humans, have been quite creative in generating new tasks and jobs, and also quite effective in retooling and reeducating ourselves to do those tasks.
“… The possibilities are simply endless.”
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This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Artificial intelligence and robots help customers in South Jersey
