We all know that the manufacturing industry is utilizing robots on a mass scale for their production. They do the heavy lifting and are more capable in complex precision work than us. It seems like robots could solve anything, but could they also cook for us?
Apparently, one start-up asked the same question and made their goal to develop the first domestic intelligent cooking robot that can just do that. The company is called Moley and they already have a working prototype under development. Moley is capable of not just cooking but also cleaning, learning recipes and mimicking the actions of a master chef that can be utilized to improve the cooking process and the food experience.
This dream of a domestic robot that cooks for you while you are away and leaves no mess in your kitchen, sounds really promising and this is the case. Moley is attracting already a lot of culinary chefs and investor that that want to contribute into this technology to further improve its potential.
The industry for professional service robots is growing and sales rose from 2014 to 2015 by 25%, 32,939 units to 41,060 units, to a $ 4.6 billion industry. Furthermore, the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) projects the unit sales for professional service robots to 332,200 units with a value of $ 23.1 billion for 2019.
Moley comes with a hefty price tag of approximately $ 15,000, however this does not include just the robot but also an entire purpose-built kitchen environment and utensils that the robot uses for cooking. Depending on the learning capability that utilizes AI, it could provide you also with food recommendations or come up with its own created recipes that are accustomed to your taste preference. The possibilities are endless here and I am personally very excited when this product will have its first commercial launch.
References:
http://time.com/3819525/robot-chef-moley-robotics/
Hi Stefan, thanks for sharing the post.
I also wrote something about food and robots, ‘robots taking over restaurants’. After reading the information you provided, I am more certain about my standpoint. I still stick to my opinion that food is a connection of the interaction between people and robots can not easily replace the connection.
No matter how delicious the food made by a robot is, for me, it is just nutrition instead of cuisine. Moreover, for some people, cleaning up the kitchen is also a part of cooking. As a person who often cooks, cleaning up the mess is a tiring chore; however, when life becomes difficult or stressful, it is a kind of relief and a way to escape from the reality. Therefore, it will be so sad if the robot is going to take away this little happiness. Although the technology seems very fancy, I am not so in to it and do not really feel excited about the launch of Moley.
Hi Tiffany,
Thank you for your personal opinion on this. I totally agree with you that food is a connection of the interaction between people and this is also deeply rooted into many cultures. What interest me about Moley is the fact that it will be the first AI in the kitchen that could offer many doors, I am not saying it should replace cooking completely but it can be a source of inspiration and practice, receiving analytical feedback from your own performance in the kitchen and so on. Of course one aspect is that it can cook for you but that does not excite me but rather that you can keep tracking your own way of cooking and execution of dishes. This could serve more than its original purpose. I personally like to experiment in the kitchen and having data collected could serve as new foundation for other dishes. I don’t like the fact to sit down and write everything down what I did and how I did it. I would definitely like to hear your opinion about this, since this is something I did not describe in my post. Let’s have a chat offline.
Hi Stefan,
Thank you for your post! I think this technology could be very interesting for the catering industry. As many restaurant are facing a shortage of personnel, this technology could be the solution. Moreover, robotics can be programmed to add the precise amount of ingredients (or to cook something for a specific amount of time) which can also guarantee the quality of the dish, making it for restaurants easier to meet customer satisfaction.
When implementing this technology at home, some may say that cooking is a part of their day and would not want to replace this daily routine by a robot. And lets not forget the heavy price tag. Therefore, I would say that people (for example housewives) at home might not be too excited about this technology. However I do think this technology could be the next big step within the catering industry. What is your opinion about this?
Hi Stefan, I like your post about the cooking robot!
While reading I was wondering for which market the cooking robot aims, is it to replace top chefs in restaurants? Additional to top chefs? Or as to be used at home?
For home use it is still quit expensive, so I would doubt if many would adopt it. Next to the price, if someone could have chef style cooked meals at his house, will they go out for a dinner as often? I think that going out for dinner has a social aspect too, and that with such an robot people will go to restaurants less often.
To my opinion it would be great to use as additional to the regular chefs, but I wonder how these robots will cope with the hectic environment of a professional kitchen.
But as someone who loves food, a perfectly chef style cooked meal at my own house sounds perfect.
Hello, Stephan! Very interesting post!
I believe that the cooking industry can benefit a lot by including more and more technologies in its practices. A “Home Cook Robot” is a great example of those. However, I believe there are a lot of different barriers to tackle in order for this robot to be used even in a niche market. Even though for a lot of people the nutrition is the key to what they eat (that can bee seen by the growth of companies like Huel and Soylent), a lot of people care about the taste, the look and the |creation process” in the food. Thus, we should probably await a set of changes in this concept by the moment it would be wide-present in the market.
Hi Stefan,
This is a very interesting topic! Although I understand Yu-Chieh’s perspective, personally I would love to have an automated kitchen like this. Imagine coming home after a long tiring day, and dinner is just freshly made by your kitchen robotbuddy! Especially if Machine Learning based recommendations are incorporated, this would totally be something I would buy. Of course, currently the price tag is quite large, but surely this will decrease over the years.