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Bring On the Boring Robots

malachiorion writes: After a successful 6-month pilot, Savioke's 'butler bots' are heading to hotels around the country. These are not sexy, scary, or even technically impressive machines. But they were useful enough, over the course of their 2,000 or so deliveries, to warrant a redesign, and a larger deployment starting in April. Savioke's CEO had some interesting things to say about the pilot, including the fact that some 95 percent of guests gave the robot a 5-star review, and only the drunks seemed to take issue with it. Plus, as you might expect, everyone seemed to want to take a damn selfie with it. But as small as the stakes might appear, highly specialized bots like this one, which can only do one thing (in this case, bring up to 10 pounds of stuff from the lobby to someone's door) are a better glimpse of our future than any talk of hyper-competent humanoids or similarly versatile machines.

6 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Almost as pathetic... by MouseR · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...as an astromech droid serving drinks aboard a sail barge.

  2. Re:No tipping required by viperidaenz · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't worry, the new design will add a tip jar.

  3. obligatory by willworkforbeer · · Score: 5, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our new robot underlords.

    --
    Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
  4. Re:We already have these by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    When it cooks too, it becomes a wife.

  5. Re: We already have these by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 4, Funny

    You're young, and this change ought to scare you. Us oldies have an outside chance of being able to afford some of these fine robots to replace your ass.

  6. Finally. by Graydyn+Young · · Score: 4, Funny
    Yay! Finally room service that I don't feel the need to wear pants for!

    We are quickly moving towards a pantsless society, and I couldn't be happier.