Sign of the Times: Robot Waiter Cat

We stopped at a random burger place (Tom's #22 in San Marcos CA) on Sunday, and it was a spacious, quiet place that was going for an old country diner feel.  There was only one other table with customers, so either we showed up at a good time or the economy was collapsing again -- it's hard to tell these days.  You order up front and then go sit down, which is impersonal but fficient, I suppose.  

 

I ordered a chili dog and a tuna melt, and after some waiting, we were surprised to see a little robot come quietly down the aisle towards us, carrying the food.

It was about four foot six with a little screen showing a cartoon cat face.  It slid up to the table, turned and said, "Table 36, your meals are on the tray lit by blue lights."  Something like that, followed by a few notes about being careful getting the plates off the tray.  Then it just stood there with a cat face replaced by a generic UI.  There were two buttons, but neither one said "Finished" or "Go Away Now".  We tried poking it, and it giggled and the cat face came back to wink at us.  We pushed its ear to see if it would turn around and go back to the kitchen, and it said, "That tickles."  A few more experiments gave "Don't tickle me so much."  Ultimately, we clicked the button where its mouth should be, whatever that said, and it turned and quietly went back to its lair.  

 

This is the first time I have ever interacted with one of these things.  I can see that the developers tried their best to make it non-threatening.  If it beeped or barked or used words other than "tickle" to described being poked and prodded, I can see how that might upset someone.  If it said, "Don't touch me you damn dirty ape," that would be a bit much.   ;-)

 

As a programmer myself, I thought about the fine lines and boundaries that would go into designing these things.  They need to be tough enough to put up with humans, but a bit juvenile to avoid offending anyone.  I'm sure that a lot of people are not in the mood for something new.  It did take over someone's job, so there's that whole dimension.  

 

We just found it surprising and cute and harmless.  On the way home I wondered if it had settings to choose which face to show, and which voice files to use, and whether or not it hummed children's songs to itself after all the humans went home for the night.