Recently Disrupt SF gave people the first look at the brand new replacement for fast-food employees, its name is Flippy and it does a great job flipping burgers! The robot, invented by Miso Robotics has given people glimpses at the burger-flipping “robotic kitchen assistant” many times before, but after Disrupt SF people have now seen it put to work in an actual kitchen.

According to a recent article published in TechCrunch entitled 'Flippy, the hamburger cooking robot, gets its first restaurant gig' Caliburger was the first restaurant to acquire a Flippy.

The fast casual restaurant has started demoing the robot in its Pasadena location — Miso’s home turf. The company was an early investor in the startup — in fact, according to CEO and co-founder David Zito, the restaurant actually helped inspire Flippy’s current functionality as a burger flipping ‘bot during early conversations with the startup.

The new version of Flippy is also bolted to the kitchen floor and configured to work specifically with the Caliburger kitchen’s parameters. The restaurant has a six month exclusivity period on the robot. After that, interested parties will be able to pick up for around $60,000, a price that will likely increase over time as Miso continues to add new functionality to the robot. The company is working on a number of new features for the robot, including advanced computer imaging and AI that will help it adapt over time to things like a changing seasonal menu.

OK, so lets review here... Flippy is not yet a danger to all fast food employees but assuming it can be modified to accomodate BurgerKing and McDonalds kitchen parameters people are going to be in for a world of hurt. Also with AI burger flipping robots comes the potential for a french fry apocolypse in which fast food robots attempt to take over the world. Ok, well I just kind of made that last bit up but I'm still amazed!

TechBlogger Wrap Up

Burger flipping robots may indeed be the future but let me ask you this.. Does it make sense to purchase a $60,000 burger flipping robot over just hiring a minimum wage employee at this stage? Should people be fighting to stop this robot takeover of the fast food industry to give normal people without college degrees a chance to earn a living and support a family?

I have my personal opinions but I'd like to hear yours!

Please leave comments and feedback below.

Thanks for reading!

Source:

Flippy, the hamburger cooking robot, gets its first restaurant gig - TechCrunch