Back in 1988 when I left school and started working in a local Health complex clearing tables and serving ice cream from the street facing parlor I never thought I’d ask the question Will AI Steal My Job . This was during the summer and the break before starting at College to train to become a Professional Chef.
Three years of training, full-time at college and each evening after college I would then go off and work for a further 5-8 hours in the trade, 7 days a week and obviously at weekends and holidays I’d work 8-12 hours in the trade. I wanted as much experience as possible and I therefore also made a point of switching jobs every 6 months to gain new insights into different styles of hospitality.
I became Head Chef at 21 which I put down to this approach and it saw me gain a great following in my local area of Norfolk in the United Kingdom.
My history is not the point of this article though, it’s to give you a little insight into myself and why I draw the conclusions I do.
We keep hearing nowadays how AI (artificial intelligence) is going to take everyone’s jobs and we (the humans) will be put on some kind of Universal Salary for sitting on our backsides doing nothing. Whilst I think this would be a great way to spend my life now after nearly 40 years in Hospitality, and my hands getting arthritic, I am led to question if it is even feasible to use AI and robots in the hospitality industry?
Whilst the idea of a Star Trek style food processing plant may seem like a genius idea where you could have anything you ever dreamed of miraculously conjured up in front of your eyes and served at the optimum temperature with perfect texture and well balanced flavours, is that really what we want out of our food?
Do we not want to play with flavours and textures ourselves, enjoy the aromas coming from the raw ingredients through to the cooking process and the final destination of the plate?
Beef Wellington
If we carry on with the idea of Star Trek, we could have Beef Wellington served medium rare every day of the week, breakfast, lunch and dinner if you wanted. Wouldn’t that get a bit boring, to the point that Beef Wellington becomes a meal from hell, something you never want to smell or put into your mouth ever again.
Maybe we could shake thing up with the food replicator and say add ¼ teaspoon of Rosemary to the butter before sealing the fillet, how would it do that when it’s just using protein particles?
Although this may be a little off the beaten track it leads perfectly to how ai will be able to cope in a kitchen, not a commercial kitchen, just a kitchen for 1 person.
The lone Chef without a clue
So I come home from work to my little flat and say to my ai controlled robot
Me: Hey Steve(that’s my name so why not call it after myself) what’s for dinner?
AI: I’m sorry, I didn’t prepare anything because you didn’t add a voice note that you’d be home today
Me: Well I am home, so what are you going to cook?
AI: I have eggs which go out of date tonight at 20:34pm and onions which expire in 2 days
Me: I thought we had some cheese?
AI: That expired yesterday and therefore I cannot use it
Me: I give you permission to use it and make me a Cheese & Onion Omelette
Note:- the Omelette could have been made by now
So how do I see it performing in trying to saute the onions, mixing a seasoning the eggs and making the Omelette before then adding the cheese at just the right time and then folding it over to make the perfect perfect meal?
I don’t, is the basic answer. Have you seen those frozen Omelettes you can buy in the shops, they look bloody awful and I suspect the ai version would be even worse.The technology required to tell when the onions are gently softened may be there with cooking sensors dotted around the cooking range but is it really going to know when to stop stirring the eggs with a fork for the perfectly baveuse Omelette?
The lone commercial Chef
Now let’s chuck into this mix a ton of random orders from those humans who have nothing better to do with their lives than go out and eat. How could an ai possibly cope with the range of orders thrown at the average Chef and produce a memorable dining experience?
If we assume every diner orders directly from the menu and we have a quiet night of 20 diners, 4 at 7pm, 2 at 7:15, 6 at 7:30, 2 at 7:45, 3 at 8pm and a single person at 8pm who happened to walk in off the street.
Our first table come in early and order two steaks both cooked the same with all the trimmings, fries and being English, with peas. Our 6 come in bang on 7:30pm and then spend 20 minutes ordering drinks and getting seated before even looking at the menus. In the meantime, our next table of 2 and our 3 have arrived at the time and are also looking at menus.
Our little ai in the kitchen has sent out the first 2 but they forgot to order a pepper sauce and obviously want that before they start to eat their mains, now this I can bang out in just a couple of minutes with some onion, cracked pepper, brandy and double cream butt the trouble is, our ai has just received two tickets at the same time from our 2 and 3 plus the pepper sauce which needs to go immediately.
The tickets are piling up and we still our little walk-in to arrive yet.
Would an AI communicate and say slow the orders down or would you simply get a digital display on a screen in the restaurant saying how long your meals are expected to depart the kitchen?
Making a cuppa
Who remembers back at school where you were asked to write down all the steps required to make a cup of tea? At this point of being inundated with orders I feel our little ai would just go into meltdown, where the human mind and the professionally trained chef can look at these problems and intuitively deal with them, ai is only ever going to be as good as it’s programming and it’s physical capabilities?
Fastest is the Fattest
I do see the potential for ai being able to enrich the fast food industry, by it’s very nature, fast food lacks any personalisation, it is standardized and this is something which ai and a production line love. A skinny burger takes moments to cook and this can be timed in optimum conditions, the bun, fries, garnish can all be done in similar ways. It’s simple to add a no pickle to such an order and get exactly what you want, however, there are people in this world who’s only point of human contact may well be the server taking their money and is this server ultimately required or will they be rebranded to ‘Manager’?
End of the line
Assuming all of the above could be sorted and we have the ultimate robochef cooking the fine dining experience only food critiques could dream of and then on a busy Saturday night, one of our line Chefs go down. Will the food be going out without a top bun(assuming a burger) or maybe our steak flipper has gone US and our steak is burnt on the bottom but almost right on the top half?
Do we employ a human as backup? They’ll probably be away in the Seychelles since they don’t need to work and get this healthy Universal Income. Or do we have backup robochefs to step in and take over? How do we move the redundant one? Or do we have a human engineer come in and repair the broken robochef? There are so many possibilities with no answers, except one.
The Chef will always be there no matter what, they will work with a glove filled with their own blood(been there,done that, ended up being 3 gloves by the end of the night) to ensure the customer leaves happy and not knowing anything about what happens back of house.
If you’ve made this far then you’ve listened to my ramblings, I really do not see how AI could possibly replace a real chef, and this can be applied to so many other trades.
