AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Automation has dramatically changed industries from cars to electronics manufacturing. Now automation tools are making their way into restaurant kitchens. From our Planet Money podcast, Erika Beras and Justin Kramon visited a robot chef to see what it can do and how it might change the industry.
JUSTIN KRAMON, BYLINE: We're standing in a restaurant kitchen in Philadelphia's Chinatown, staring at their newest cook, Robby the robot wok-bot. The automated wok stands 6 feet tall and is mostly metal, kind of looks like a washing machine with no door. At its center is this basket. That's the wok where Robby cooks its dishes.
KENNY POON: He can make over 5,000 different dish.
ERIKA BERAS, BYLINE: Five thousand?
POON: Yes.
BERAS: Wow.
That's Kenny Poon, co-owner of this fast casual restaurant, InstaFoodz. He shows us how Robby works. Poon selects the dish he wants Robby to cook from its touchscreen menu - beef chow fun. Then Robby the robot tells Poon the human what precut raw ingredients to add to the hot spinning wok as it heats up and spins. Different tubes squirt in sauces and seasoning as the ingredients are tossed around. Poon says not only is Robby efficient, but his cooking is just as good as a human's.
KRAMON: Do you think you can tell the difference which one's made by the robot?
POON: I don't think so.
KRAMON: Because Robby's so easy to use, Poon says his labor costs have gone down.
POON: Now, I don't have to require a main chef.
KRAMON: How has it changed the staffing for the restaurant?
POON: It's easier. So now I don't need to ask them - what's your skill? - no more. All I need to ask them - what's your availability?
BERAS: That's right. He says the machine is so good he's shifting his focus from making sure he hires and trains staff that are skilled cooks to staff that just shows up.
KRAMON: So less money going to his workers, but Poon says that lets him keep the food affordable, something hard to do in an industry where the median profit margin is tiny, 3- to 4%. Daron Acemoglu, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who's written extensively on automation, says the restaurant industry has been trying to automate for a long time.
DARON ACEMOGLU: It is ripe for automation because it's very labor intensive.
BERAS: His research shows that just because automation enters an industry doesn't mean that it then replaces humans. In general, automation really has two effects, which kind of vie for dominance. On the one hand, you have the displacement effect.
ACEMOGLU: By displacement, I mean just very simply the fact that if robots are doing painting, then workers who were previously specialized in painting are no longer going to do that. They're displaced from the painting tasks.
KRAMON: But on the other hand, you have this opposing force, the reinstatement effect.
ACEMOGLU: Once workers are displaced from the tasks that robots can now do, they can go and do other things. And sometimes - not always, but sometimes - that could actually be a good thing for them because they're doing more interesting things.
BERAS: So when an industry automates, there might be a new need for engineers to design machines or more managers to oversee complicated jobs that are now done by robots.
KRAMON: In the economies Acemoglu studied, he found that automation resulted in a net loss of jobs and wages. Whether that happens in restaurants depends on how robot cooks will be used to help workers in the tasks they perform or to replace them.
BERAS: Fast food and fast casual restaurants like White Castle and Panda Express are already using automated tools.
KRAMON: Before we leave InstaFoodz restaurant, Poon offers us a taste of Robby's food.
POON: Yeah, he just cooked (ph) it. It was hot.
KRAMON: It still didn't taste quite like the version of the human dish I'm used to.
Tastes pretty good.
But it was pretty close. For NPR News, I'm Justin Kramon.
BERAS: And I'm Erika Beras.
CHANG: And you can hear the full story of automation in restaurants, including a formal taste test against a human chef, on the Planet Money podcast.
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