Japanese robo-hotel "fired" half of their robots because of the problems they create


    Source: futurism.com

    In the summer of 2015, a hotel was opened in Japan , serviced by the guests in which the robots were engaged. The total number of robotic systems in the hotel was in the hundreds. For example, in the lobby of visitors, three electronic employees were met at once: a dinosaur, an android and a humanoid robot.

    The luggage of the guests was also carried by robots, they also invited guests for breakfast and put things in the wardrobe. The microclimate is regulated automatically, robots also answered the visitors' questions. It would seem that the hotel of the future, synergy is near. But in the end, half of the robots were removed, replacing some of them with people.

    As it turned out , robots are simply ineffective. They often break down, they cannot answer many questions, plus they create problems for guests. The maintenance of robotic systems requires significant funds, and as a result, the staff of people who perform service work with automated systems has exceeded the staff of ordinary employees of the average hotel.

    As an example of not very effective operation of robotic systems, you can bring a robot Churi (it is shown in the photo below).



    This miracle of technology performs (or rather, performed) the role of a digital assistant. But Churi is much less functional than any other digital assistant, including Siri, Cortana, Alexa, etc. The robot found it difficult to answer simple questions, moreover, he often woke guests who snored right in the middle of the night. This is because the robot “believed” that the person asked the question and could not recognize the speech in the snore. Therefore, Churi asked what the person meant. Some guests were woken up constantly by the system, each time the sleeping client of the hotel began to snore.

    The hotel management was so confident in the capabilities of the robots that they did not even equip the rooms with telephones with which the guests could communicate with the reception. Somewhat later, realizing his mistake, the hotel management decided to hire an employee who would solve the problems of the guests. Well, Churi continued to wake up guests who make sounds in their dreams.

    Velociraptor, welcoming guests at the counter, due to the peculiarities of the structure of the body could not take a passport from a hotel client to make a copy. Therefore, instead of the robot, this was done by human employees. In this case, the very presence of the robot behind the counter is inexpedient, because the hotel was conceived as fully automated, instead, the hotel management had to hire people who took over the work of their mechanical counterparts.

    Problems arose with robotic assistants, whose task - to deliver the luggage of the guest in the room. Rare "flight" of such an assistant ended successfully. Robots drove past the room, then broke along the way. Their service required money, and the guests were unhappy with the service. The hotel often broke and robots who were responsible for entertainment.

    The hotel management acknowledged that the use of robots is currently limited - they cannot perform many of the functions that are freely performed by human employees. But the main problem is the rapid development of technology. What was an advanced system in 2015 became hopelessly outdated in 2018. The hotel guests were no longer surprised by the work of the robots, since many are familiar with digital assistants, robotic assistants and other similar achievements.

    In the near future, the hotel will be reorganized, replacing many outdated systems with new ones. For example, the hotel will receive a bio-identification of users, modern digital assistants, BigData cloud processing services and a personalized approach to customers.

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