Interesting that they are going the subscription route and not selling these outright. It works because the comparison with the cost of a human looks so favorable. I'd expect to see this with humanoid robots too as they take over more and more human jobs.
XRobotics’ countertop robots are cooking up 25,000 pizzas a month
San Francisco based XRobotics pizza making robots, lease for $1,300 a month and can make 100 pizzas per hour.
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
14 Comments
Was applying sauce cheese and pepperoni ever the problem? Or was it the amount of customers and competitors the problem or dough pooling. 100 pizza an hour sounds amazing. Because depending on the thickness of the pizza and how crispy you want the pizza to be that is how long it takes to cook a pizza…
The subscription model means the money continues to flow upwards to the automation company’s CEO.
You thought you could automate just your job and have no real negative economic impact?
Nope.
All cash must flow up.
You will own nothing.
You will keep nothing.
You will have nothing.
The upper-class will take everything.
This kind of business model just shows that no matter how much automation and AI systems start being used, the working class will NEVER benefit. The means of production will be owned by the rich, and they’ll never share. The only reason they barely do now is because they need the labor.
If the crust is pre made then I’ll always choose dominos or any other pizza chain first. Good start on automation though!
I’ll wait for the aliexpress Chinese version that I own, thanks. It might even be better!
Again if these things replace humans, then who will have money to buy the oversupply of pizzas? Humanoids?
I make pizza at home three times a week. I’ve been doing so for about 20 years. This tech won’t change my lifestyle. I’m not looking for convenience, efficiency, or optimization. I’m looking to enjoy life and experience it in full, from the ingredients grown in the ground to the tips of my fingers creating and making the food. I suggest that everyone start pursuing slow living and stop supporting these kinds of businesses.
Let’s get back to being human and living human lives. Live slower, not faster, and let’s savor and enjoy every moment. The beauty of life isn’t about drinking your meal and forgoing eating; it isn’t about robots mass producing food that is identical and tastes the same every time. That’s a nightmare, not a dream.
Life is about the trial and error in creating something, in savoring the differences between one thing and another, and in admiring the human creativity and labor required to produce a meal. We have forgotten what it means to be human.
Chefs don’t make food with their hands because they are forced to do it. Cooks don’t prepare food because they are slaves. We make food because we love it and it connects us with the Earth and the table, the source for all human civilization and for our pleasure. This idea that everything needs to be efficient and optimized is not a human value. It is anti-human.
While they aren’t putting the terms in that, I wouldn’t be shocked if they aren’t also charging a fee per pizza made.
I’m not totally sure the math works though for these machines in fast food style places. Average pay for a pizza maker in California appears to be around $15/hr which would mean the machine costs about the same as 87 hours of labor from the single worker. As it usually is a part-time job, does a pizza maker normally work more than that/take home more than the cost each month?
Yes, it can make up to 100 pizzas an hour, how often is the average pizza place 100 orders deep and do they have an oven capable of handling that?
The likely audience for this would be place owned by big companies and move tons of pizza… but they also already have automated pizza making machines.
There are reasons why they haven’t really made a place in the big pizza places though. If it gets slow, they can send workers home. If a pizza maker becomes unavailable, they can call in another person. With the machine, you don’t get a savings by not using it and if it breaks, production is halted.
Nearly every hardware startup wants a subscription pricing model if they can spin it. Annual recurring revenue beats one-time sales from a “talking to VCs” perspective by a mile
Is it really a robot? It’s just an automated pizza making machine FFS.
This is absurd. It’s not a robot, it’s a bread turntable with a nozzle that spits out cheese and sauce. I’m pretty sure Totino’s has had an entire factory of these things cranking out their frozen pizzas for decades.
No the fuck it can’t.
>The San Francisco-based robotics company built a countertop robot called xPizza Cube, which is roughly the size of a stackable washing machine and uses machine learning to apply sauce, cheese, and pepperoni to pizza dough.
It puts the toppings on. It can put the toppings on 100 pizzas an hour. It cannot do anything else. It takes ~ 36 seconds to put sauce cheese and pepperoni on the pizza. Have you been to a pizza place? Do you think it takes them 30 seconds to dress a pepperoni pizza?
I can’t stop thinking about what happens when the machine breaks down. Does that subscription include maintenance? Repair? Can you just call your guy to fix it or is this another McDonald’s ice cream machine that officially requires a professional to fix it at some ridiculous cost?
If a pizza cook gets sick, there’s an easy fix. If your robocook breaks… huh.
This world grows more wretched every day. Here is a quote from a very human human, Jacques Pepin:
“Cooking is love. Keep cooking with your family and friends. Cooking creates bonds and affection. More importantly, sit around the table with family, friends and strangers sharing food and wine. The table is the great equalizer. Conversations generated around the table have stopped wars, created friendships, exposed talent and extended love. So keep sharing and keep talking. -JP