A few months passed since Priya’s 21st birthday. It was a sunny winter day. Raven stood alone in her fully automated sushi restaurant looking out the window. It was opening day. People walked by on the street, oblivious to what was about to happen inside. Her restaurant had no dishwashers, no cashiers, no security personnel, no cooks, no greeters, no cleanup crew, no waiters, or waitresses. Even the bookkeeping and accounting was automated. This neighborhood in Palo Alto had seen its share of partially automated stores in the past, including Raven’s JavaNation. One sushi place nearby even employed a sushi robot just like in Tokyo, though reviews were mixed. “There’s no soul in it,” people said. But this was the first time that no human intervention at all would be needed to operate a restaurant. Even the first and last customers of the day would be escorted by a friendly robot. The only human assistance was a remote security team shared between other businesses, and periodic reviews by Raven. That part was similar to how several partially automated restaurant chains employing some workers had operated in Japan for years.
The bell outside tolled five times and the doors opened. Raven walked outside to watch anonymously how things unfolded. At first, many people looked in and walked by. Raven made no announcement about the opening of her restaurant. She wanted it to be like a pop up. The greeter robot moved into position at the entrance, inviting people to come in with a pleasant female voice.
“Please come in,” the robot said to a passing couple as they looked inside. They hesitated.
“There’s no one in there,” the woman said to the man. “Let’s find a real restaurant.”
“It’s okay,” the robot said. “We can handle everything. Do you like sushi?”
“We love sushi,” the man said.
“Well come on in,” the robot said. “Have a seat by the window. It’s our best view. Have a look at our menu. We make excellent sushi here. They’re exact creations by the finest sushi chef in Tokyo, Hiro Satsuma. We make all rolls to his personal specifications using his techniques and recipes. It’s like he made them himself. Take a trip to Tokyo.”
The couple sat down hesitantly and looked at the automated menu on a 3-D popup screen in the table. The sun shone brightly through the window. The woman squinted. In less than a second the window tinting increased, reducing the brightness to a more pleasant level.
“Is that better?” A voice from the pop-up screen said.
“Um, yes, that’s much better,” the woman said as she raised one eyebrow to her husband in disbelief.
“Would you like something to drink?” the screen said.
“I think we’ll just have water for now,” the woman said and then she smiled. “Make it 2° above freezing.”
Within seconds a portal opened in the middle of the table and the water appeared.
“Distilled water, 2° Celsius,” the screen said.
They raised their eyebrows again at each other.
“OK,” the man said. “I’ll have one order of uni, a rainbow roll hold the mayo, a Hamachi Kama, and a salmon skin roll extra crispy.”
“Okay. And what would you like miss?”
“I think I’ll have a shiitake maki roll, a two-piece salmon nigiri hold the wasabi, a half dozen Kumamoto oysters, and a California roll with no mayo.”
The order appeared in text on the screen in front of them. They pressed the virtual Okay bubble.
“I wonder how long it will take it to make all that sushi?” the man said.
“Usually, it takes about 10 or 15 minutes before rolls start appearing on our table at our favorite place,” the woman said. “Even with their basic sushi robot assistants that I didn’t like much anyway. I’ll say 10 minutes for everything.”
The man laughed.
“In that case I’ll say under 10 minutes.”
Raven smiled as she, listened in on the conversation. Everything was being monitored in the restaurant. People continued to walk by. Some looked inside. Sometimes the friendly robot was able to convince them to have a seat.
Three minutes later the entire order appeared from underneath the table with each item being placed perfectly in front of them by a pair of robotic arms extending from a hole in the ceiling.
“Yes.” the man said. “You pay tonight.”
The woman shook her head and took a piece of his uni.
“Mmm, that tastes like a bite of the ocean,” she said.
“You’re right,” he said as he took one of her oysters. “It looks so perfect, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, and it tastes perfect too. A robot made this?” she said.
“Yes,” said the voice in the screen. “This restaurant is fully automated. But really, Hiro made it.”
The woman turned to the man.
“It’s weird that it’s listening to us”
“I’ll stop listening now,” the screen said. “Press the listen button if you want anything.”
“Um, okay,” the woman said.
People continued to look inside. Most walked by. However as more people continued to sit down, increasing numbers of people wanted to come in. Soon the place was full, and some people were waiting outside.
The couple finished their dinner. They pressed the [pay now] button and the bill appeared on the screen in front of them.
“Well,” the man said. “That’s half the price of our usual place, and no tip.”
“I know. And it tastes like real Tokyo. We were there last month. We’ll be back here soon.”
They paid and left with plenty of time on their hands before their concert. Raven continued to monitor the proceedings from across the street. Priya and Sophie snuck up behind her.
“How’s it going?”
Raven shrieked.
“Don’t do that.” Raven said. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We’re seeing how you’re doing,” Priya said.
“So far so good. See all those people in there? They’re confused, but they’re still interested. And those people looking in from the street? I don’t think I’ll have to do any advertising. This will be word-of-mouth.”
“How are you handling deliveries to the restaurant?” Sophie said.
“The delivery trucks drive down the alley in back and they download their list of items to the greeting robots. As the boxes come in, they’re opened, and a scanner inspects every item including the fish for quality and quantity. Hiro, our Chef, and fish buying expert in Tokyo trained the robots to identify the best fish. Items are accepted or rejected, and payments are made on the spot for those items which are accepted. The robots recycle the boxes or sometimes they give them directly back to the suppliers.”
“Did you make all of these systems?” Priya said.
“Yeah, my hobby is out of control. Me and my staff of course. Now I have a few hundred people working for me at OmaDrones. I need to rename the company though. The word, Oma has become a derogatory word because people feel the Omanji wrecked our planet.”
“What are you going to name it?” Sophie said.
“We decided on ‘A Better Life’ because we want people to associate these new devices with a better life. We don’t want them to feel threatened.”
They watched the first group of customers who were finished with their dinner exit the restaurant.
“They like it,” Priya said.
“It seems so,” Raven said. “If this is successful, I want to open hundreds of them around the country and around the world. Maybe thousands.”
Warren walked up to them.
“Maybe even millions of these inexpensive automated restaurants could be opened,” Warren said. Everyone could afford to eat out.”
Sophie shook her head.
“What about all those people that will be put out of work?” Sophie said. “People are already upset at us, and we’ve seen all those protests. We’ve seen the bricks through the window. The anger is getting worse every month.”
“I’ve decided to set up a semi nonprofit organization and profit-sharing program,” Raven said. “The profit my company makes will go toward helping to re-educate the people who lost their jobs and to make sure they don’t lose their houses.”
“That’s the way to do it,” Warren said. “The way things are going now, within a few decades, a small number of people who own the most advanced and profitable technology will own most of the world’s assets.”
“It does seem that way,” Raven said. “Automation will make prices for many things go down to almost free, but most people would be unemployed, so they won’t be able to afford even the almost free things that will be everywhere.”
“We would be living in a world of poverty where everything is cheap and abundant because it’s all made by robots which will also become cheap and abundant,” Sophie said.
“Yeah, we’ve got to re-engineer the way economics works, but still be capitalist,” Priya said. “It’s been discussed for decades, but if we don’t do it now, you can tell what’s going to happen when you see the anger on the street. There’s a tipping point coming.”
“It would be like it used to be in the Middle Ages,” Sophie said. “A few people would own most of the wealth, and the vast majority of people would be living in poverty outside the gates. Only this time, we have the chance to make everyone share in the wealth without having to do most of the physical labor we used to do. Companies have human resources departments because humans are only a resource. A means of production.”
“I see a problem,” Warren said. “The prices for most things will drop to near zero and wages will also drop, so tax revenue for governments will drop from some industries when non-profits like yours expand. I guess that will partially be offset by the fact that things the government buys will also drop in price. That will save the government a lot of money, but I don’t know how the government would be able to employ and provide retirement and health benefits for all those people if the tax revenue drops so much.”
“I think we need to take things one step at a time and be transparent about it,” Raven said. “This problem is too big to be solved all at once. When people begin to voice concerns about my operations, I’ll explain how I want it to work. I plan on distributing the profits to the appropriate people who become unemployed by my actions.”
Warren shook his head.
“That sounds too much like socialism. You know what happens when you give away things for free. They’re unappreciated and the money ends up being wasted. I do like the idea of assisting for retraining and emergency funds should they be in danger of losing their house if they become unemployed because of automation.”
“Maybe someday, nobody will work at jobs they don’t like,” Sophie said. “If machines are doing everything for us, what will we be doing?”
“Remember how it used to be?” Warren said. “When over 90% of the entire population of the world used to do farming and manual labor? If you were to tell them that someday less than 2% of the population would be doing farming, they would ask the same question. What will all those people do?”
“They were able to get retrained into other jobs people could do that machines couldn’t do,” Raven said. “But now it’s getting to the point where AI-based machines can do most jobs better than people and there are fewer new types of jobs people can do better than machines. The tide has turned in favor of machines.”
“There are still lots of things people can do better,” Priya said. “But those are mostly low paying or volunteer jobs. People jobs. Or they’re the very highest paying jobs. There’s nothing in the middle. Most are jobs that improve the quality of life for others, but they don’t generate money or result in monetary gain.”
“That’s a good point,” Warren said. “In return for being compensated for being unemployed, these people can work in jobs that used to be volunteer jobs. The money from the automated technology would be transferred into jobs that used to be volunteer jobs.”
“Look at them walking out,” Priya said. “They’re smiling. I think your restaurant is going to be a success.”
“I hope so,” Raven said. “This will revolutionize the entire restaurant business. Chefs can spend their time creating new dishes instead of making endless copies of them. Hiro is constantly sending me downloads of new rolls and things from Tokyo to try in the restaurant. I’ll be rolling them out soon. Ha ha.”
“I’m ‘rolling’ my eyes,” Priya said. “Well, the customers sure are rolling in.”
“OK,” Warren said. “Let’s go in and order some sushi.”
They sat down at the table and ordered items from the screen. As they waited for their sushi, some people sitting at the next table received their order and began to walk out without paying.
“Raven, check that out,” Priya said.
“Yeah. Let’s see what happens.”
There were four people at the table. It was only after the fourth person stood up that the system noticed there was something wrong.
“Hello, don’t forget to pay.” The screen said in a positive voice. Our prices are low, and you ate the personal creations of our chef, Hiro.”
The people pretended to not hear it and proceeded to walk towards the front door. Almost immediately, a greeter robot appeared in front of them blocking their path out. Even though the greeter robot was only 5 feet tall, it was tall enough.
“Don’t forget to pay, Joe Robinson, Mila Nogonda, Edward Mayor, and Charmaine Pila. I can take your payment here, or you can pay at your table. Thank you.”
They looked at each other and casually walked over to their table. One of them paid and they left.
“There you go,” Raven said.
“Doesn’t that violate their privacy rights,” Sophie said.
“Not at all.” Raven said. “We only take their picture and look them up when everyone at a table leaves without paying. We have video cameras for the entire restaurant, but facial recognition happens at each table if required because of anomalous behavior like someone becoming sick or someone not paying. We found a database with thousands of things that can go wrong in a restaurant. Our systems can handle all of those circumstances. Of course, there may be new ones we can’t handle. In that circumstance, we can resort to contacting our security agency close by.”
“You’ve thought of everything.” Sophie said.
Right then, their sushi appeared. It was better than any of them thought it would be. They ate, paid their bill, and left.
“That was great,” Warren said. “It really is like being in Tokyo. I’ll be back.”
“I think you better check your Twitter feed,” Sophie said. “The word is already out.”
Raven browsed through her Twitter feed. There were hundreds of references to her restaurant already.
“Oh, they’re not all positive,” Raven said. “Well, they like the food and service but some people are calling my restaurant ‘an inhuman mechfood joint.’ Hold on, let me do a few queries.”
She was silent for a good minute while everyone waited.
“Yeah, just as I thought. None of these people actually ate in the restaurant. They’re just trashing it because they’re afraid. My Yelp page is getting flooded with negative reviews also.”
“You know the names of all the people who ate and didn’t eat in the restaurant?” Sophie said.
“Only if the system looks them up directly. I can’t use that information for anything other than personal business use. It would be a violation of the privacy act to do anything more without court authorization.”
“You’ve got a fight on your hands,” Warren said as he browsed the reviews. “They’re after you.”
“Yeah, but once they realize what I’m doing with my automation, I don’t think they’ll be too upset. I’m not out to plunder the world. I want to make it a better place for everyone.”
They stood outside the restaurant as a group of people walked by and they looked in.
“Hey,” one guy said. “There’s that mechfood restaurant. It’s going to take away our jobs. We should do something about it now. Before it’s too late.”
“Let’s trash it,” another guy said.
They stopped for a few seconds and then continued walking down the street. Priya looked the other way and stuck her foot out just as one of them passed by. He tripped and fell onto the ground. He got up and clinched his fist instinctively.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Priya said.
Then he saw Priya, 21 but looking 16.
“Oh, I wasn’t looking where I was going. Sorry.”
They continued walking down the street looking back at Priya and her friends.
“That was a close one,” Sophie said. “You better watch what you’re doing or we’re going to get into a lot of trouble. People know who we are. People could kill us.”
“Whatever,” Priya said. “I’m so sick and tired of ignorance.”
“You better get used to it,” Warren said. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“Well, I’m happy with how this is turning out,” Raven said. “People like the restaurant without having been introduced to it until they saw it firsthand. They knew what to do and how to order and pay. I think they like the lower price and higher quality of the food, the fast service, and not having to pay a tip. It’s hard to get sushi this good anywhere outside of Tokyo. Even Hiro likes it.”
“Now we have to convince the restaurant workers this isn’t a threat,” Warren said.
“Yeah, then we need to convince workers in nearly every industry that full automation isn’t a threat,” Raven said. “How do we do that?”
“We do it one small step at a time,” Warren said. “For now, we’ll focus on restaurant workers. That will be a model we can use for other industries.”
“I never would have guessed when I started working on these automated systems that the most difficult part of it would be the humans,” Raven said.
“I think we should expect that,” Priya said. “People are always difficult no matter what we do.”
“Yeah, but we know how to handle them now,” Sophie said.
“Don’t get overconfident Sophie,” Warren said. “That’s when you make mistakes.”
“Yeah Sophie.” Priya said. “It’s like in tennis when you sit back and admire your shot. You end up with a mouthful of fuzz.”
“That’s my line.” Warren said.
“You sure have been siding with Warren a lot lately,” Sophie said. “Any reasons?”
“Um, no reasons. He’s just being logical.”
Sophie smiled and thought only to her.
“Sure Pree, whatever you say.”