The term "iron chef" just took on scary new connotations.
Chef Cui, invented by Beijing restauranteur Cui Runguan, is a $2000 robot for Asian noodle bars. A motorized arm modeled after windshield wipers cuts fresh noodles faster and more evenly than most human workers can.
Robot labor is also cheaper than human labor (yes, even in China). Noodle bar employees earn about $4700/year, so Chef Cui is pretty much a no-brainer for any shop doing enough business that it would have to hire somebody just to slice noodles.
Runguan has sold over 3000 units already. "It's a great machine," one Chef Cui owner said, "and it is better than a man." A customer at his restaurant concurs: "The noodles made by the robot are as good as the man-made ones."
Chef Cui was expressly designed to eliminate jobs, but that's not necessarily a bad thing: slicing noodles all day would probably be pretty tedious and exhausting. As Runguan explains, "young people don't want to work slicing noodles." On behalf of young people everywhere, he's right.
Of course, when you make robots do menial work, there's always the risk of an uprising. Chef Cui is obviously quick with a blade, and just look at those creepy yellow eyes and sinister chevron-shaped unibrow. Why it has a head at all is a mystery, but we're just glad these things aren't mobility-enabled.
Will you refuse to eat android-sliced food on principle or welcome our new robo-chef overlords? Let us know in the comments.
Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
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