Britain's first shopping robot Fabio forced to be laid off

Does artificial intelligence threaten human employment? The performance of the shopping robot “Fabio” may make some people feel relieved – after working in the supermarket for a week, it was laid off due to poor performance. The latest issue of the BBC TV program "6 Robots and Us" documents this brief work experience. The “Fabio” developed by Herriott-Watt University is the first shopping robot in the UK to be employed in supermarkets and is served by the high-end supermarket Marghetta in Edinburgh. At first, it performed well. From time to time, the customer claps and hugs with a show of hands. He also greets half-heartedly, "Hello, beautiful woman." But soon it began to disappoint. When someone asked where it was looking for beer, its answer was vague: "In the wine area." Despite his best efforts, the noisy background sounds at the peak of supermarkets made it difficult for Fabio to understand the words of customers. For this reason, colleagues kindly adjusted it to sell tasting products. However, Fabio gave too much enthusiasm for hand-picked pork tastings, but scared many customers to flee. When it was hard to persuade two customers to try to eat meat, its human colleagues had successfully distributed 12 samples. In addition, “Fabio” has been struggling with in-store activities and has not been ideal for guiding customers. In desperation, the boss had to fire it and package it back to college. However, supermarket employees liked Fabio. What moved them was that when the owner told the robot that he would not renew his contract, he asked the owner, "Are you angry?" Olivier Lemmon, researcher and head of the Heriott-Watt University Interactive Lab, said that they thought that supermarket employees would be hostile to robots and see them as competitors. They didn't think employees liked it so much, perhaps because robots "replaced them. Answer common and boring questions such as guides." Source: Xinhua News Agency