AI and robotics are revolutionizing restaurant kitchens—here’s how you can invest
Miso Robotics has already served up over 12,000 hamburgers.
16 October, 2020
Credit: Courtesy of Miso Robotics
- Quick service restaurants are facing growing labor, food, and real estate costs.
- Miso Robotics is working with these restaurants to lower labor costs via automation.
- Miso Robotics has already produced over 60,000 pounds of food with its revolutionary technology.
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<p>AI is being used for far more than just self-driving cars and Siri; it's playing a pivotal role in the future of the restaurant industry. Quick service restaurants (QSRs) are among the most popular eating establishments around. However, they operate on incredibly lean margins and are being confronted by rapidly increasing labor, food, and real estate costs.</p><p>Needless to say, QSRs could use a hand—and that's where AI comes into the picture.</p><p><a href="https://stackmedia.io/?utm_source=0a0b0cv4570&utm_medium=1a0b0cp393&utm_term=scsf-411956&utm_content=100-a0x1P000004sfQQ&pub_id=2309" target="_blank">Miso Robotics</a> created Flippy, the world's first autonomous kitchen assistant. Designed with commercial kitchens in mind, Flippy has already cooked over 60,000 pounds of food and is in use at CaliBurger locations in Florida, as well as at stadiums servicing the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks. White Castle, America's first fast food hamburger chain, has also partnered with Miso Robotics to develop, pilot, and undertake a beta of rollout of Miso Robotics' Flippy for White Castle's North American restaurants. </p><p>Flippy can work a grill or fryer, cooks food to perfection consistently, and can even work collaboratively with staff. In short, Flippy is a game-changer for QSRs looking to automate and cut costs.</p><p>Flippy is only the beginning for <a href="https://stackmedia.io/?utm_source=0a0b0cv4570&utm_medium=1a0b0cp393&utm_term=scsf-411956&utm_content=100-a0x1P000004sfQQ&pub_id=2309" target="_blank">Miso Robotics</a>, which has over a dozen patents pending in proprietary machines, learning and robotics, and control software. The company aims to make an impact in the $70.3 billion QSR market and is currently working on an overhead rail system that will cut production costs by 50 percent and leave no real estate footprint. </p><p>It's not too late to <a href="https://stackmedia.io/?utm_source=0a0b0cv4570&utm_medium=1a0b0cp393&utm_term=scsf-411956&utm_content=100-a0x1P000004sfQQ&pub_id=2309" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">invest in Miso Robotics</a> and the AI-powered future it's creating.</p><p><a href="https://stackmedia.io/?utm_source=0a0b0cv4570&utm_medium=1a0b0cp393&utm_term=scsf-411956&utm_content=100-a0x1P000004sfQQ&pub_id=2309" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Miso Robotics</a> has raised over $14.6 million so far, and the company's raises have been led by Wavemaker, an early-stage venture capital firm with over $335 million in assets. Wavemaker's past investments and exits include Blue Bottle Coffee, MindBody, and Clutter. </p><p>You can learn more about <a href="https://stackmedia.io/?utm_source=0a0b0cv4570&utm_medium=1a0b0cp393&utm_term=scsf-411956&utm_content=100-a0x1P000004sfQQ&pub_id=2309" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">investing in Miso Robotics</a> with SeedInvest <a href="https://stackmedia.io/?utm_source=0a0b0cv4570&utm_medium=1a0b0cp393&utm_term=scsf-411956&utm_content=100-a0x1P000004sfQQ&pub_id=2309" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>. With minimum investments as low as $500, SeedInvest makes diversifying your portfolio easy. </p><p><em>Sponsored by Miso Robotics.</em></p>
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The fastest drummer in the world is a cyborg
An accident left this musician with one arm. Now he is helping create future tech for others with disabilities.
09 October, 2020
- Meet the world's first bionic drummer. Rock musician Jason Barnes lost his arm in a terrible accident... and then he became the fastest drummer in the world.
- With the help of Gil Weinberg, a Georgia Tech professor and inventor of musical robots, the pair utilized electromyography and ultrasound technology to break musical records.
- Weinberg and Barnes hope to perfect the technology so that it can one day be used to help other people with disabilities realize that "they're not only not disabled, they're actually super-able."
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</p><p>At Big Think, we share actionable lessons from the world's greatest thinkers and doers. This week, we're partnering with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UConJDkGk921yT9hISzFqpzw?sub_confirmation=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Freethink</a> to bring you amazing stories of the people and technologies that are shaping our future, from neuroscience breakthroughs to bionics and justice. Catch Freethink's documentary-style videos here and on our YouTube channel this Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.</p>
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Can a robot guess what you're thinking?
It's a very human behavior—arguably one of the fundamentals that makes us us.
27 August, 2020
Photo by Andy Kelly on Unsplash
What on earth are you thinking? Other people think they know, and many could make a pretty decent guess, simply from observing your behavior for a short while.
<p>We do this almost automatically, following convoluted cognitive trails with relative ease, like understanding that Zoe is convinced Yvonne believes Xavier ate the last avocado, although he didn't. Or how Wendy is pretending to ignore Victoria because she thinks Ursula intends to tell Terry about their affair.</p><p>Thinking about what other people are thinking—also known as "mentalizing," "theory of mind," or "folk psychology"—allows us to navigate complex social worlds and conceive of others' feelings, desires, beliefs, motivations, and knowledge.</p><p>It's a very human behavior—arguably one of the fundamentals that makes us <em>us</em>. But could a robot do it? Could <a href="https://www.starwars.com/databank/c-3po/" target="_blank">C-3PO</a> or <a href="https://www.looper.com/163074/hal-in-2001-a-space-odyssey-explained/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">HAL</a> or your smartphone watch your expressions and intuit that you ate the avocado or had an affair?</p><p>A recent <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.01851" target="_blank">artificial intelligence study</a> claims to have developed a neural network—a computer program modeled on the brain and its connections—that can make decisions based not just on what it sees but on what another entity within the computer can or cannot see.</p>
<p>In other words, they created AI that can see things from another's perspective. And they were inspired by another species that may have theory of mind: chimps.</p><p>Chimpanzees live in troops with strict hierarchies of power, entitling the dominant male (and it always <a href="https://news.janegoodall.org/2018/07/10/top-bottom-chimpanzee-social-hierarchy-amazing/" target="_blank">seems to be a male</a>) to the best food and mates. But it's not easy being top dog—or chimp. The dominant male must act tactically to maintain his position by jostling and hooting, forming alliances, grooming others, and sharing the best scraps of colobus monkey meat.</p><p>Implicit in all this politicking is a certain amount of cognitive perspective-taking, perhaps even a form of mentalizing. And subordinate chimps might use this ability to their advantage.</p>
<p>In 2000, primatologist Brian Hare and colleagues <a href="https://evolutionaryanthropology.duke.edu/sites/evolutionaryanthropology.duke.edu/files/site-images/Hare%20et%20al_%202000_%20Chimpanzees%20know%20what%20conspecifics%20do%20and%20do%20not%20see.pdf" target="_blank">garnered experimental evidence</a> suggesting that subordinate chimps know when a dominant male is not looking at a food source and when they can sneak in for a cheeky bite.</p><p>Now computer scientists at the University of Tartu in Estonia and the Humboldt University of Berlin <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.01851" target="_blank">claim to have developed</a> an artificially intelligent chimpanzee-like computer program that behaves in the same way.</p><p>The sneaky subordinate chimp setup involved an arena containing one banana and two chimps. The dominant chimp didn't do much beyond sit around, and the subordinate had a neural network that tried to learn to make the best decisions (eat the food while avoiding a beating from the dominant chimp). The subordinate knew only three things: where the dominant was, where the food was, and in which direction the dominant was facing.</p><p>In addition, the subordinate chimp could perceive the world in one of two ways: egocentrically or allocentrically. Allocentric chimps had a bird's-eye view of proceedings, seeing everything at a remove, including themselves. Egocentric chimps, on the other hand, saw the world relative to their own position.</p><p>In the simplest experimental world—where the dominant chimp and the food always stayed in the same place—subordinate chimps behaved optimally, regardless of whether they were allocentric or egocentric. That is, they ate the food when the dominant wasn't looking and avoided a beating when it was.</p>
<p>When things became a little more complicated and the food and/or dominant chimp turned up in random places, the allocentric chimps edged closer to behaving optimally, while the egocentric chimps always performed suboptimally—languishing away, hungry or bruised.</p><p>But the way the AI simulation was set up meant the egocentric chimp had to process 37 percent more information than the allocentric one and, at the same time, was constrained by its egocentric position to perceive less about the world. Perhaps the lesson is: Omniscience makes life easier.</p><p>The computer scientists admit that their computer experiment "is a very simplified version of perspective-taking." How the AI-chimp perceives and processes information from its simplified digital world doesn't come close to capturing the complexity of real chimps eyeing up real bananas in the real world.</p><p>It's also unlikely that the AI-chimp's abilities would generalize beyond pilfering food to other situations requiring perspective-taking, such as building alliances or knowing when it's safe to sneak off into the virtual bushes for romantic escapades.</p>
<p>So, might artificially intelligent computers and robots one day develop theory of mind? The clue is in the term: They'd surely need minds of their own first. But then, what kind of mind?</p><p>Across the animal kingdom, a variety of minds have evolved to solve a swath of social problems. Chimpanzees are savvy in an aggressively political and competitive way. Crows are clever in their ability to fashion twig tools, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/52716-crows-ravens.html" target="_blank">attend funerals</a> to figure out what killed a compatriot, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWaXqiWekM" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">team up to bully cats</a>.</p><p>Octopuses <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOV-DlxTiFU" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">are intelligent</a> in their skill at escaping from closed jars and armoring themselves with shells. Dogs are brainy in their knack for understanding human social gestures like pointing and acting so slavishly cute we'd do anything for them. Humans are smart in a landing-on-the-moon-but-occasionally-electing-fascists way.</p><p>When it comes to theory of mind, some evidence suggests that chimps, bonobos, and orangutans <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chimps-may-be-capable-of-comprehending-the-minds-of-others/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">can guess</a> what humans are thinking, that elephants <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-elephants-unique-brain-structures-suggest-about-their-mental-abilities-100421" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feel empathy</a>, and that ravens can <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2076025-ravens-fear-of-unseen-snoopers-hints-they-have-theory-of-mind/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">predict the mental states</a> of other birds.</p><p>Minds that have evolved very separately from our own, in wildly different bodies, have much to teach us about the nature of intelligence. Maybe we're missing a trick by assuming artificial intelligences with a theory of mind must be humanlike (or at least primate-like), as appears to be the case in much of the work to date.</p>
<p>Yet developers are certainly modeling artificial intelligence after human minds. This raises an unsettling question: If artificial, digital, sociable minds were to exist one day, would they be enough like a human mind for us to understand them and for them to understand us?</p><p>Humans readily anthropomorphize, projecting our emotions and intentions onto other creatures and even onto robots. (Just <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PaTWufUqqU" target="_blank">watch these poor machines</a> and see how you feel.) So perhaps this wouldn't be much of an issue on our side. But there's no guarantee the AIs would be able to feel the same way.</p><p>This might not be so bad. Our relationship with AIs could end up mirroring our relationship with another famously antisocial creature. We shout at our cats to stop scratching the sofa when there's a perfectly good catnip-infused post nearby, as the baffled beasts vaingloriously meow back at us. We are servile to them and have delusions of our own dominance, while they remain objects of mysterious fascination to us. We look at them and wonder: <em>What on earth are you thinking?</em></p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/column/machinations/theory-of-mind/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sapiens</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/column/machinations/theory-of-mind/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
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Can universal basic income fix a crisis that's already begun?
COVID-19 may strengthen the case for universal basic income, or an idea like it.
24 July, 2020
- The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown millions of Americans into unemployment, highlighting the impracticality of living paycheck to paycheck, which a shocking number of Americans must do. Yet pandemic unemployment is just a glimpse of the fallout the US can expect in a future where more and more jobs are automated.
- Is universal basic income the answer? In this video, a range of experts from economists to entrepreneurs and historians explore different facets of basic income, like why we need it, how it's different to welfare, and how we'll pay for it.
- Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's former Minister of Finance, explains why he's not in favor of a UBI tax, but rather the creation of a public equity fund: "[T]hese days capital is socially produced ... Take for instance ... the capital stock of Google. To a large extent it is produced by all of us. Every time we search something on the Google search engine, we are adding to the capital stock of Google. This is not just a consumer transaction. So, if capital is socially produced why are the returns to capital privatized? On what basis?"
What's your favorite argument for (or against) UBI? Let us know in the comments!
Better reskilling can future-proof jobs in the age of automation. Enter SkillUp's new coalition.
Coronavirus layoffs are a glimpse into our automated future. We need to build better education opportunities now so Americans can find work in the economy of tomorrow.
09 July, 2020
Image: metamorworks / Shutterstock
- Outplacement is an underperforming $5 billion dollar industry. A new non-profit coalition by SkillUp intends to disrupt it.
- More and more Americans will be laid off in years to come due to automation. Those people need to reorient their career paths and reskill in a way that protects their long-term livelihood.
- SkillUp brings together technology and service providers, education and training providers, hiring employers, worker outreach, and philanthropies to help people land in-demand jobs in high-growth industries.
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<p>With COVID-19 ravaging our economy—leaving 40 million workers seeking unemployment benefits and<a href="https://www.stradaeducation.org/publicviewpoint/" target="_blank"> 55% of Americans</a> reporting lost income—the country desperately needs a better set of solutions to help workers reorient in the face of an uncertain future.</p><p>Employers have historically provided outplacement services to employees they lay off. Outplacement is a $5 billion industry in normal years that spikes dramatically during recessions. Companies that provide outplacement services typically charge <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alextaub/2016/09/13/meet-velvetjobs-transforming-the-5-billion-career-transition-industry/#1fea8472b42e" target="_blank">$3,000 to $10,000 per worker</a>.</p><p>But the standard offering is paltry. Employees who have been laid off or are about to be laid off receive a bit of coaching, access to job listings, and resume reviews—and that's about it.</p>
<p>Yet we know that a couple of short coaching sessions, job listings and resume reviews don't result in jobs. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/27/how-to-get-a-job-often-comes-down-to-one-elite-personal-asset.html" target="_blank">Research shows</a> that 70% of all jobs aren't posted on job sites, and 80% of jobs are filled through connections, not blind applications.</p><p>Nor do these services result in the sort of higher paying jobs that allow individuals to become more productive working members of society on sounder footing, ready to navigate the twists and turns of a future that will see more technological unemployment and a vastly different set of required skill sets to future-proof jobs.</p><p>Instead, those who are laid off require something more: reskilling, relationships, and navigation to step it up and make progress in their lives.</p><p>Against this backdrop, a new effort, <a href="https://www.skillup.org/" target="_blank">SkillUp</a>, is launching to help workers select and prepare for career paths that align with the economy of the future. SkillUp is a non-profit leading a coalition of technology and service providers, education and training providers, hiring employers, worker outreach, and philanthropies to support laid off and furloughed workers.</p>
<blockquote>The coalition SkillUp is assembling is ultimately more than a set of solutions around outplacement that should persist past the current pandemic, but the coming promise of a more flexible, affordable, and convenient set of solutions to support individuals' upskilling and reskilling throughout their lives to fulfill their <strong>human potential.</strong> </blockquote>
<p>SkillUp offers a three-pronged approach:</p><ol><li><strong>Career navigation:</strong> Technology tools and coaching resources to help workers choose a productive pathway and orient around jobs and careers that will grow in the future of work.</li><li><strong>Training programs</strong><strong>: </strong>The coalition helps workers find educational and training programs matched to their career goals to help them upskill, so that they do not just go back into frontline or entry-level roles, but can make progress in their career and fortunes.</li><li><strong>Job opportunities: </strong>Using relationships with hiring employers and technology to match workers with open positions, SkillUp pairs workers with available opportunities.</li></ol><p>In addition, SkillUp is leveraging the technology of Next Chapter, an offering of Guild Education, where I'm a senior strategist, as well as Guild's partner network of large employers—many of whom are in a position to hire employees—and education providers. These relationships will help SkillUp move quickly to serve workers with a ready-made solution.</p><p>SkillUp's solution shows how employers can transition parts of their workforce to more productive pursuits over time. Employers have an incentive to drive this work to refresh their workforces in intentional ways that manage employee churn; to bolster employee morale; to preserve their company brand; to aid in personnel recruitment; and to ultimately help power the country's consumption-driven economy.</p><p>The coalition SkillUp is assembling is ultimately more than a set of solutions around outplacement that should persist past the current pandemic, but the coming promise of a more flexible, affordable, and convenient set of solutions to support individuals' upskilling and reskilling throughout their lives to fulfill their human potential. What that necessitates is a much broader shift in postsecondary education and a reshuffling of how higher education works.</p><p>Rather than just bank on existing colleges and universities and sources of debt-driven funding to disrupt themselves, the future of higher education will also rely on novel programs and arrangements, like SkillUp.</p><p>New funding mechanisms to pay for more education—from leveraging employers' willingness to pay in order to reap a return on investment to income share agreements that align incentives around the success of learners—will emerge to fund the education of learners.</p><p>On-ramp and last-mile programs along with hybrid colleges that marry online, competency-based learning with learning model innovations, no-excuses mindsets, and non-academic supports are emerging to alter how we prepare students to enter the workforce. Mobile learning solutions are making learning far more bite-sized and accessible on the job.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0NTY4OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzODkxODQ1M30.D410ne123uFlY13fF-tG-mfz4AMSEH9kyPoAi5JFaa0/img.png?width=980" id="f2b83" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4f7b97cdbfabea668df1de365ca0da15" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Source: McKinsey Global Institute analysis [PDF]
<p>Work in understanding the skills at the heart of the new digital economy is leading to novel assessments that allow individuals to prove mastery to faithfully represent their abilities—but also to give weight and stackability to the emerging ecosystem of micro-credentials that make education more seamless across time and education providers. And we are seeing the beginnings of a renewal in the liberal arts, focused on building human skills in affordable ways that are accessible to many more individuals and far more effective.</p><p>Amidst these dark times, there is much opportunity to refresh the nation's education and training solutions to support the success of individuals and society writ large.</p>Michael Horn is the author of:
<div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="628545219b2b1636ffdb74fac778bf9d" contenteditable="false"> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119570115?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank"> <img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41qvW7Foe+L.jpg" class="amazon-assets-widget__image widget__image"> <div class="amazon-assets-widget__description"> <div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">Choosing College: How to Make Better Learning Decisions Throughout Your Life</div> <div class="amazon-assets-widget__by-amazon"><!-- <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119570115?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">by now at amazone</a> --></div> <div class="amazon-assets-widget__list-price"><span class="grey">List Price: </span><span class="list-price">$13.47</span></div> <div class="amazon-assets-widget__new-price"><span class="grey">New From: </span><span class="new-price">$14.95</span> <span class="grey">in Stock</span></div> <div class="amazon-assets-widget__used-price"><span class="grey">Used From: </span><span class="used-price">$9.49</span> <span class="grey">in Stock</span></div> </div> </a> </div>
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