back to article Forget robo-butlers – ROBO-MAIDS! New hotel staffed by slave-droids

A Japanese theme park will open a new hotel in July that is cleaned and operated almost entirely by robots. Guests will be met by robotic desk staff (so, no good trying to bribe one for a room upgrade) and have their bags carried by mechanoid porters. Even the room cleaning will be carried out by mechanical employees, and …

  1. Cliff

    Consistency

    I can see this as something I'd appreciate. Machines are good at consistency, so you could be confident of a homogenous experience. If I'm going to a hotel to enjoy the facilities, I'd like some humans around, but this has to be head and shoulders over Travelodge dreariness.

    1. Chris G

      Re: Consistency

      Just be careful if there is a power surge, and watch out for a bald robot with a cowboy hat!

      It will be a long time though before they can get a robot to duplicate a Blackpool B'n'B landlady, that would need a 'Les Dawson in drag with a bad attitude' program.

      1. Graham Marsden
        Coat

        Re: Consistency

        Nothing can go wrong... go wrong... go wrong...

        1. Cliff

          Re: Consistency

          Robo-concierge arranges for fembots to visit your room in exchange for a handful of washers and some Castrol GTX

  2. Peter2 Silver badge

    "We will make the most efficient hotel in the world," the park's president Hideo Sawada told a news conference, Japan Times reports. "In the future, we’d like to have more than 90 percent of hotel services operated by robots."

    I'd bet he'd love to. Less humans to pay and machines can simply be run 24/7 until they break at which point they can be ditched sans pension or redundancy costs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "ditched sans pension or redundancy costs"

      Huh? Isn't that they do already everywhere in the world outside of us lucky EU nanny states?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    (so no good trying to bribe one for a room upgrade)

    Really. You do that?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Re: (so no good trying to bribe one for a room upgrade)

      Is it me or did that actually make no sense

      "Bribing for a room upgrade". So handing more cash over for a better room? okaaaayyyyyy.

      1. Kane
        Boffin

        Re: (so no good trying to bribe one for a room upgrade)

        Is it me or did that actually make no sense

        "Bribing for a room upgrade". So handing more cash over for a better room? okaaaayyyyyy.

        What doesn't make sense? You slip a 20 of whatever the local currency happens to be (if it is the Triganic Pu, then I suggest you repair to the nearest currency exchange symposium), to the hotel receptionist, and they say "Ahh, it appears that the luxury suite has become available, please enjoy your stay with us, Sir!".

        You get a room upgrade for less than the cost of the actual upgrade, and the receptionist pockets the 20 (or pocket universes all 160 Ningi's).

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's only a matter of time..

    Before they have full "service" robot love hotels tailored for the discerning grass eating men of Japan. Surely they'd be fine with it so long as a real woman wasn't involved. And if they made a "deposit" to a national bank their room could be comp'd. Joking.

    No, I'm not hating on Japan. Herbivore's or grasseaters is a real thing. Though to be honest I'm not sure if the Gov't there has any success combating the trend. Afaik population decline is still a real issue there.

    1. xperroni
      Terminator

      Re: It's only a matter of time..

      Herbivore's or grasseaters is a real thing. Though to be honest I'm not sure if the Gov't there has any success combating the trend. Afaik population decline is still a real issue there.

      No they don't and yes it is. In fact, far from helping matters, the government is about to exacerbate the problem by getting young people into the military to fight and die in pointless Middle East wars.

      I tell you, by the dawn of the 22th Japan will be granting citizenship to domestically-built robots as a way to offset population decline without having to resort to (shock, horror) immigration.

    2. Sarah Balfour

      Re: It's only a matter of time..

      Herbivore's what…? That's a singular possessive, not a fucking plural, dickhead! What is it with people…?! If a word ends in a vowel, it DOES NOT require an apostrophe in the plural!

      Herbivore means 'plant-eater', not 'grass-eater' aka vegan when it comes to humans. Veganism isn't a healthy lifestyle (despite what vociferous veganists, such as Morrissey, would have you believe). The human digestive system isn't designed to extract nutrition from plant matter, our guts are too short, nor do we have the dentition to effectively masticate plant fibre. Every creature has a genetic and evolutionary dietary blueprint, and it makes as much sense for us to eat nothing but plants as it does a tiger or lion. What happens when a cat eats grass…? It throws up (usually on the living room carpet. Cats are cunts like that. Samson, my mother's last moggy, used to wait until he got on their bed. He was a Greebo - a total bastard, but to my mother he was just a big softie (even when he used to try to try to lacerate her jugular)).

      Anyway, the point is that cats need meat and so do we. It was no coincidence that Steve Jobs succumbed to pancreatic cancer, his 100% carb diet would have significantly overloaded his pancreas.

      If you want to avoid all the world's major ills, it's simple; simply eat the opposite of what the NHS/USDA would have you believe is a healthy diet, and you won't go far wrong.

      Do what I do; find a reputable supplier of grass-fed/finished organic cow flesh - and eat it raw. I've been eating raw steak - and raw eggs, when I can be certain of their provenance - for over a decade. Cooking destroys the nutrition (particularly iron and B12).

      Though back to the subject, I've eaten grass, used to do so a lot when I was at uni. Baking with it was popular, brownies especially so. But it was added to many things; pot roasts, pot noodles, even hash browns.

  5. Graham O'Brien
    Terminator

    But be careful ...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0bcmXD1W8s

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1604605/

  6. Metrognome

    If they have found the robot to change bedsheets, puff up the pillows and lay down a fresh set, I want one.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why just butlers?

    "Sawada said that if the pilot project is successful he plans to open another 1,000-robot-run hotels in the coming years, in locations around the world."

    Maybe it's time to produce construction robots as well then.

    1. Ragequit
      Joke

      Re: Why just butlers?

      So long as the don't have ghosts we should be safe. Lets start with construction drones before we start putting so called cyberbrains in them shall we? I don't like the idea of bots that can bend girders deciding they'd rather bend humans.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why just butlers?

        "I don't like the idea of bots that can bend girders deciding they'd rather bend humans."

        They'd spend all their time drinking, smoking, and gambling.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Re: Why just butlers?

      "Maybe it's time to produce construction robots as well then"

      Ahem...may I draw your attention to:

      http://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2014/apr/29/3d-printer-builds-houses-china-video

  8. Morrie Wyatt

    Old idea.

    Stainless Steel Rat.

    Harry Harrison's Slippery Jim DeGriz was tampering with such establishments decades ago.

  9. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Coat

    "access their rooms using a facial recognition system"

    Interesting. I thought facial recog systems were not very accurate. If this actually works, it will prove that FRSs can indeed be useful.

    On the other hand, if it doesn't, good luck explaining to a robot that you can't get into your room. I hope they have some actual Human staff for handling errors, or at least rolling up the bodies in carpets.

    1. Elmer Phud

      Re: "access their rooms using a facial recognition system"

      "Interesting. I thought facial recog systems were not very accurate. If this actually works, it will prove that FRSs can indeed be useful."

      Does FRS work if you're outside your room and you are desperate for a dump?

      Shirley all that gurning while trying not to Kak yer Keks would cause problems.

  10. Dan Paul

    Don't do it!!!!

    A successful demo of a robotic hotel will set a precedent for the entire service industry here in the USA. All those lower paying jobs that inexperienced workers were doing will all be gone, leaving us with another huge percentage of unemployment, welfare, foodstamps, medicare increases across the board.

    The companies that would be most interested are already the cheapest that exist. There will be no business that can afford to ignore the cost difference and they will ALL follow suit.

    No more human bartenders, waiter/waitresses, maids, carwash attendants, nurses, janitors, garbagemen, lawncare & landscaping, etc. The list is endless and will become even longer as robots become more sophisticated.

    And don't trot out the comment that "It will create jobs servicing the machines" because we already know that is a whole lot of baloney. Maybe you get 1 new job for every 100 lost.

    Humankind would require a whole new re-tooling of the very concepts of society, employment and renumeration and that is highly unlikely.

    1. DNTP

      Re: Don't do it!!!!

      Lets try running this in either direction and see what happens.

      1. The super rich move into an orbital space station run by robots and live an obscene life of luxury while the 99.9% starve hopelessly on a depleted Earth. After a few hundred years it's a statistical certainty that the rich will have blown themselves up through craziness caused by boredom, internal conflict, or space accident. But if that doesn't happen they genetic bottleneck themselves out of existence like those fucked up royal families in Europe. Civilization on Earth has to rebuild out of anarchy, overpopulation, global warming, and resource depletion, and either is set back by a few thousand years or just goes to hell.

      2. An enlightened government strictly regulates economic activity for stable growth, to prevent any corporate block from gaining a runaway positive feedback loop. A basic standard of living is guaranteed unconditionally to every person, freeing every motivated individual to express themself through education, art, or innovation (since all the basic slog jobs are done by robots). Society enters a new golden age, although the 1% constantly complain about communism. A few super rich assholes engineer plots to overthrow the government but they keep getting stopped because literally everyone else has the time on their hands to engage in counter-revolution if they want. Name the book for an upvote!

      1. anatak

        Re: Don't do it!!!!

        My first guess without activating grey matter would be

        1 neuromancer (Gibson universe)

        2 Culture universe from Ian Banks

    2. Elmer Phud

      Re: Don't do it!!!!

      Cancun -- humans are cheaper.

    3. DropBear
      Trollface

      Re: Don't do it!!!!

      "All those lower paying jobs that inexperienced workers were doing will all be gone"

      Can I see the babysitter-bots in action please...? Just hang on a second while I get the popcorn...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Countdown to first cockup.

    Facial recognition door locks are a BAD idea. Pretty soon someone will be let into the wrong room and the woman who they wake up will sue the hotelier for 70 squintillion in distress, half of which will go to her accomplice once his 3 month sentence for admitting being drunk and disorderly is over.

    Or something.

  12. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Obvious place for this to start.

    Standardized building layouts and colour schemes make the problem much simpler to deal with.

    The big joke is doing the bed.

    Simply collect up the stuff after a single use and have a separate "pillow and duvet laying machine"?

    I'm surprised "capsule" hotels don't have more automated "room processing" already.

  13. Ol'Peculier
    Pint

    I won't enjoy it

    Robot 1 to robot 2:

    "Can you direct this guest to room 42?

    "I won't enjoy it. Brain the size of a planet and all they ask me to do is show people their rooms. Don't like robots. Hate them. Look at that door. Ghastly isn't it. Life, don't talk to me about life.

    etc. etc. etc....

  14. Rustident Spaceniak
    WTF?

    Did I miss anything?

    How will they deal with non-Japanese speakers?

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Did I miss anything?

      By speaking non-Japanese!

  15. Chris G

    Construction bots

    Will they build them with a wolf whistle function, a swing belly and an obligatory builder's crack?

  16. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    "Open the mini-bar door, please, Hal."

    "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that. You're smart-watch says you've had enough and anyway the NFC reader in the wardrobe says you've no credit left on your card."

  17. davidp231
    Trollface

    Mechanoids

    Series 3000 or 4000?

    1. Fatman

      Re: Mechanoids

      No, how about a Cherry 2000???

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092746/

  18. JamesTQuirk

    So after 2 Weeks of ROBO Maid, Bulter, Chef, Artifical Friend, Asswiper, laying in Bed, eating Rich food, you have Heart Attack, and you are recycled into Soylent Green....

    I hope it comes in other colours, I hate eating the same thing everyday ....

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