Robots as restaurant employees - A double-barrelled detective story

Robotic Chef Versus Human Chef: The Effects of Anthropomorphism, Novel Cues, and Cooking Difficulty Level on Food Quality Prediction

“…The results of Experiment 1 confirmed H1 and fit well with the seemly controversial previous findings: on the one hand, participants predicted the foods cooked by typical robotic chefs were above average quality, which is parallel with the previous finding that some customers were fascinated by the “robotic cooking” in a fast-food restaurant [ 14 ]; on the other hand, participants predicted robot-cooked food was of lower quality than human-cooked food, which is consistent with previous findings that other customers think robots were not appropriate for cooking food in restaurants and hotels [ 2 , 6 , 8 ].…”

“…As noted before, previous studies have shown that some customers were fascinated by the “robotic cooking” in a fast-food restaurant [ 14 ], but other customers thought robots were not appropriate for cooking food in restaurants and hotels [ 2 , 6 , 8 ]; these inconsistent findings might be due to (1) fast-food and luxury restaurants provided dishes with low or high cooking difficulty level respectively, and (2) despite being fascinated by “robotic cooking”, customers of the fast-food restaurant did not explicitly compare robot-cooked food with human-cooked food. Therefore, we establish the following hypotheses:…”

“…However, among various robot services in restaurants and hotels, cooking food is not perceived as an appropriate activity by robots [ 6 ], possibly because people hold low quality predictions for robot-cooked food [ 2 , 7 , 8 ]. For the chefs, they thought that “during the COVID-19 outbreak, robots can be used partially to reduce workload, but they cannot be permanent” because “cooking is directly proportional to hand taste (the taste of some food keeping a trace of the loving hand that prepared it)” and “the dishes will turn into ordinary fabricated products without human touch” [ 2 ]; they also thought robotic chefs could not make high quality food as human chefs, because robots lack tacit knowledge and cooking skills [ 8 ]. Similarly, the customers also perceived robot-cooked food as less tasty than human-cooked food, and this perceived inferiority was stronger in luxury than non-luxury restaurants (e.g., fast food, casual restaurants) [ 7 ].…”

“…The effect of cooking difficulty level might be preliminarily supported by a study on people’s different evaluations on robot- and human-cooked food in luxury and casual restaurants [ 7 ]: people predicted food in casual restaurants as less tasty than food in luxury restaurants; they also predicted that robot-cooked food as less tasty than human-cooked food in both luxury and casual restaurants, and this inferiority was stronger in luxury than casual restaurants. These results might be explained as that people expected (1) food provided in luxury restaurants of higher cooking difficulty level than the food provided in casual restaurants, and (2) robotic chefs as inferior to human chefs in both basic and advanced cooking skills [ 8 ], and this inferiority was even larger in advanced cooking skills. The effect of cooking difficulty level might also explain the current discrepant attitudes towards robot-cooked food: customers liked “robotic cooking” in the fast-food restaurant [ 14 ], possibly because the cooking difficulty level was low (i.e., a pan cooking the meat for bowl meal and then the humans adding some vegetables and dressing); whereas people thought robots were not appropriate for cooking food in restaurants and hotels [ 2 , 6 , 8 ], possibly because they referred dishes with high cooking difficulty level (e.g., the famous Chinese dish “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall” involving about 20 materials and 30 procedures, costing seven days to prepare).…”

“…These results might be explained as that people expected (1) food provided in luxury restaurants of higher cooking difficulty level than the food provided in casual restaurants, and (2) robotic chefs as inferior to human chefs in both basic and advanced cooking skills [ 8 ], and this inferiority was even larger in advanced cooking skills. The effect of cooking difficulty level might also explain the current discrepant attitudes towards robot-cooked food: customers liked “robotic cooking” in the fast-food restaurant [ 14 ], possibly because the cooking difficulty level was low (i.e., a pan cooking the meat for bowl meal and then the humans adding some vegetables and dressing); whereas people thought robots were not appropriate for cooking food in restaurants and hotels [ 2 , 6 , 8 ], possibly because they referred dishes with high cooking difficulty level (e.g., the famous Chinese dish “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall” involving about 20 materials and 30 procedures, costing seven days to prepare). However, to the best of our knowledge, no study directly compares robot-cooked and human-cooked food across different cooking difficulty levels; thus, empirical evidence is needed to verify the effect of cooking difficulty level.…”