Robot retrenchment news from Japan

Half of them were fired as they made more work for people

Japan's Henn-na Hotel has laid off half of its robots after creating more jobs.

One of the layoffs included a tulip flower shaped assistant in each hotel room called Chu-ri, which performed worse than siri. When questions were asked, Chu-ri did not have a good answer. In addition, it started to make noise during the midnight by picking up some noise when the customers were sleeping in the room.

Two velociraptor robots located at the check in were also fired because human workers had to do their jobs for them and photocopy guests' passports manually, as well as two robot luggage carriers, which also often gets stuck trying to pass by each other.

The hotel's main concierge robot also didn't know how to answer questions about flight schedules and nearby tourist attractions. Many of the robots that have been retired were outdated. The hotel decided it was easier to fire them than to replace them, citing high costs.

Read the original story here.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/15/18184198/japans-robot-hotel-lay-off-work-for-humans