Hacker News Reader

simpler than a restaurant: a coffee shop. coffee machines have been around for quite some time, they are easy to operate and they produce decent coffee. yet "the total number of coffee shops in the US increased by 70% between 2000 and 2005" [1] AI seems necessary but not sufficient for automation...

[1] http://www.marketresearchworld.net/index.php?option=com_cont...

View on HN

Yes,

The point isn't that automated food service is impossible. It's certainly possible. Indeed, it's been around for a long time [1]. The point is that it isn't necessarily a better investment than human-run food service and thus human-run food service may stay around a long time.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

Reply on news.ycombinator.com