The Fall 2022 issue of Food & Dining Magazine (#75) is now available in all the familiar places: Louisville area eateries and food shops, newsstands and online. Go here for a preview of the features, profiles and columns, with links to the new edition at issuu. 

With human beings seemingly in short supply, the food and drink industry is investing more in robots. The trick is duplicating the “human touch.”

What robots can and can’t do for a restaurant, by Charlotte Hu (Popular Science)

Increasingly, these robots can function without human supervision, thanks to the AI platforms that power them. What’s more, a study in Science Robotics this week found that food preparation and serving-related jobs had a comparatively higher risk of being replaced by AI-powered robots compared to other jobs related to education or healthcare, for example, based on the researchers’ method, which mapped current robot capabilities onto job requirements.

Reporting at Louisville Business First, Michael L. Jones discovers the local advent of just such a mechanized work force at Tandoori Fusion.

A Indian-fusion restaurant in East Louisville has a novel solution for the staffing shortages plaguing the hospitality industry — a robot.

Tandoori Fusion, located at 4600 Chamberlain Lane in the Chamberlain Pointe shopping center, is the first restaurant in Kentucky to use a robot to deliver food to its patrons.

The restaurant is taking part in the Kentucky Restaurant Modernization Initiative, a joint collaboration between Louisville-based technology company V-Soft Consulting Group Inc., the AI Innovation Consortium (AIIC), the University of Louisville (UofL), the University of Kentucky (UK) and Bear Robotics.

In 1983, the rock band Styx considered the implications in “Mr. Roboto.”

I’m not a robot without emotions, I’m not what you see
I’ve come to help you with your problems, so we can be free
I’m not a hero, I’m not a savior, forget what you know
I’m just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control
Beyond my control, we all need control
I need control, we all need control