I read some sad news today, folks. Japan’s first robot-staffed hotel had to lay off half of its 243 robots. That’s a major robobummer.
The Henn-na (“Strange”) Hotel opened in 2015 to great fanfare. The hotel’s major draw was the fact that it was manned almost entirely by robots. But not just your run-of-the-mill robots. When you checked in, you were met by a velociraptor in a green wig. Because apparently life really does find a way.
Next you’d be escorted by a trolley robot who’d take your luggage to your room.
There was a concierge robot…
…a trash robot…
…and even a waiter robot that would bring you your meals.
Just look at how much happiness these robots are creating for their customers. If by happiness, you mean confusion and perhaps a little terror.
It was all very exciting back in 2015. But then the hotel robots started to have problems. The velociraptor robots couldn’t photocopy guests’ passports at check-in. The luggage bell-bots could only reach 24 of the 100 hotel rooms. And the robot concierge couldn’t give guests basic information about nearby tourist attractions.
As a result, most of the bots were recently replaced by humans. Which made me a little sad. I mean, I’m happy for the people who got their jobs back after the robots robroke. But I was looking forward to a weird robot-filled future of leisure activities.
Imagine how fun it would be to go see a performance of William Shakesgear’s Hamlet? I can hear it now: “To bleep or not to bleep, that is the data linked together to formulate a query.”
It’s almost as good as my other favorite Hamlet quote: “Brevity is the soul of 01110111 01101001 01110100.”
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe robots entertaining me during my vacation isn’t the way to go. Just think about how much cooler life would be if we had robots doing the everyday, annoying things we hate to do.
We all hate going to the dentist, right? But what if we had a robot who could do it for us?
And you know how you hate calling your friend back because all she’s gonna do is complain about how this guy who’s ghosted her for the last six months just texted her and said he maybe wants to start things up again, but still hasn’t returned her last 14 texts even though she replied with “cool.” Well, what if you had a robot who could call your friend and tell her that dude is a total asshole…
Speaking of assholes, what if you could have a robot take a colonoscopy for you? Scientists have already developed a bot who will snake up your butt with a camera to look for polyps.
So you know it’s only a matter of time before someone invents a robobutt. And I’m here for it. Call me, Tim Apple!