A team of researchers in Germany, Scotland and Greece are building a robot bartender according to a press release from the Unversity of Bielefled.
"The general exercise here is to make robots more social, or to make them social at all," Jan de Ruiter, a lead researcher on the project, cognitive scientist and professor of psycholinguistics at Germany's Bielefeld University told Bloomberg Businessweek. "Robots can do certain things very well-they can certainly move faster than I can-but their social intelligence is very limited," "We picked a bar setting because it's social but not too complicated."
The robot, which goes by the name of James or Joint Action in Multimodal Embodied Systems. has one arm, no legs, and a tablet computer for a face the press release reported.
Scientists programmed James to react in the same way a bartender would in a noisy bar by figuring out a way to see if a person standing in front of a bar wants to be served or is just there because there isn't anywhere else to stand - something that is easy for a human to comprehend, but difficult for a robot.
To solve this issue and create the robot, researchers filmed bar patrons placing orders in bars and nightclubs in Germany and Scotland to determine how they interact with bartenders. They then used the data they gained from this for James.
During their study, scientists found the best way to get a bartender's attention was to stand at the bar, directly facing the person behind the bar, and make eye contact.
Wwaving, gesturing or flashing money did not prove to be effective. The robot does not have the capability to make drinks such as an old fashioned, make a pint, and shake or stir a martini. At most, it can hand a person a bottle sitting in front of it.
