LAS VEGAS (AP) — The barista placed the pitcher of smooth, frothy milk over the latte, poured it slowly at first, then lifted and tilted the pitcher like a choreographed dance to paint the petals of a tulip.
Latte art is a skill that can take months, if not years, to master; But that’s not the case for this AI-powered barista.
Robots of all kinds caused excitement on the show floor at the annual CES technology trade show in Las Vegas this week.
It’s innovations like this that worry Roman Alejo, a 34-year-old barista at the Sahara hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip. One cannot help but wonder whether time is ticking in the hospitality business in the age of artificial intelligence.
“It’s very scary because tomorrow is never promised,” he said. “There is a lot of artificial intelligence coming into this world. “It’s very scary and eye-opening to see how people can think about taking other people’s place.”
The world’s biggest tech show has revived those fears a little more than a month after the casino workers union in Las Vegas approved new contracts for 40,000 members, ending a bitter, high-profile fight that highlighted the threat of artificial intelligence to union jobs.
“Technology was a strike issue, and it was one of the last issues to be resolved,” said Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Workers Union, who led teams negotiating new five-year contracts, narrowly averting a historic strike more than a year later. A dozen hotel-casinos on the Strip.
Hospitality workers told The Associated Press during more than eight months of bargaining talks that they were willing to strike and take pay cuts to win stronger job protections against inevitable advances in technology. This includes technology already in use at some resorts: self-check-in stations, automated valet ticket services, and robot bartenders known as “drunk robots.”
The emergence of robotics in the hospitality and service industry has been on the union’s radar for years, Pappageorge said. The difference now is “the combination of artificial intelligence and robotics,” he told the AP this week.
Experts say advancements in artificial intelligence technology are forcing labor unions to rethink how they bargain with companies.
Bill Werner, an associate professor in the hotel management department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said unions now need to be “much more deliberate” in occupational safety negotiations.
The types of casino union businesses at risk could look drastically different five years from now, when the Culinary Union’s contract expires, for example.
“What will happen to these people and what rights do they have?” said. “So what happens to them if they lose their job to a robot?”
In its last contract, the union softened the so-called safety net for workers; He earned a severance pay of $2,000 for each year worked if a job is eliminated due to technology or artificial intelligence, as well as the option to move to a different department. company.
Pappageorge said they need to “develop a new language” that protects workers from both today’s technology and “technology we don’t even know is coming.”
“The idea that technology, robotics, and artificial intelligence run amok with no control could do incredible harm,” Pappageorge said. “So what we need to do is stay ahead of the rest, and that’s where CES is.”
More than 100 union members attended the trade show this week to examine new technologies that could put more casino jobs at risk.
There were many innovations on the show floor: friendly robots completing deliveries at hotels and restaurants. A robotic masseuse. Bots that can prepare and serve coffee, ice cream or boba. Artificial intelligence-supported smart grills that can perform tasks such as frying and roasting without a human being in the kitchen. And chef-like robots dream of a future with “autonomous restaurants,” as one company puts it.
Meng Wang, co-founder of food tech startup Artly Coffee, one of more than 4,000 attendees at CES this year, said she’s not in the business of eliminating jobs. Wang said Artly’s autonomous barista robots could help close the labor gap in the service industry.
“Baristas have a hard job. Very labor intensive, long hours. “The salaries are not very good,” he said. “What we do is not about changing things. “We are meeting the need in the market and bringing specialty coffee to more places.”
But Werner said AI poses a real threat to casino union jobs that don’t require face-to-face interaction with customers (e.g. cleaning, food preparation and cooking).
“Much of the risk from automation disappears when the industry doesn’t have to worry about the impact on customer service,” he said. This is especially true in a crowd-pleasing tourist destination like the Las Vegas Strip, where customers expect world-class service and experiences, including the latest trends in technology.
That makes Las Vegas “a good place to test these things and see how customers respond to them,” he said.
The Culinary Union and its members, like barista Alejo, agree that the hospitality industry is constantly evolving.
“The innovations are incredible,” Alejo said. “But it’s scary that in today’s world everything seems to revolve around technology.”
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Video producer James Brooks contributed to this report.