A California robot creation, now in Texas, offers faster and cheaper manicures.
The Clockwork “Mini-cure” is a robot that uses 3D cameras to photograph a person’s nails. Afterwards, its artificial intelligence quickly paints them, KHOU 11 reported Monday.
According to Clockwork’s Chief Marketing Officer Mara McCune, it takes the robot 10 minutes to do the job, and the cost is under $10.
However, McCune claimed it was not a competition against traditional nail salons, because so many people wanted the extra services offered.
“There is a huge demand for people who still want to go to the salon, get pampered, get their nails shaped and filed and cuticles pushed back, and there’s a role for that,” McCune continued. “And we think we can live alongside them for a fast manicure. That is a different experience. And so we see us partnering with nail salons and really being able to live simultaneously.”
In 2018, Jack in the Box CEO Leonard Comma said “it just makes sense” to replace humans working in the food service industry with robots as the minimum wage rose, Breitbart News reported at the time:
This year, the minimum wage is increasing in 18 states, including Jack in the Box’s home state of California, where a $15 minimum wage will be implemented.
Eventually, all human workers at fast food restaurants could be replaced, with Momentum Machines raising $18 million for their robot-powered restaurant, which includes a robot that can produce over 400 hamburgers an hour, last year.
In addition, burger-flipping robots were offering their services to restaurants for $3 an hour, the outlet reported in February 2020.
Paying people $15 to flip burgers? How about a burger-making robot that never gets sick, is always on time, never complains, and costs just $3 an hour to operate. https://t.co/DaM3piSuVs
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 1, 2020
“Miso Robotics’ machine named Flippy is ‘the world’s first autonomous robotic kitchen assistant that can learn from its surroundings and acquire new skills over time,’ according to the company’s website,” the article read.
That was a positive thing for restaurant owners because it would cost less to pay Flippy than a minimum-wage employee.
However, “Now what does this automation trend mean to minimum wage?” Jason Scheurer questioned in 2014.
“If you raise the price of labor above a certain point, then you only hasten the day when your job will be replaced with a robot,” he wrote.
A few months ago, Clockwork set up shop in Target stores located in Dallas and Fort Worth.
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