Chinese cookbot arrives, you are now obsolete

It might not look too fancy, but China's first cooking robot, cleverly named "AICookingrobot" or AIC for short, can manage Sichuan, Shandong and Canton cuisines, with a repertory of thousands of dishes. Four years in development, AIC cost 2 million yuan to build -- about $253,000 US -- and will supposedly help "standardize Chinese fast food." The bot mimics the actions of those lame-o human chefs that are always asking for "raises," "bathroom breaks" and "sleep," and was recently demonstrated on Sunday cooking "beautifully-flavored, attractive-looking shrimp" in five minutes. We're not quite sure how far the talents of the bot reach, since we know the bot can fry, bake, boil and steam stuff, but there's no word on chopping or measuring or other minor details like that. Still, the AIC -- which will go on sale in 2007 and even should reach the home in the not-so-distant future -- is clearly a pre-cursor to the day when we can all sit back with our Nintendo DS-based cooking simulators while all the real work gets done by a Chinese cookbot in the kitchen. What a world that will be.

[Via Robot Gossip]

[Farris @ Oct 10th 2006 4:32PM]

Wow, that title is VERY close to something that you would not want to Google.

Lol!

Plus, except for "Doneness sensors," it doesn't seem like this would be too difficult to build, but then, I'm not familiar with Chinese cuisine.

[ROFLROFFLES @ Oct 10th 2006 4:35PM]

I bet it can't cook ramen.

[par @ Oct 10th 2006 4:38PM]

I for one welcome our cooking chinese food while I'm playing Nintendo DS, robot overlords

[Todd @ Oct 10th 2006 4:43PM]

no, no - it's...

"I for one, welcome our no raise asking, non urinating, sleep depravation suffering, beautifully-flavored attractive-looking shrimp cooking overlords..."

[mikep51 @ Oct 10th 2006 4:43PM]

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto! ;)

[John Stracke @ Oct 11th 2006 8:26AM]

That's Japanese.

[Chris @ Oct 10th 2006 4:45PM]

In my experience, Chinese prefer to cook for themselves and are decidedly low tech in the kitchen. Blenders and food processors and electric can openers are almost unheard of in China. Even measuring cups and measuring spoons are rarely owned, much less used. It's not so much that they can't afford these things but they prefer to use their hands and experience when cooking.

So I can't imagine something like this being very popular in China. In the US? Absolutely.

[CL @ Oct 10th 2006 4:56PM]

@Chris

As a chinese myself, that's true, an average chinese kitchen has far less "kitchen gadgets" than an average western kitchen. You will be more or less deemed "amateur" if you use all those stuff. Heck, even my own mom laughs at me if I use a measuring cup, cause she thinks if people have enough experience, you should be able to eyeball it.

[jason.lo @ Oct 10th 2006 4:56PM]

I imagine this robot is targeted toward restuarants not your regular households... Beside, only the rich can really afford this thing.

[orig_club_soda @ Oct 10th 2006 4:55PM]

Why I am absolete? Is the robot going to eat the food too?

[Det. @ Oct 10th 2006 5:22PM]

but see the thing is, less and less chinese people know how to cook...kinda sad really...

[Chris @ Oct 10th 2006 4:59PM]

The reason I commented on it is because of this line in the article:

"The robot will go on sale in 2007, and will enter Chinese homes sometime in the future, Liu Xinyu added."

[Russell @ Oct 10th 2006 5:40PM]

Or you can invest your 250K us and pay a minimum wage butlerchef to cook your food and also clean up as well as other menial tasks. Should be able to get 10-15+ YEARS of service out of that cash :)

Meanwhile the robot breaks down all the time, while you only have to placate your wage slave with some keystone every once and a while.

[Matt @ Oct 10th 2006 5:45PM]

Uh... repertoire, perhaps, Engadget? Come on guys, with all your techno-awesomeness, you don't even have a good spellchecker?

[ydgmdlu @ Oct 10th 2006 11:27PM]

Actually, "repertory" is a valid English word. It means the same thing.

[Ypoknons @ Oct 10th 2006 6:44PM]

No Shanghai food? That's depressing.

[Ndric @ Oct 10th 2006 8:37PM]

Lol! Read it as cockbot.

[Audiocracy @ Oct 10th 2006 9:20PM]

Where are the "Iron Chef" jokes?

[John Stracke @ Oct 11th 2006 8:26AM]

No, actually, "repertory" is more specific; it means an actor's, or theatrical company's, repetoire of plays.

[Wyatt_Z @ Oct 10th 2006 11:54PM]

Build this into a vending machine and put it in the US: you'd make $253k in like, what, two weeks?

[John Stracke @ Oct 11th 2006 8:27AM]

But can you get an expansion duck for it?

[DRCross @ Oct 11th 2006 9:19AM]

Great, now I can get rid of my girlfriend and stick to one night stands