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Yes, robots can shoot basketball. They can also make your job easier — or kill it altogether | Opinion

Japan’s 7-foot basketball-shooting robot, CUE5, made headlines around the world when it landed a throw

from half-court at the opening of the men’s basketball tournament at the Tokyo Olympics last week. However, I’m much more impressed by a lesser-known robot that works at a restaurant near my home in Miami.

Let’s face it, the artificial intelligence-powered CUE5 basketball-playing robot, developed by Toyota, won’t have a bright career as an athlete once the novelty fades away. While its technology surely will be used in other industries, I don’t see basketball fans flocking to arenas to watch robots playing against each other.

But there are many other less eye-catching robots quietly showing up all around us, and that will have a much greater impact on the economy — and on our jobs.

Earlier this year, the Miami Herald and other media outlets reported that the Sergio’s Restaurant chain began to try out a robotic server in one of its six full-service restaurants in Miami. It had to make up for the personnel shortage because of the pandemic.

The story made headlines and was the talk of the town for a few days.

I spoke to Sergio’s CEO Carlos Gazitua this week and asked him whether — aside from the free publicity his restaurant got — the robot has been worth its money.

Gazitua responded with an emphatic “Yes.” It’s working so well that he has bought five new robots and now has one working at each of his full-service restaurants. And he’s planning to buy a second robot for each restaurant soon or, perhaps, a new model that will be able to carry bigger trays, he told me.

The 3-foot robot currently working at Sergio’s carries a tray on its belly and takes the food from the kitchen to the tables. A human server then takes the plates of food and places them on the table. The process saves human waiters from the hard work of carrying heavy trays all day long.

Gazitua says the robots have allowed his restaurants to make up for the shortage of servers that has plagued the industry during the pandemic. The robotic waiters’ assistants only cost between $2 and $3 an hour, don’t take vacations and don’t ask for a raise.

And the human servers are happy, Gazitua says. Not having to go back and forth to the kitchen all day allows them to serve nearly twice the number of tables, and they get more tips, he said.

Asked how many waiters will lose their jobs to the robots once his restaurants are fully staffed, Gazitua estimated it’s likely to be about 20 percent. But the upside — in addition to allowing waiters to make more money — is that the robots are taking over many of the tasks that waiters hate to do, including pretending to enjoy singing while taking birthday cakes to the tables.

“One of the things in the industry that waiters don’t want to do is to sing “Happy Birthday,” Gazitua told me. “The robots are doing that now, and everybody is happy.”

Pretty soon, growing numbers of restaurants also will be using robots to clean the bathrooms. “It’s just a matter of time,” Gazitua said.

The same phenomenon is happening in virtually all other industries. This week, Oregon State University robotics engineers announced they created a two-legged robot that can run faster than most of its competitors and will be able to deliver pizzas or other packages.

Ford and Lyft announced in recent days that they will begin testing 1,000 self-driving taxis — “robotaxis” — in Miami and Austin this winter. While these trials have been going on for years in many cities, it used to be a rarity to see a self-driving car on the street. Now, it will become the new normal.

If you wonder whether your job will be threatened, the short answer is, if your job is repetitive and predictable, probably yes. As one futurologist told me when I was writing my recent book on automation, “If your job can be easily explained, chances are that it will be automated.”

While Japan’s basketball-shooting robot was fun to watch, pay more attention to the more practical robots that are starting to pop up everywhere. This pandemic will speed up their use everywhere and affect a growing numbers of jobs — for good and for bad.

Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” TV show on Sundays at 8 pm E.T. on CNN en Español. Twitter: @oppenheimera