The Henn-na Hotel: A Robot Staffed Hotel in Japan
I love robots, so the idea of a hotel staffed by robots sounds like ten kinds of awesome.
And then I remember what kind of robots we’re talking about. These are like Disneyland Robots who give automated speeches. They don’t look at me, recognize the RFID tag on my hotel key and say, “Hello, Laura! How are you today?” They tell me where to go if I want to find the swimming pool.
The Luxor hotel had this back in 1993.
These camels bragged about the hotel and all the fun things to do there. I’m sure the dinosaur and woman in the pill box hat do the same thing. At least Henn-na has robots deliver food to you.
Of course, they keep getting stopped for photo ops, so I think I’d just prefer to get my food myself.
In the end, I think robots are cool and every step toward their development is a step in the right direction. I just wish I was to that House of the Future time when the robots were actually helpful and interactive.