超市機器人因失職被解雇 店員依依惜別
Fabio the robot sacked from supermarket after alarming customers
Fears that robots could take the jobs of humans may be premature after Britain's first cyborg shop assistant was sacked after a week of confusing customers.
擔心機器人會搶走人類飯碗也許為時過早.英國首個機器人店員日前被解雇了,因為在這之前的一周內,它把顧客們搞得暈頭轉向.
In an experiment run by Heriot-Watt University for the BBC's Six Robots & US, Scottish supermarket chain Margiotta was asked to trial 'ShopBot', who they affectionately named 'Fabio'.
在赫瑞瓦特大學為BBC的《六個機器人和美國》節目開展的一項實驗中,科學家請求蘇格蘭連鎖超市Margiotta試用"機器人店員",這個機器人還有一個親切的名字叫法比奧.
Fabio was programmed with directions to hundreds of items in the company's flagship Edinburgh store and initially charmed customers with his 'hello gorgeous' greeting, playful high fives, jokes and offers of hugs.
法比奧的程序指令就是為該公司的愛?て旖⒌甑氖偌唐分該鞣較?并用"你好,美人"這樣的招呼、調皮的舉手擊掌、開玩笑和擁抱來給顧客留下美好的第一印象.
"We thought a robot was a great addition to show the customers that we are always wanting to do something new and exciting," said Elena Margiotta, who runs the chain of shops with father Franco and sister Luisa.
和父親弗蘭科、妹妹路易莎一起經營這家連鎖店的埃琳娜•馬吉奧塔說："我們原以為機器人有助于向顧客展示我們一直想嘗試一些新奇刺激的事情."
But within just a few days, the robot was demoted after giving unhelpful advice such as 'it's in the alcohol section' when asked where to find beer. He also struggled to understand shoppers' requests because of the ambient background noise.
但是才過了幾天,機器人就因為提供毫無幫助的建議而被降職,顧客問它哪里可以找到啤酒,它回答說"在酒水區".而且由于周圍的背景噪音,它難以聽懂顧客的需求.
Banished to an aisle where he was only allowed to offer samples of pulled pork, Fabio started to alarm customers who went out of their way to avoid him.
于是法比奧被放逐到商店的一個過道中,在那里它只被允許為顧客提供手撕豬肉的試吃樣品,但是法比奧似乎嚇到了顧客,為了不遇到法比奧,顧客們開始繞道而行.
While human staff managed to tempt 12 customers to try the meat every 15 minutes, Fabio only managed to two.
做同樣推銷工作的人類職員每過15分鐘就能吸引12名顧客來試吃豬肉,而法比奧只能吸引兩名顧客.
Luisa Margiotta, soon realized the robot was actually putting off shoppers.
路易莎很快意識到機器人實際正在嚇走顧客.
"Unfortunately Fabio didn't perform as well as we had hoped," she said. "People seemed to be actually avoiding him. "
"不幸的是,法比奧的表現不像我們希望的那么好,"她說,"人們似乎都在躲著它."
"Conversations didn't always go well. An issue we had was the movement limitations of the robot. It was not able to move around the shop and direct customers to the items they were looking for.
"交談并不總是行得通.我們存在的一個問題是機器人的行動受到限制.它不能在商店各處行走,引導顧客找到他們想要的商品."
