by LAS VEGAS (AP) – The barista poured the jug of smooth foamed milk over the latte, pouring slowly at first, then lifting and tilting the jug like a choreographed dance to paint tulip petals.
Latte art is a skill that can take months or years of practice to master – but not for this artificial intelligence-powered barista.
Robots of all kinds caused a stir on the show floor this week at the annual CES technology trade show in Las Vegas.
It’s innovations like these that worry Roman Alejo, a 34-year-old barista at the Sahara hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip, who can’t help but wonder if the clock is ticking on hospitality jobs in the age of AI.
“It’s really scary because tomorrow is never promised,” he said. “A lot of AI is coming into this world. It’s scary and very eye-opening to see how people can think of replacing other people.”
The world’s biggest tech show thrust those concerns back into the spotlight just over a month after the Las Vegas casino workers union secured new contracts for 40,000 members, ending a bitter high-profile fight that pointed out the AI threat to union jobs. .
“Technology was a strike issue and one of the last issues to be resolved,” said Ted Papppageorge, secretary of the Culinary Workers Union who led the teams that negotiated new five-year contracts, preventing historic strike more than once. a dozen hotel-casinos on the Strip.
Hospitality workers told The Associated Press in interviews over eight months of bargaining that they were willing to take a pay cut while striking for stronger job protections against inevitable advances in technology. That includes technology already in place at some resorts: self-check-in stations, automated valet ticket services and robotic bartenders known as “tipsy robots.”
Pappageorge said the emergence of robotics in the hospitality and service industry has been on the union’s radar for years. The difference now, he told the Associated Press this week, is “the combination of artificial intelligence and robotics.”
Experts say advances in AI technology have forced labor unions to rethink how they negotiate with companies.
Bill Werner, an associate professor in the hospitality department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said unions now need to be “much more intentional” in their negotiations regarding job security.
The types of casino union jobs at risk could look very different five years from now, for example, when the Culinary Union contract expires.
“What will happen to these people and what are their rights?” he said. “And what will happen to them if they lose their job to a robot?”
In its latest contract, the union relaxed its so-called safety net for workers, winning $2,000 in severance pay for every year worked if a job is eliminated through technology or AI, as well as the option to try make a move to another department within it. the body.
Papporge said they had to “develop a new language” that protected workers from today’s technology and “technology that we don’t even know is coming.”
“This idea of technology, robotics and artificial intelligence running wild without any control can do incredible damage,” Pappageorge said. “So what we’ve got to do is get ahead of the curve, and CES is where it’s at.”
More than 100 union members attended the trade show this week to discover an emerging technology that could put more casino jobs at risk.
And there was a lot new on the show floor: friendly robots that complete deliveries in hotels and restaurants. Robotic masseuse. Robots that can prepare and serve coffee, ice cream or boba. An AI-powered smart grill that can handle tasks like broiling and searing unattended in the kitchen. And chef-like robots are teasing a future with “autonomous restaurants,” as one company put it.
Meng Wang, co-founder of food startup Artly Coffee, one of more than 4,000 exhibitors at CES this year, said he’s not in the process of eliminating jobs. Wang said Artly’s autonomous barista robots can help fill labor shortages in the service industry.
“Baristas have a hard job. It is very labor intensive, long hours. The pay is not that good,” he said. “What we are doing is not replacing jobs. We are filling a need in the market and we are bringing specialty coffee to more places.”
But Werner said AI poses a major threat to casino union jobs that don’t require face-to-face interaction with customers — housekeepers, food prep and cooks, for example.
“When the industry doesn’t have to worry about the effect on customer service, then that takes a lot of the risk out of automation,” he said. That’s especially true for a popular tourist destination like the Las Vegas Strip, where customers expect top-notch service and experiences, including the latest trends in technology.
That makes Las Vegas “a good place to test these things and see how customers react to it,” he said.
The Culinary Union and its members, like Alejo, the barista, acknowledge that the hospitality industry is constantly changing.
“The innovations are incredible,” Alejo said. “But it’s really scary in today’s world that everything seems to be changing around technology.”
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Video producer James Brooks contributed to this report.
