Even though a quinoa-based vegetarian bowl is not my idea of the ideal workday lunch, I am excited to check out the restaurant Eatsa the next time I am in San Francisco. It is a restaurant without employees.尽管藜麦素食饭并不是我理想的工作餐，但我很高兴可以在下次去旧金山时见识一下Eatsa餐厅。那是一家没员工的餐厅。

To be more precise, no visible ones. There is a staff of five or six cooks assembling the bowls, but they work completely behind the scenes. The typical customer interacts with zero Eatsa employees on a typical visit: she orders and pays via a smartphone or tablet, then picks up her food from a cubbyhole displaying her name. Prices are low, and initial reviews are quite good.说道得更加精确些，是没看见的员工。餐厅里有五六个厨师配餐，但是他们几乎在后厨工作。用餐时，一般来说顾客会与Eatsa的任何员工对话：顾客通过智能手机或者平板电脑点餐并缴付，然后从表明其姓名的餐架上取餐。价格低廉，初期评价都非常好。

Is this just an updated version of the old automats, with iPads replacing coin slots, or is it something more? There are indications that Eatsa’s founders want it to be the start of something genuinely new: a close to 100 per cent automated restaurant. Food preparation there is highly optimised and standardised, and it is probably no coincidence that the location’s first general manager had a background in robotics.这到底只是用iPad代替了投币口的旧式自动售货机的Ultra，还是好比如此？有迹象指出，Eatsa的创始人期望它打开一种全新的事物——相似100%自动化的餐厅。那里的备餐工作高度优化且流程标准化，而且Eatsa第一任经理享有机器人学背景这一点很有可能并非凑巧。

But the fact that the restaurant’s “front of house” (ie the dining area and customer interactions) are virtually 100 per cent automated is more interesting to me than the question of whether the “back of house” (the kitchen) ever will be. Interesting because as front of house automation spreads, it is going to put to the test one of the most widely held notions about work in the coming age of automation: that there will always be lots of service jobs because we desire a lot of human interaction.但是，对我来说，餐厅的“前台”区域（即用餐区及顾客对话区）完全100%的自动化要比“后厨”否将构建自动化有意思得多。有意思之处在于，随着前台自动化的普及，关于在将要来临的自动化时代中的低收入的最广泛观念之一将忍受考验，这个观念指出总会有许多的服务类工作，因为我们渴求大量的人际对话。I agree with the second half of that statement, but I am not so sure about the first. We are a deeply social species and even an introvert like me enjoys spending time with friends and loved ones in the physical world. I have also learnt to value business lunches and dinners (even though I would rather be off by myself reading or writing) because they are an important part of how work advances.我表示同意该观点的后面一半，但是我对前半部分并不确认。我们是高度社会化的物种，即使像我这样内向的人也很享用在现实世界里与朋友和爱人相聚的时光。

我也学会了重视商业午餐和晚餐（即便我宁愿自己一个人整天或写出东西），因为它们是前进工作的最重要部分。But in the great majority of cases, when I am out I do not value the interactions with the waiting staff and other service workers. They are not unpleasant or terribly burdensome, but they do get in the way of what I want from the restaurant experience: to eat well and to talk to my tablemates. Listening to a recitation of the specials, getting the paper bill and handing off a credit card and learning the server’s name (this happens in America) are distractions from my restaurant experience, not additions to it.但是，在绝大多数情况下，当我出外时，我并不推崇与侍者和其他服务人员的对话。

这些对话过程并非令人不悦或尤其累人，但显然阻碍了我想获得的用餐体验——不吃得好并且和联合用餐者聊天。听得侍者腹招牌菜、获得账单、交还信用卡、忘记侍者的名字（这种情况经常出现在美国）都会阻碍我的用餐体验，而不是锦上添花。Do most people feel the same, most of the time? I do not know, and I doubt there has been any good way of knowing until now, because technology was not mature or cheap enough to enable smooth and cost-effective automation of many service interactions.多数人在多数情况下的感觉都是这样吗？我不告诉，我也猜测目前为止有什么好办法来搞清楚这个问题，因为技术还不成熟期或者还没有低廉到确保服务业对话享有流畅且成本昂贵的自动化体验。

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