Wheeling its way between dining booths at a neon-lit restaurant in Pakistan’s Karachi megacity, a robot waitress drops off a fresh pizza to an awaiting family.
They have spherical white heads and dark visors, similar to a motorcycle helmet, and sport black shawls around their neck in the style of a dupatta worn by women in the region. Aziz, who also established The Sicilian restaurant, developed the machines using mostly locally manufactured parts, designing their circuit boards and programming them in his own lab. In China and other East Asian countries especially, robots are an increasingly common sight, shuttling food to customers in chain restaurants and taking on other jobs from cleaning to greeting hotel guests. But they remain a novelty in Pakistan, where Aziz’s home-grown creations are attracting curious diners. When they arrive at a table, the customers must either take the food off their serving tray themselves or wait for a human member of staff to assist them. For now, the robots are proving a hit with families, who flock to the restaurant to watch the machines in action.
“The best thing about it is that it introduces itself,” excited customer Ahmer Zameer told AFP, explaining the robot also “tells you what things you can order”.
