超市机器人因失职被解雇 店员依依惜别
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.
担心机器人会抢走人类饭碗也许为时过早.英国首个机器人店员日前被解雇了,因为在这之前的一周内,它把顾客们搞得晕头转向.
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'.
在赫瑞瓦特大学为BBC的《六个机器人和美国》节目开展的一项实验中,科学家请求苏格兰连锁超市Margiotta试用"机器人店员",这个机器人还有一个亲切的名字叫法比奥.
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.
法比奥的程序指令就是为该公司的爱?て旖⒌甑氖偌唐分该鞣较?并用"你好,美人"这样的招呼、调皮的举手击掌、开玩笑和拥抱来给顾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.
和父亲弗兰科、妹妹路易莎一起经营这家连锁店的埃琳娜•马吉奥塔说："我们原以为机器人有助于向顾客展示我们一直想尝试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.
但是才过了几天,机器人就因为提供毫无帮助的建议而被降职,顾客问它哪里可以找到啤酒,它回答说"在酒水区".而且由于周围的背景噪音,它难以听懂顾客的需求.
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.
于是法比奥被放逐到商店的一个过道中,在那里它只被允许为顾客提供手撕猪肉的试吃样品,但是法比奥似乎吓到了顾客,为了不遇到法比奥,顾客们开始绕道而行.
While human staff managed to tempt 12 customers to try the meat every 15 minutes, Fabio only managed to two.
做同样推销工作的人类职员每过15分钟就能吸引12名顾客来试吃猪肉,而法比奥只能吸引两名顾客.
Luisa Margiotta, soon realized the robot was actually putting off shoppers.
路易莎很快意识到机器人实际正在吓走顾客.
"Unfortunately Fabio didn't perform as well as we had hoped," she said. "People seemed to be actually avoiding him. "
"不幸的是,法比奥的表现不像我们希望的那么好,"她说,"人们似乎都在躲着它."
"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.
"交谈并不总是行得通.我们存在的一个问题是机器人的行动受到限制.它不能在商店各处行走,引导顾客找到他们想要的商品."
