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Robot Clerks Become A Reality In China

Shenzhen's DEXFORCE offers wheeled humanoid robots for instant retail services. These robots can operate equipment to retrieve food, heat meals in a microwave, and autonomously restock shelves.

In his 1953 story "Caves of Steel", science fiction writer Isaac Asimov described robot clerks in a shoe store:

"He looked at the clerks. They were Earthmade. and even on that scale, relatively inexpensive models.
They were just robots made to know such simple things as all the style numbers, their prices, the sizes available in each. They could keep track of inventory better than humans could since they would have no outside interests. They could compute the proper orders for the next week. They could measure the customer’s foot..."

[However, the human customers did not react well...]

"One of the women said shrilly, “I came in for shoes. Why can’t I have a human clerk? Ain’t I respectable?”
The manager said. “I’ll wait on her myself if I have to, but I can’t wait on all of them, Officer. There’s nothing wrong with my men. They’re registered clerks. I have their 'spec charts and guarantee slips — ”
“Spec charts!” screamed the woman, turning to the rest. “He calls them men! They ain’t men. They’re ro — bots!”
“Let’s not have any trouble, lady. The clerks aren’t doing you any harm.
“Sure they ain’t done me no harm, snapped the woman. “They ain’t gonna, either. Think I’ll let their cold, greasy fingers touch me? I came in here expecting to get treated like a human being. I got a right to have human beings wait on me... [Thanks to R. Daneel Olivawa robot skilled in police work, the crowd disperses. "The manager of the store was cooling down, adjusting his twisted jacket, smoothing his hair, muttering angry threats at the vanishing crowd. One of the robot clerks advanced on the cowering woman with the hat and removed a shoe deftly.
The robot’s eye regarded it dispassionately for half a moment, then called out. “Size 6^-C, last 14-X Alcove D-second shelf.” A second clerk was already on the way to the indicated section."

Science fiction fans know that Philip K. Dick had his own ideas about sales robots, as he describes in his 1954 story "Sales Pitch": "Robot-salesmen were everywhere, gesturing, pleading, shrilling."

I should also mention that the first use of the term "robot clerks" AFAIK is in Miriam Allen deFord's 1952 short story "Throwback": "The robot clerk in the waiting-room checked her number..."

(Throwback by Miriam Allen deFord)

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