Can Robots Debone Chicken? If So, Where Do Humans Stand?

Technology has grown considerably over the past decade. And every time I write a story about robots I allude to the inevitable uprising of the machines. But I swear guys, it’s coming.

Something that researchers have been working on for a good part of the last twenty years is developing a machine that is capable of making the exact cuts needed to extract meat from bone in chickens. If successful, this repetitive task will save tons of money on labor in the industry and replace human workers in poultry plants with machines.

The problem is, according to Gary McMurray, head of a robotics team at the Georgia Institute of Technology, each chicken is different and it takes the intricate balance of hand-to-eye coordination that only a human has along with the ability to gauge the size of a chicken in order to perform the task correctly. These traits have become difficult to synthesize in machines. But have they finally cracked it?

The team does have a prototype they plan to test later this month that they hope will yield successful results. According to McMurray, the machine is equipped with robotic arms that have surgical blades and possesses a three-dimensional imaging system that tells it where the meat, bone, and skin of a chicken is in less than a second.

McMurray tells the Wall Street Journal, they are already demonstrating the machine to different groups and that they are now running tests to see if the robot is making cuts and deboning as quickly and efficiently has a human can. But what will this mean for the human workers in poultry factories? Will thousands of people be out of jobs as quickly as this robot can debone a chicken?

Will you eat a chicken that has been deboned by hundreds of mathematical equations processed in less than a second? What else will machines be able to replace in the upcoming years?

The revolution is coming, guys. Stock up on water.

(via: Wall Street Journal)