Meet R1: The World’s Coolest Kitchen Helper
Picture this- You’re really hungry and decide that you want to eat shrimp for lunch, so you call up your AI-powered robot who’s got a chef hat on. But now it’s 3 hours later and you’re still hungry, because your chef has just picked up the pan. Welcome to 2025, where the robot resolution has finally arrived, but it’s taking forever.
China’s Ant Group recently showed off their brand new buddy the R1 robot. And do you want know how it’s claiming its fame? By cooking shrimp at a pace slower than your grandpa’s stroll.
The Great Shrimp Incident of 2025
Here’s what happened- at a fancy tech show in Berlin, R1 decided to blow everyone’s mind by…..you guessed it, by cooking shrimp! The crowd probably went wild. I’m saying probably assuming they did not fall asleep or get distracted when the robot was taking its own sweet time to do something. I’m not exaggerating, there’s a video of R1 putting a box on a counter, and I’m pretty sure I aged three years just watching it happen. I mean take a look for yourself.
Robot Dreams vs. Robot Reality
The company behind the AI-powered robot Robbyant R1, have big goals planned. They want want this robot to be your:
- Personal chef (if you don’t mind eating dinner at midnight)
- Healthcare buddy (perfect for really, really relaxed therapy)
- Tour guide (great for people who have literally all day to see one building)
But right now, they are testing R1 only in restaurants and in community centers. You know how I imagine the yelp reviews would be? Something like this- “Food was great! Only took 6 hours to get served. Don’t forget to get a book next time.”
Meanwhile, in Texasā¦
While R1 is busy trying to cook and get things done…. there’s another robot in Texas, who’s hilarious and is winning people’s hearts. Meet Jake the Rizzbot, he’s a 3-feet-tall robot, who’s the coolest kid in the area. He dances to Lady Gaga, speaks like a Genz influencer and mostly has more swag than you do. The funniest part is that he wears a Cowboy hat, wears diamonds on his wrist and neck. And you have to listen to him laugh lol. While R1 is working on bringing seafood to your plates, Jake is living his best life while having the greatest social media presence.
The Big Robot Race
No one wants to stay behind, so almost everyone’s making robots now. Tesla’s doing it, Boston Dynamics is doing it, and now companies that make payment apps are doing it too. But they are so slow that when they try to move, it looks like they are stuck in honey. Don’t worry, you won’t be getting the robot chef anytime soon. The company hasn’t disclosed anything about when its going to be available for the public or how much it’s going to cost.
Wrapping It Up
The truth is that robotics has been stuck in slow motion for over decades now, but now with the help of AI, maybe just maybe this might speed up the process. In a world full of flashy tech that’s so fast paced, that it gets hard to catch up, there’s something so refreshing about a robot that is honest about it’s limitations. I know I have cracked so many jokes about it being so slow, but jokes apart companies like Ant Group and Tesla are betting big on humanoids. And no, it’s not just to impress you with its shrimp making capabilities, it’s for taking up something bigger. To do jobs that’ll make your life much easier, it might take time to actually get there, but they are already on the path.
R1’s shrimp making capabilities might look like a party trick more than a productivity revolution right now. But hey, every tech revolution needs to start somewhere. I mean look at where we are right now- iPhone 17? The features are crazy. Would you have thought we would have all of this when iPhone 3 got released? No right, similarly right now maybe it’s a robot making shrimps at the slowest pace, tomorrow it might be getting Michelin stars.
