Is Las Vegas ready for robotic housekeepers, concierges, and security guards?

Robotics company RobotLAB recently opened a new warehouse and showroom in Las Vegas, offering its four-foot-tall artificial creations to the city’s casinos, resorts, and restaurants. According to the Dallas-based company, robots can clean hotel rooms, serve cocktails, provide security services, and provide information and directions. Not only that, the ‘bots can also sing, dance, and give fist bumps.

“Robots bring automation to repetitive tasks — like serving food, cleaning, and more,” RobotLAB Las Vegas partner Ketan Vaidya tells Mashable. “Instead of workers doing low-quality, destructive work, robots can do it, so workers can focus on providing excellent service to their customers.”

While some Vegas visitors may balk at the idea of ​​robotic house managers and artificial concierges, innovation and potential cost savings could reduce the unmanned sting — and robots in Vegas aren’t new, as artificial bartenders have been operating in the city for years. . What’s more difficult for RobotLAB, and similar companies hoping to make a move into the service industry, is how human workers are already doing what they say is “low-value” work that will greet a potential robot replacement.

In Las Vegas, UNITE HERE Culinary Workers Union Local 226 has been waiting for companies like RobotLAB to set up shop and demanded “new technical language” in their contracts with major Strip casinos.

“The Culinary Union negotiated a strong contract in 2018 to win new technology language that protects workers when the company brings in new technology and has been used to negotiate software, equipment and automation,” Bethany Khan, spokeswoman and communications director. & digital strategy for UNITE HERE, he tells Mashable. “In 2023, those rights are protected and expanded.”

The latest contract ensures advanced notice when new technology is introduced that may affect jobs and increases in pay for recognition of service, expanded health care, and pension fund contributions for workers laid off due to technological changes, according to Khan. RobotLAB has not publicly entered into a deal with the Strip’s landmark property, but Vaidya says they are “in talks with several casinos.” As Khan points out, all the major resorts on the Strip — like Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand, and the Bellagio — are integrated, which means RobotLAB should meet UNITE HERE representatives for demos and discussions before the automatons take over your luggage. or pass your bed.

Currently, RobotLAB is finding success in Vegas with restaurant chains like Kura Revolving Sushi Bar and Sourdough & Co., which use the company’s delivery and serving robots. Small businesses can enter RobotLAB’s robots through their rental options, which Vaidya says run between $20-40 per day. As for the purchase price, Vaidya says “costs vary depending on the solution” but KLAS reported that robots can cost “as much as a new car.”

RobotLAB Las Vegas General Manager Jacob Fisher believes the products will create and replace human jobs, telling KLAS, “There will always be someone needed to maintain and operate robots. So we will have robot conductors. ”

Fisher’s answer is probably cold comfort to many UNITE HERE members, but the union has found language in their 2018 contract guaranteeing that unionized casino resorts offer “free mandatory retraining to use new technologies in current operations” and “access to mandatory free work”. training when there are new jobs that are created due to machines and technology,” said Khan.