Store fires robot server Fabio for pushing shoppers’ buttons

At first Fabio the ShopBot charmed shoppers at the Edinburgh store with cheerful greetings and high fives . . . but within days he was scaring them
At first Fabio the ShopBot charmed shoppers at the Edinburgh store with cheerful greetings and high fives . . . but within days he was scaring them

The first robotic assistant to be employed by a shop has been fired after irritating customers and scaring away business with his overzealous handing out of meat samples.

At first he charmed shoppers with cheerful greetings and high fives, but within days Fabio the ShopBot, developed by scientists at Heriot-Watt University, was demoted as customers were seen to avoid him.

The experiment, filmed at the flagship branch of the high-end supermarket chain Margiotta in Edinburgh, for BBC Six Robots and Us, may help allay fears that artificial intelligence is set to replace humans in the service industry.

The robot was programmed with directions to hundreds of items in the store and initially won customers over with high-fives, jokes, hugs and greeting such as “hello