---
title: "Finally, a Smart Robot That Can Cook and Serve Us Hot Dogs"
description: "Engineers taught an artificially intelligent robot to cook and serve hot dogs by training it in a virtual setting and then an actual grill."
date: "2019-12-19"
modified: "2019-12-19"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/robot-hot-dogs-cook-serve"
categories:
  - "Robot Dogs"
  - "Robotics"
  - "Robots and Machines"
tags:
  - "ai"
  - "food"
  - "robots"
  - "the digest"
---

# Finally, a Smart Robot That Can Cook and Serve Us Hot Dogs

![Engineers taught an artificially intelligent robot to cook and serve hot dogs by training it in a virtual setting and then an actual grill.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/smart-robot-cook-serve-hot-dogs.jpg>)
*Zachary Serlin via YouTube \<em\>Image: Zachary Serlin via YouTube\</em\>*

## GrillBot

At long last, robots have conquered one of the last bastions of human dominance: the grill.

After training an artificial intelligence in a virtual reconstruction of a grill, Boston University engineers built a robot that can successfully cook and serve perfectly acceptable hot dogs to its human masters, *[Inverse ](<https://www.inverse.com/article/61754-robot-hot-dogs-fast-food>)*[reports](<https://www.inverse.com/article/61754-robot-hot-dogs-fast-food>).

While it sounds like a minor triumph, the process of cooking and preparing food involves [background knowledge](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mit-pizza-ai>) that humans take for granted but that has, until now, consistently tripped up AI systems.

## Entry Level

The engineers found that the robot was able to reach the rank of grill master when they trained it using a process called reinforcement learning, [according to research](<https://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/4/37/eaay6276>) published Wednesday in the journal *Science Robotics*. Compared to the other kinds of AI they tried, reinforcement learning was by far the best method for the chef-in-training.

Reinforcement learning is an [AI architecture](<https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence-hype>) that basically incentivizes a system to gradually learn a new skill by coding it to perceive success as intrinsically rewarding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43y9Qpu7pPg

## The Basics

When it came to cooking a hot dog, "success" included learning things like the correct order of actions — cook the meat and *then* place it in a bun — as well as things people see as common knowledge, such as the fact that gravity remains a constant threat.

"You have to define things beforehand," BU engineer Zahcary Serlin told *Inverse*. "As long as I know what you mean by 'grill' when you say 'grill,' then I can learn to do the thing that has 'grill' in it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvTxLfR3GsM

**READ MORE:** [This 'self-aware' robot can cook and serve hot dogs](<https://www.inverse.com/article/61754-robot-hot-dogs-fast-food>) \[*Inverse*\]

**More on training robots:** *[Hellishly Hard New Game Is Specifically Designed to Confound AI](<https://futurism.com/unity-video-game-ai>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)