Robots that slice, grill, assemble and bag 400 burgers in one hour could soon take over restaurants everywhere. Momentum Machines first unveiled its autonomous grill master, which can do the work of three human burger flippers, in 2012. Now the robotics company has secured $18 million (£14 million) in venture funding, reigniting old fears that the machines could soon replace human workers in fast-food restaurants. In 2012, Momentum Machines debuted its fully autonomous burger-making robot. Customers will be able to customize their meat with their own specifications, such as asking for their preferred ratio of pork to bison.

As we innovate ourselves away from conventional work and labor, an unlikely question begins to form: How do we feel about free money? First floated by 16th-century philosopher Thomas More as a "cure for theft," basic income is finding new life 500 years later amid concerns over technology edging humans out of the workforce. If advanced machines are taking all the jobs, goes the thinking, then how will people earn money to support themselves? A "universal basic income" in which all citizens receive free money from their government -- a figurative tax break just for being alive -- is a possible solution. With all members of a society guaranteed some degree of income regardless of employment status, the ideology aims to provide people with some kind of economic anchor if they are unable to earn on their own.

It must have seemed like a revolutionary idea to diners of the 1920s -- people on roller skates delivering food straight to their driver's side window. Suddenly, the food that families were used to eating around a dinner table now arrived on trays or in bags, ready to be eaten on the go. Little did they know fast food was on the brink of explosion. Nearly 100 years later, restaurants are on the brink of another massive change: robot automation. The best estimates find that up to 50% of jobs could be automated by the late 2030s, with restaurant workers among the most vulnerable to displacement.

Robots that slice, grill, assemble and bag 400 burgers in one hour are set to invade California. Momentum Machines unveiled its autonomous grill master in 2012 and recently announced it will be opening a robot-powered burger bar in San Francisco's South of Market. Although this machine can do the work of three humans, the startup is still hiring people to perform other tasks such as payroll and taking out the garbage. According to Momentum Machines job posting on Craigslists, the startup plans to open its restaurant at 680 Folsom street in San Francisco California. According to Momentum Machines job posting on Craigslists, the startup plans to open its restaurant at 680 Folsom street in San Francisco California.

A robot-powered burger joint is coming to San Francisco. In 2012, secretive robotics startup Momentum Machines debuted a machine that could crank out 400 made-to-order hamburgers in an hour. It's fully autonomous, meaning the robot can slice toppings, grill a patty, and assemble and bag the burger without any help from humans. Years of relative silence ensued, but in January, Hoodline's Brittany Hopkins learned that the San Francisco-based startup had applied for a building permit to convert a ground-floor retail space in the SoMa neighborhood into a restaurant. Now it looks like the restaurant is actually happening.