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These Robots Are Making Meals for a Nonprofit in San Francisco’s Tenderloin
Key takeaways
- Project Open Hand, a nonprofit founded in 1985 by local grandmother and HIV-awareness advocate Ruth Brinker, prepares and packages meals to meet the diverse nutritional requirements of people who need them.
- But it takes many people to make these meals, and Project Open Hand has struggled to entice volunteers to help fill the meal kits.
- The process of putting together medically tailored meal boxes can get complicated.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Courtesy of Chef Robotics Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story. These potato-salad-slinging AI chefs aren't taking anyone's jobs. Not yet, anyway. They’re just here as volunteers.
Project Open Hand, a nonprofit founded in 1985 by local grandmother and HIV-awareness advocate Ruth Brinker, prepares and packages meals to meet the diverse nutritional requirements of people who need them. The effort began in response to the AIDS crisis, but the nonprofit has since expanded the meals it makes for people with conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease.
But it takes many people to make these meals, and Project Open Hand has struggled to entice volunteers to help fill the meal kits. The organization is housed in a four-story building in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. During peak hours, the place feels like a big operation, usually bustling with people. Some of them are there in need of the free meals, some are staff and volunteers there to make the food and keep the place running.