I would give it 15 to 20 years. Once you get economies of scale acting to produce standardized bots powered by advanced AI with vision systems, the price will take care of itself. There will be some company out there that will pioneer the standard model of bot chef, standard model of bot waiter, etc. Even Tesla is working on bots to interact with humans.

It will be the same as self checkout is today. You will have the one or two people that are around to manage issues like that while there exists a plethora of self-checkout lanes. Having to pay one person versus seven is still a lot of savings.

That's actually really a funny example that you gave. It was labor unions that were complaining for better wages which ultimately resulted in the automats having to raise the price of their items, particularly coffee, to accommodate the salaries of the workers. This is what led to the beginning of the downfall of the automat. By the 1960s, they we're considered old and out of date. There were faster options like take out and drive through, while in the early 1900's, Automats were really only competing with full-service, more expensive restaurants. What I am suggesting is the same thing will happen for the same reasons, which will lead to the growth and societal adoption of bot usage. Automats lost out because the food became more expensive, and there were other options to get other food, more quickly. Like then, industry now will pivot. Bot workers will allow the food to be cheaper to the customer, perhaps made more quickly, while offering a more reliable service.

Maybe for now, but the children who grow up with VR headsets strapped to their faces will not bat an eye at interacting with bots in the next 15-20 years. Things 20-30 years ago people would have called you crazy for are all too commonplace now. People routinely get in a strangers car (Uber) or have a stranger in an unmarked car deliver food to them (UberEats) which was ordered via an app with zero human interaction. Cars have "self-drive" abilities. This is all deemed acceptable by society now. Gen Z is already way more into phones and social media than Millennials. The tech evolution just seems to be the natural progression of humanity.

I really feel it isn't that far away. Imagine restaurants replacing chefs and waiters with bots, and the restaurants telling their paying customers that there is no need to tip. The novelty, cost savings, and reliablity to customer will translate directly to customer satisfaction. I could see really premium restaurants having human waiters etc., but those would have exorbitant prices anyway.

The store you are referring to does not seem to be the norm of any major store I have seen. Take Wal-Mart for example. There are more self-checkouts than manned registers, and there is no "self checkout" discount given to those who use it. Oftentimes, there will be a long line waiting to use the self checkouts. I imagine it will not be long now for a similar practice to arise with fast food checkouts. I can see normal restaurants using Boston Dynamics caliber "Spots" to bring out your food and/or utensils drinks etc. With companies paying top dollar for burger flippers, cashier's, etc, at some point it no longer makes sense to have that recurring expense. The dawn of the AI powered robot is on the horizon, and it will be life as normal for up and coming generations to interact with them like self-checkouts are to us now.

I would wager the amount of ppl using self-checkout completely dwarfs the amount of ppl abandoning self-checkouts.

The self-checkout may beg to differ.