I have spent a lot of time thinking about waitstaff/ customer interaction at restaurants as I neither like cooking or being disappointed by my food. I just don'

I have spent a lot of time thinking about waitstaff/ customer interaction at restaurants as I neither like cooking or being disappointed by my food. I just don't see this as something that will appeal to a lot of people. There are too many cases where it falls down. For example, my girlfriend will ask almost every server their opinion of two items on the menu. She doesn't always choose the one that they recommend, but feels it to be useful input in her decisions. Another time when the waitstaff are extemely useful are for people with alergies, or lactose intolarance. Yes the second case can be solved by lists of ingredients, or icons indicating what each meal is free of (lactose free, soy free, gluten free, peanut free, etc...) all of which would be provided by the computer interface. But is that really what I'm looking for when I go out to eat? No. I like being able to ask, "Does this have cheese in it?" or "Do you like A better than X" and getting a yes or no answer. I believe we will see a restuarant that is McDonalds meets RedBox in the near future. However, until there are serious advancements in language processing so that I can ask questions about the food I am about order (and pay atleast 200% mark up on) I don't expect many resturants to be shedding their waitstaff in favor of customer opperated touch screen devices.