It is worth pointing out that the traditional problem of robots is control -- if just once, some bucket is 1mm off target, some robot arm which grabs it will gr

It is worth pointing out that the traditional problem of robots is control -- if just once, some bucket is 1mm off target, some robot arm which grabs it will grab it off-center and torque it, and when it drops it will spill, which ruins some nearby work area and requires the process to be shut down and manually corrected. That's the failure mode: error propagation. Inability to anticipate load is a problem here, but it's not as dire as you're claiming -- the worst is that someone waits for a while longer, and this only applies if you don't have humans manning the registers -- after all, humans can indeed issue an order to a robot of "give me a dozen macs now!"; that is an order which robots can accept. I'm much more concerned with the fact that a totally-automated burger joint might not notice a hole in the wall forming due to water damage, or a rat making its way in through the aforementioned hole in the wall, following the smells of delicious burgers.