At the receiving end of a robotic world

THE month of December is typically characterised by holidays, too much eating and generally a funfilled time before the start of a new year. Yet it was also a grim reminder that we are moving inexorably into a human-less world.

A wedding in Hong Kong saw our family headed there and it was decided to get an ang pow for the married couple. It'd seem no fuss to buy a gift cheque from a bank, in this case from HSBC. What was surprising was that HSBC only sold gift cheques in denominations of HK$3,000 , so a customer could not request for HK$5,000, for instance. But one could increase the amount by buying two HK$3,000 cheques.

Presumably the bank has already printed stacks of these gift cheques in HK$3,000 denomination and any other amount would require human intervention which would be too costly.