Soon, when restaurant-goers hear “May I take your order?” those words may be coming from a robot.

Some restaurants have started experimenting with human-like robots instead of human cashiers, allowing consumers to pay for their meals without interacting with another person. Although many restaurants have allowed digital ordering, either online, by kiosk or on tablets at the table, the practice of using humanoid, or human-like robots, is still in its earliest stages, and it’s primarily happening in Asia so far. Experts say the robots could benefit restaurants and lead to wider adoption — if diners aren’t too freaked out by them.

Pizza Hut YUM, -1.70% is the latest company to try a robot cashier, in a partnership with robotics company SoftBank Robotics and MasterCard MA, -1.22% , which has created the payment app. The application works only with MasterCard’s MasterPass, a digital wallet that allows payment by MasterCard cards, as well as credit, debit or prepaid cards from Maestro, American Express AXP, -1.16% , Diner’s Club, Discover DFS, -0.85% and Visa V, -1.29% .

SoftBank’s robot is named Pepper. It has a face and can even respond to human customers with some emotional intelligence, said John Sheldon, the senior vice president of innovation management at MasterCard Labs. For example, if a customer seems more tentative to interact with a robot, Pepper will be more reserved, whereas if a customer is more energetic, Pepper will be, too, Sheldon said. It looks like an alien, with eyes and a touchscreen on its chest, and it’s the size of a small child.

Pizza Hut will only use a few robots at several Asia-based restaurants, starting later in 2016. (MasterCard declined to give an exact date and said the companies are still deciding on which specific locations will feature Pepper.) They won’t replace human servers, but will provide an additional option for diners to pay, Sheldon said. The robot doesn’t deliver food to the table; a human server still has that job.

Pepper also won’t prompt diners to tip, a MasterCard spokeswoman said, although the payment app could be customized to make tipping an option.

Restaurants are turning to robots and other forms of automation at a time when a higher minimum wage makes labor more expensive; having fewer workers could be more cost-effective, said Bonnie Riggs, a restaurant industry analyst at market-research firm NPD Group. Streamlining labor costs is important in food service, an industry with thin profit margins, said Christin Fernandez, a spokeswoman for the National Restaurant Association, an industry trade group.

Food service is known to be a popular choice for entry-level jobs, so the thought of using robots instead of humans could be scary for those who rely on serving for income. About 7.5% of people 25 years old or older with less than a high school diploma were unemployed in April 2016, compared with 5.4% of high school graduates and 4.1% of those with some college or an associate’s degree.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that jobs in the food and beverage serving industry will grow 10% in the next decade, as people continue to spend more on dining outside the home, which for some could provide job opportunities. Robots, whether as servers or as part of the food preparation process, could eliminate some of those positions.

A robot could end up being cheaper for restaurants not only as cashiers but in other ways, including food preparation, than human employees, which will likely lead to change in the industry, said former McDonald’s MCD, -1.03% USA Chief Executive Ed Rensi this week during an interview with Fox Business.

“I was at the National Restaurant Show yesterday, and if you look at the robotic devices that are coming into the restaurant industry — it’s cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who’s inefficient making $15 an hour bagging french fries — it’s nonsense, and it’s very destructive, and it’s inflationary, and it’s going to cause a job loss across this country like you’re not going to believe,” he said.

There are some drawbacks in replacing human labor, said Nicole Miller Regan, a restaurant industry analyst at Piper Jaffray. Many chain restaurants are similar in the food they offer, and even what they look like, she said. “The biggest determining factor in a lot of these models is the service.”

Not everyone will likely feel comfortable swapping chatter with a server for paying using a robot. “Going out to dinner, that’s a special treat,” Riggs said. “For some older people or single people, that may be their social interaction, even if it’s just with a server or a bartender.”

Even advanced humanoid robots like Pepper have limitations, said Ross Knepper, an assistant professor at Cornell University who has studied human and robot interaction. They may not be able to talk to consumers in detail about their orders, including dietary restrictions or allergies, he said. That may be frustrating for consumers who are used to Hollywood movie portrayals of robots, which have given people high expectations, he said.

“Wait staff do not need to worry about their jobs being replaced by robots,” he said. Rather, it’s more realistic to think restaurants may use robots who are “more like human assistants than human replacements, at least in the coming decades,” he said.

Still, using a robot server instead of a human one doesn’t make sense in every circumstance. Ordering from a robot makes the most sense for restaurants where orders are simple and recommendations aren’t necessary, said Carli Gernot, the manager of trends in North America for Mintel, a market-research firm. “I see this being most successful in restaurants that are kind of like vending machines brought to life,” she said.

Yet besides being cost effective, there are other benefits to robots. Some robots can switch languages easily and allow consumers to order whatever they want without concern for mispronouncing an item or embarrassment for over-ordering, said Sarah Bergbreiter, the director of the Maryland Robotics Center at the University of Maryland. (A study from researchers at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, the National University of Singapore and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business showed that consumers who ordered pizza online gave more special instruction and ordered higher-calorie meals).

Plus, it may be good that Pizza Hut’s Pepper is short, looks “cute” and not too much like a human; robots that look human and closely mimic human behavior can be scary for consumers to interact with, Bergbreiter said.

Although at first robots may be an interesting marketing gimmick, time will tell whether diners like interacting with them, Gernot said.

“People will come in for that, but whether they’ll return is another story.”