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Carl's Jr./Hardee's CEO looking at employee-free restaurants
- Thread starter timetokill
- Start date
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Epsilon-delta
Banned
Can't see how any of this will not be a problem as we get closer to 2030.
Something has got to give, and I'm pessimistic as hell on how society will handle automation.
Something has got to give, and I'm pessimistic as hell on how society will handle automation.
Yea, but we've seen that people will accept an inferior product if it is cheap and convenient.
Carl's Jr is probably hoping to do to the competition what RedBox did to Blockbuster. They can use automation to make really small cheap locations that allow you to order a burger and fries cheap without ever talking to a person. There were more employees in a single blockbuster than it takes to run a a whole city's redbox locations.
Give people the choice between a $4 hamburger ordered from a human and a $2 one from a machine and they'll pick the cheaper one I bet.
Seriously though liberating humans from menial wage labor by collectivizing the means of production and the resultant distribution is the obvious solution but nobody will talk about it in the mainstream because communism is EVIL!!!, so we'll just get hand wringing liberals down the line worried about how to placate the capitalists so they don't get rid of more of the jobs.
not all checkouts are self checkout and you also need humans to man for errors and theft.
Abstruse Moose
Member
I look forward to the automation age. Just about to round the corner. Hope we figure out the whole money thing.
Septimus Prime
Member
Cool. I'll never eat there again.
lastplayed
Member
Different people like different things. Even millenials! Who would've thunk.
Straight Edge
Member
Trader joes and Heinens don't have self checkouts.
Abstrusity
Member
That's not how minimum wage works, chump. Sorry, but it's not even worth explaining it to some people, as they'll just pull out their tired, simplistic "but m-muh supply and demand!" garbage, proceed to use it in the wrong place, while ignoring its use everywhere it'd be applicable, and then sit there, with their smug feelings of superiority, like a kid caught eating crayons.
you're wrong about everything in league but right about this
plain cheeseburgers mmmmm
Razorback
Member
We can fight automation to make sure everyone keeps working indefinitely or we can just let automation take over as quickly and painlessly as possible and implement a basic income system for everyone.
What's actually going to happen is that we're going to drag this out and in the end automation is going to come anyway, and we won't be ready for it and a lot of people are going to suffer.
What's actually going to happen is that we're going to drag this out and in the end automation is going to come anyway, and we won't be ready for it and a lot of people are going to suffer.
This example of incentivising the machine has been shown to work. Offer discounts on using self-checkout or self-serve kiosks as opposed to dealing with another person.
As per the saying you cannot stop progress, the trends and directions we're going are clear. Corporate greed is not the problem whatsoever here, but dying, out of date models of human worth and survival value through labor. We are going to be forced to deal with this, and the proper way is not to be bemoaning Luddites.
Like this is such a big deal.
Christopher
Member
No.
This is why when you overtly tax the corporations and decided that your going to hike up minimum wage for substandard jobs they are going to say screw it lets invest into automation.
Yup
And yup.
The attitude we have about work is just ridiculous and I really hope we can at least change it somewhat before automation really happens. We're going to quickly switch to an economy based on things like entertainment and creativity. The people who can "work" will have very personal skillets that not everyone can or should be able to do, and villainizing those that don't have that sort of talent is disgusting. Some people are more meant to work in these types of jobs, and without those jobs they still need to live.
To some extent, sure, you'd expect that computers and maybe even robots will allow for many existing jobs to be done with less labor. That's just how technology works. Setting a minimum wage above the market wage is going to make this a reasonable business decision a few years before it otherwise would be.
But this is ideological garbage. It is not the case that right now everything is fine but if you raise the minimum wage by $3 suddenly it doesn't make sense to involve humans in the fast food business.
But this is ideological garbage. It is not the case that right now everything is fine but if you raise the minimum wage by $3 suddenly it doesn't make sense to involve humans in the fast food business.
You're a damn fool if you think that's what is causing the automation incentive.
Automation is an ever-decreasing line of costs for their improved productivity. Leaving the minimum wage as it is with no increases would still produce the seesaw problem we're having anyway.
One always goes down while the other tries to climb up. When they equal and the special snowflake humans are superseded by machines, they're dropped like horses for cars.
Christopher
Member
Ok I'm a fool yet it's happening and their citing that's the reason why - but I'm sure you know better.
The employee I talked to who found my order I made with the app.
This was inevitable the minimum raise hike is just an excuse. It is similar to how in 2009 companies let go masses of people because they could even if they didn't have to.
lastplayed
Member
You've never seen your order messed up after leaving drive-thru? It's annoying eh.
Their reason is an acceleration of an inevitability. It does not change the fact that if wages didn't increase, automation would still happen. Assuming otherwise is just childish. Pre-K, even.
It's not like they chose this suddenly. Why is Uber investing in driverless cars as the endgame? Is it that their drivers keep asking more, or is it that they want most efficient model to offer a service? We will be seeing more and more this century when the latter is intended - and in Capitalism, by its very nature, is chased for - more people will be disrupted.
Most of what people are trained to do can, and will, eventually be surpassed with technology. This is a problem when we say one must work for survival value against something that leaves them in the dust. Fast food workers are trapped in this no matter what's done with wages, for the endgame is clear.
What company is going to say, in no uncertain terms, that their goal is to remove human labor for technology as soon as possible and get away with it? They're going to cite trends that cause the faster transition to do so.
A corporation blaming things outside of their own desire for profit for not providing basic living wage standards? They have every right to maximize their profits but automation prices will decline while living wages will only go up.
America can either get in front of this trend or wait until places burn when enough are disenfranchised enough by this inevitable outcome.
And from America's general ideology when it comes to capitalism, change isn't going to come easily.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
Literally any business with an app or website.
Yes, that's the point. What is going on right now is evidence that capitalism cannot provide a life for the lower classes going into the future (not that it does a great job of that today anyway). The capitalist class has no particular interest in providing work for laborers; they only have done so historically because they need bodies to do things for them so that they can reap the benefits. They pay a wage and the worker does what they tell them to do. But we are reaching a point where workers will not longer be needed. This will leave millions of people without jobs, because the capitalists own the means of production and the laborers only own their bodies.
Socialize the means of production so that no one has to work and we get around this entire problem. And I do mean socialize, not nationalize, because we are only going to see this problem increase more and more, and one side - the fascists - are going to take the side of nationalizing the means of production for the good of the favored "nation" while socialism ought to be used for the betterment of all people.
Dr_Boris_Goltz
Banned
Here's what I never understand:
These CEOs talk about turning everything over to automation and complain that it's somebody else's fault (the government) since human employees are too expensive.
But... If there are fewer employees, fewer people making money, then who's buying their food?
Edit: Essentially I'm saying the business needs customers, the customers need money; no jobs means no money... no money means no business.
These CEOs talk about turning everything over to automation and complain that it's somebody else's fault (the government) since human employees are too expensive.
But... If there are fewer employees, fewer people making money, then who's buying their food?
Edit: Essentially I'm saying the business needs customers, the customers need money; no jobs means no money... no money means no business.
ElectricBlanketFire
Member
I will wait to use a kiosk.
Exactly.
If it's cheaper to automate a $10 / hr employee it's probably still cheaper to automate a $7.25 / hr employee too! This dude can't convince me that the margin there between a robot and an underpaid worker is really three fucking dollars.
I mean, Carl's Jr's employees are probably a pretty insignificant share of Carl's Jr's customers, and maybe they even get discounts such that they're not even very profitable customers. So it's not like it's necessarily stupid to employ fewer people. There's maybe a collective action problem here but the government is the instrument we use to address that kind of thing.
In America, you would be more likely to see Jesus rise from the dead, reincarnated as the Devil himself, Ronald Reagan.
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I do.
I pretty much only engage with self-checkouts at grocery stores.
Protecting jobs is good, but I really would prefer not to talk with anyone....
Abstrusity
Member
Everything is certainly not fine. Substandard inflation and substandard growth are hallmarks of a looming, poor response to recession -- which, I mean, this is what happened. Our fiscal policies failed. I say our, because every person that failed to vote in the midterms bears some responsibility for it.
Nobody is actually talking about raising the minimum wage "suddenly" by $3, because hysteresis -- we'll just increase the systemic unemployment numbers (This is why 5%, or soon, 4%, is regarded as 'full employment.') and that would, in fact, have the effect you're talking about.It really doesn't matter where we raise our minimum wage to, as long as it's scaled correctly. If I wanted to raise it to 100, I'm prepared to have it get up to $100/hr in the 2090s at the earliest.
If we want to raise it to $15, we're looking at 2022 at the earliest. If we want it at $10, we can do that in two years, provided we instantly raise wages 75 cents upon its signing.
The important thing to remember is that inflation devalues everything -- capital depreciates, as well as loses value to inflation. Thus, it seems like a good idea to invest in automation right now, but it comes with a severe backlash year over year.
We need wages to keep up with inflation, and growth vis a vis multiplier effect makes up the comparatively small differences in inflation vis a vis increased wages at the bottom of the scale.
VendettaRed07
Member
The only thing stopping this from happening is if its possible or not.
This guy has an agenda blaming minimum wage increases that haven't even happened yet.
If they can do it they'll do it. $8 is still a lot more an hour than 0.
This guy has an agenda blaming minimum wage increases that haven't even happened yet.
If they can do it they'll do it. $8 is still a lot more an hour than 0.
It's already possible to automate cashiering for fast food. One of the problems is so many people insist on using cash!
Dr_Boris_Goltz
Banned
Sorry I should have clarified that I'm thinking more broadly than just Carl's Jr. Wouldn't there be a point where nobody has enough money to support anything when every business is focusing on cutting costs by cutting employees?
Welcome to the concern of what many call the transition to "The Second Machine Age."
Sadly, not many people are thinking about what's going to happen. The ghost in the room is new jobs will replace the old jobs, but apparently come at a rate never seen before in human history as people are displaced faster than ever in human history.
It's as likely as putting my balls on the sun.
Abstruse Moose
Member
These next 10-20 years are going to be very interesting. Hopefully in a good way. Though Donald Fucking Trump at the helm of America is a scary thought, to say the least.
A Link to the Past
Banned
tl;dr - An argument for guaranteed income
timetokill
Banned
I saw it all the time in supermarkets in LA. A lot of people would rather wait and go to a self-service kiosk than wait and deal with a cashier.
I have to admit that I'd rather deal with a kiosk the majority of the time. Same reason why I prefer to order pizzas online or on an app rather than calling in.
It's probably Hardee's in your neck of the woods.
I know it's just a joke, but even considering we get well developed AI, no sane investor/leader is going to give a computer that level of decision.
It just won't happen happen, at least for another lifetime.
Basic income only solves part of the problem. Without socializing the means of production, the capitalist class still continues to control the robots that run society, giving them vast access to wealth, power, and resources so that they can continue to influence the government in their favor. Basic income is a step, but it's only a halfway measure, in the same way that unions are a halfway measure that ameliorate the problems of workers but don't solve the issues of power and control over labor.
Basic income is not enough.
Basic income is not enough.
VendettaRed07
Member
It's already possible to automate cashiering for fast food. One of the problems is so many people insist on using cash!
edit:misread
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