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Carl's Jr./Hardee's CEO looking at employee-free restaurants
- Thread starter timetokill
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Well, when this has happened before it's not like the unemployment rate permanently goes up. When one industry starts employing fewer people other industries employ more people. That's generally going to be true as long as you don't have some absurdly high minimum wage which renders large numbers of people totally unemployable.
It's in principle possible that with a sufficiently generous welfare state lots of people will also end up unemployable at a wage that they'll accept, and as computers and robots get better and better you'd expect that eventually this will be a real concern (because the wage at which a robot is more efficient than a person will get lower and lower). But the premise of this is that you've got a welfare state generous enough to allow people to make that choice without starving, so probably they can still afford the occasional burger. In general better and better automation might render lots of people unemployable at a wage that they have any hope of living on*, absent a welfare state. Thus the welfare state. I don't think it makes much sense to rely on all these businesses getting together and working out how to avoid mass starvation when we've got a perfectly good government just sitting here not doing much.
*Note that absent a welfare state you still don't expect it to be the case that "nobody has enough money". It's just that the people who own the robots have all the money. So probably there are fewer fast food restaurants and more places catering to the ultra-rich.
Servbot #42
Unconfirmed Member
Funny i was just reading an article about machines replacing human jobs in the near future.
https://medium.com/basic-income/dee...jobs-are-for-machines-7c6442e37a49#.sxvy9e3kq
It's a very scary thing but also kinda exciting, society might be about to change drastically.
https://medium.com/basic-income/dee...jobs-are-for-machines-7c6442e37a49#.sxvy9e3kq
It's a very scary thing but also kinda exciting, society might be about to change drastically.
Anyone who's down with this idea can get fucked.
Fast food jobs are one of the top employment opportunities in the country. Fully automated restaurants nationwide would straight-up kill thousands of people outright, through its massive contribution to unemployment. The U.S. does more manufacturing now than it ever has in its history, but none of the jobs are around because of mass automation. I'm not gonna say automation is inherently bad always, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere, unless we actually move to guaranteed income.
Fuck this guy.
Fast food jobs are one of the top employment opportunities in the country. Fully automated restaurants nationwide would straight-up kill thousands of people outright, through its massive contribution to unemployment. The U.S. does more manufacturing now than it ever has in its history, but none of the jobs are around because of mass automation. I'm not gonna say automation is inherently bad always, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere, unless we actually move to guaranteed income.
Fuck this guy.
So the only solution is removing any form of private automation and completely ridding our economy of the base levels of capitalism/markets?
Ok.
The goal should be the elimination of all work-as-an-institution through socialism. Automation can't be stopped - we have to be proactive in doing what is best for the common man by harnessing its potential.
Of course it's not the only solution. It's just the most democratic one.
evilromero
Member
Good. The less humans have to work shitty jobs like this the closer we get to basic income.
Regulate private automation, require companies to meet a minimum hiring quota.
Public well-being trumps private profit.
The bolded isn't a choice, but it's either that coupled with more social blankets, or disaster.
There's no alternative route in the card, but we fail to acknowledge the road crumbling before us..
This is a terrible answer. It still runs with the idea that humans must work and be a part of the labor force, and making them as quotas only handicaps technological progress.
It's a stopgap answer that doesn't address the problems of the social mandation of labor in a society where much of that can be delegated to machinery.
Agreed. Needs robots with preorder app and bank tubes.
You're right it is a concern as things currently stand. However resisting automation is not the answer. Changing policy is. Automation has the ability to free us all from the need to work to live, but as you've rightly pointed out, what's more likely to happen in the short-term is people falling further into poverty. Guaranteed income is the most obvious solution but as others have said, it'll be a hard sell in the US where the Puritan work-ethic mentality still holds sway.
I imagine there'll be resistance to the automation movement similar to what we see now surrounding buying organic/local food.
Fast food jobs aren't the main concern really. 90% of driving-based occupations will be gone in the next 20 years maximum imo. As will what's left of manufacturing.
That's fair. I don't think hiring quotas and regulating automation are permanent solutions, but I never could see us going from what we have now to guaranteed income without some kind of a stopgap.
Edit: That being said, I think you can make the case that restaurants are an industry where automation is far less necessary, and far more wantonly harmful than most others.
Christopher
Member
We don't not want socialism - the American people have spoken on that as well.
Fair enough. In fact, some futurists argue what you propose as a stopgap. I know this was Faith Popcorn's (yes, that's a name) solution to the possibility that 1 in 3 Americans will be technologically unemployed before 2030.
Americans are completely ignorant as to how things are in the rest of the world and what socialism really is thanks to decades of red scare tactics. They'll happily draw on social security and not understand the irony.
SenorArdilla
Member
Will they have a monitor with a cute anime character in it to take my order?
BuggyDClown
Member
This bullshit about rising costs is just a way for them to hide the fact that automation was coming either way. It just gives the corporation a narrative to hide behind when they start slashing jobs.
This is going to happen in every industry over the next few jobs. Jobs are going to begin to disappear left and right, and retail and food service will be the first to go.
This is going to happen in every industry over the next few jobs. Jobs are going to begin to disappear left and right, and retail and food service will be the first to go.
Christopher
Member
What's the irony...?
andythinkpad
Member
Guys, this is a good thing. This is no different from microwave and roomba replacing house chores.
If you want to see robots doing all the boring jobs one day and human only work on the complex/interesting jobs, you need to start from somewhere.
Also, this has nothing to do with socialist welfare system or nationalized health care. You can still have those.
If you want to see robots doing all the boring jobs one day and human only work on the complex/interesting jobs, you need to start from somewhere.
Also, this has nothing to do with socialist welfare system or nationalized health care. You can still have those.
200 million+ complex/interesting jobs at all education levels?
Its been a long time coming. It makes more sense to move to a automated system than deal with the headaches of hiring and managing people. It sucks for those who work there, just as it sucked for many people in manufacturing. Its just the cycle of business if you can cut cost, you're going to. Add to the fact most people aren't going to want to pay double the price.
the world doesn't need 9 billion poets.
It doesn't need 9 billion laborers either.
Exactly. Self-driving cars don't need to be perfect, as soon as they're safer and more reliable than human drivers, we'll see world-wide adoption and the loss of the single largest job market in the world (drivers). Manufacturing automation already sees wide adoption rates and as soon as 3d printers advance to high fidelity with a machine the cost of a home computer, we won't even need factories.
So many jobs are going to be obsolete in the next century, the question is less how can we regulate automation and more about how long and how painful the transitionary period will be.
Do we even have 9 billion humane, sustainable jobs for people to live off of?
Do we even have half of that?
SenorArdilla
Member
It doesn't need 9 billion lawyers either but hey.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
Our minimum wage is already pathetically low and they are still creating machines to replace employee's, may as well raise wages while the tech isnt ready yet.
Wafflecakes
Member
It is where many of these industries are heading eventually. Pretending that you can stop it is pointless.
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
Hate those LCD waiter things. Theyre always fucking filthy.
Fenderputty
Banned
Automation is coming regardless of the paltry raises we give to the wage floor
BoosterDuck
Banned
I don't know about you bro but I think the GOP would be more understandable if they were poets.
unless there's a basic income guarantee to support a workforce displaced by automation it's eventually going to collapse in on itself. People can't spend if they can't earn.
the idea that we replace all the boring jobs to free up people to be innovators and astronauts is pretty ridiculous. That's not to say it should become stagnant either that's just the logical conclusion I originally replied to.
Yeah I know, I've been advocating going beyond even basic income all thread.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Yeah, and since it's a low skill industry I don't see this as threatening as people make it out. Like retaining from this to another industry is ready, it's not a specialized highly skilled workforce who is leaving but people make a bigger deal of this.
sorry yes yours was just the first reply I clicked on.
Yah I'm pretty sure self-driving cars are probably already more reliable than human drivers. We've set the bar pretty low with our terrible driving habits.
I find it's interesting to think about what kind of jobs can't be automated. I imagine there'll be strong resistance to any kind of automation in the health industry even if the tech eventually surpasses human doctors in terms of reliability. Creative industries might be thought to be safe but then you have things like art designed by an AI http://turing.deepart.io/
Politicians, judges, lawyers, any kind of government or public job is probably safe. I don't think people are quite ready to be governed by robots (lol Rubio).
LegendofJoe
Member
People in here worried about what will happen in the US with the coming of automation need to put themselves in the shoes of a laborer living in China or South Asia. They're screwed just as much if not more than Americans will be.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
It doesn't need 9 billion CEO's / freelancers / consultants / entrepreneurs either.
Frankly I'm always baffled that people who say that line (the original one about the artists) don't realize the obvious flaw in it. Also, while most artists are poor, the exceptions are also extreme outliers in wealth that would be called self-earned and has at least a badge of proof for it.
Aside from that, I don't think anyone will miss fast-food and retail jobs, regardless of how plentiful they may be. However, people tend to buy easier and more from another human than they do from a machine and replacing hot communication with cold ones isn't going to increase profits. Like self-checkouts at the supermarket, nobody needs the 'warehouse worker experience (tm)' in their shopping experience. It's also not helping because you still have to manually check people aren't robbing the place, which is waaaaay easier when automation is involved versus when using people.
It's weird how nobody has made that case against automation.
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