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[WolfeTone]

We need Earth Federation under a single labor regulation.

Also, three laws of Robotics

The first country to create the first robo-army will determine the power balance of this Earth Federation. Imagine an army of perfectly obedient robo-soldiers. Unstoppable. My money's on the Japanese.

 

[blame space]

when even the shittiest jobs are done by robots what are the people supposed to do?

 

[WolfeTone]

when even the shittiest jobs are done by robots what are the people supposed to do?

Enjoy life instead of doing those shitty jobs.

Get paid a basic income by the government or revolt and rise against the ultra rich who insist you're just not looking hard enough for a job.

 

[TickleMeElbow]

when even the shittiest jobs are done by robots what are the people supposed to do?

Idk watch government provided TV in government provided homes, and get fat like wall-e lol.

 

[border]

This seems like alarmist nonsense. "Employee-free" restaurants?

At best all this does is replace 1-2 cashiers. You still need humans to prepare the food, keep the place clean, take out the trash, accept/unpack orders, check IDs for alcoholic beverages, and do the many many other things that cannot be automated.

It's just some CEO's way of pouting over the fact that he might have to give his employees a little more money and his shareholders a little less.

 

[surrealist]

So if less people are earning money, how are they expected to pay for the products you are selling?

Eventually the boat will tip.

Jobs sent overseas. H1-B Visa abuse. Automation of low paying jobs.

 

[Polioliolio]

What is this shit.. Have the corporations considered sharing their profits enough to pay livable wages? "Boohoo. If we have to pay a livable wage then we can't operate our business and would simply have to let go thousands of workers (as CEO makes thousands of times the average worker and millions in bonuses)."

Eat my fucking shorts.

 

[OrangeGrayBlue]

I like the idea of automation, but not the idea of using automation as a threat to keep low wages in place.

 

[SenorArdilla]

What is this shit.. Have the corporations considered sharing their profits enough to pay livable wages? "Boohoo. If we have to pay a livable wage then we can't operate our business and would simply have to let go thousands of workers (as CEO makes thousands of times the average worker and millions in bonuses)."

Eat my fucking shorts.

 

[Futureman]

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.

There were open registers and people just waited in line for the self-checkout? You are saying people would rather wait for self-checkout than wait for a human cashier, but that's not what the Carls Jr guy said.

 

[dabig2]

Heard similar whining from CEOs when it came to Obamacare. Fuck them and fuck this dude the same way. You can't stall progress forever.

But I do welcome our automated future. It's coming and society will have to figure out how to adapt.

 

[Game-Biz]

Hope this happens. Would love this. Employees at fast food joints usually just fuck things up.

 

[andythinkpad]

There were open registers and people just waited in line for the self-checkout? You are saying people would rather wait for self-checkout than wait for a human cashier, but that's not what the Carls Jr guy said.

I do that in CVS and Home Depot. I don't want to hear them asking for tge store card and/or donate 1 dollar.

 

[andythinkpad]

This seems like alarmist nonsense. "Employee-free" restaurants?

At best all this does is replace 1-2 cashiers. You still need humans to prepare the food, keep the place clean, take out the trash, accept/unpack orders, check IDs for alcoholic beverages, and do the many many other things that cannot be automated.

It's just some CEO's way of pouting over the fact that he might have to give his employees a little more money and his shareholders a little less.

I think automating burger flipping is even easier than automating the cashier.

Plus you can switch to airline type food.

 

[StickSoldier]

Just another place to protest.

 

[ThisGuy]

Welp, at least I'll finally get fresh fries after 7pm.

 

[border]

I think automating burger flipping is even easier than automating the cashier.

Plus you can switch to airline type food.

If it were so easy to automate, they already would have done it.

I mean, you can probably build a machine that will just flip burgers, but the act of getting them onto a bun, topping them, wrapping them up, etc. is a much bigger challenge. Not to mention that there's way more physical tasks in a restaurant than just turning over meat on a grill.

That's what I never really get about the automation bogeyman -- it seems like currently even really simple tasks aren't automated yet. There's no reason to tie up a human being by having them prepare fountain drinks. Yet here we are in 2015 and every McD's cashier has to spend time picking up a cup, filling it with ice, then filling it with soda.

If that easy, simple process cannot be automated now then I fail to see how "employee free restaurants" are in the near future.

 

[Zoe]

That's what I never really get about the automation bogeyman -- it seems like currently even really simple tasks aren't automated yet. There's no reason to tie up a human being by having them prepare fountain drinks. Yet here we are in 2015 and every McD's cashier has to spend time picking up a cup, filling it with ice, then filling it with soda.

You haven't been through a McDonald's drive through recently, have you.

 

[TheSeks]

So if less people are earning money, how are they expected to pay for the products you are selling?

FUCK YOUNG PEOPLE, basically.

Also how the hell is the stuff gonna be restocked? Bots behind the counter making everything and then slotting it in the appropriate areas? What if one or more of them break? So many different questions.

 

[border]

You haven't been through a McDonald's drive through recently, have you.

I tend to avoid drive-thrus because it's a pretty terrible experience if you want to customize anything about your order.......same with the Self-Serve Checkout lanes at supermarkets that also promised lower labor costs. Though when I walk-in and order a drink at fast-food restaurants without customer-accessible fountains, I've always seen employees manually making beverages.

 

[Sectorseven]

So if less people are earning money, how are they expected to pay for the products you are selling?

This is a huge problem moving forward. Machines produce, but don't consume goods.

The solution is probably a guaranteed income for every citizen, with annual bonuses for things like higher education degrees and community service.

 

[onadesertedisland]

So they're saying that the low wage job is a favor they're giving to the worker and if they have to pay them a living wage, they'll rescind that favor?

 

[border]

Also how the hell is the stuff gonna be restocked? Bots behind the counter making everything and then slotting it in the appropriate areas? What if one or more of them break? So many different questions.

My guess is that the problem with automation is that it requires a lot more physical space to create an independent robot-run assembly line and inventory area, and most fast-food restaurants have already been built around the idea of minimizing space. Not to mention that these places already run on razor-thin margins, and they aren't interested in buying $100,000 robots or building/leasing larger spaces.

 

[old]

I would love a fast food place that's just one giant vending machine. No more wrong orders. No more being asked to pull forward and wait 10 minutes for a chicken sandwich. No more lazily-slapped together shit where the cheese isn't even on the burger.

Can't come soon enough.

 

[Zoe]

I tend to avoid drive-thrus because it's a pretty terrible experience if you want to customize anything about your order.......same with the Self-Serve Checkout lanes at supermarkets that also promised lower labor costs. Though when I walk-in and order a drink at fast-food restaurants without customer-accessible fountains, I've always seen employees manually making beverages.

They've had automated drink machines for a long time now.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=310pa2k8ja0

 

[border]

I would love a fast food place that's just one giant vending machine.

McDonald's customers would probably eat their McNuggets out of a trash can. But for any restaurant that aspires to a higher level of quality and service I can't imagine they really want their product to be associated with vending-machine food. Maybe that's a stigma that can be worked out over time, though.

 

[Wilsongt]

It's all sugar and rainbows to want automatic, non-human made food in the future until it comes to the reality that nearly 3 million people could lose their job because of it.

 

[ironcreed]

Kill more jobs, what a plan!

 

[water_wendi]

It's all sugar and rainbows to want automatic, non-human made food in the future until it comes to the reality that nearly 3 million people could lose their job because of it.

By the time that business leaders understand that having a customer base thats broke isnt good for business it will be too late to fix.

 

[TheSeks]

My guess is that the problem with automation is that it requires a lot more physical space to create an independent robot-run assembly line and inventory area, and most fast-food restaurants have already been built around the idea of minimizing space. Not to mention that these places already run on razor-thin margins, and they aren't interested in buying $100,000 robots or building/leasing larger spaces.

That and then it leads to jobs that require maintaining them. This leads to a bubble until it's solved and then we're back to square one. Killing jobs to spite a younger generation struggling to get by because "lol fuck the poor that need a minimum wage increase so they can somewhat live" while you're making $100,000 a month easy seems kinda... shitty.

 

[Boss Mog]

Or, if CEOs didn't make like 50 million a year, maybe there'd be more money to pay the employees who actually do the work.

If the CEO of McDonald's were to suddenly disappear, it wouldn't affect business at all but if all the low wage employees that work in the restaurants suddenly disappeared, then McDonald's could no longer operate. Same goes for most companies. It's the people that get paid the least that work the most and allow that company to exist.

 

[EMT0]

Ultimately a good thing as it'll push society in the direction of a minimum income, as is inevitable with enough technology.

....or we all starve on the streets. Either or, yeah

 

[timetokill]

There were open registers and people just waited in line for the self-checkout? You are saying people would rather wait for self-checkout than wait for a human cashier, but that's not what the Carls Jr guy said.

I've definitely been in situations where there's an empty cashier line and two or three people waiting to use self-checkout.

But ultimately the point is, given a choice, a growing number of people would rather deal with a machine than a person.

I do recall one particular funny instance where a bunch of us were waiting in line for a self-checkout machine late at night. There weren't any cashiers, just one employee watching the six machines. This British guy in line was crying out, "where are all the bloody people!? people need jobs you know, unemployment is awful and you have one person for this entire store?!"

 

[Oracle Dragon]

I suppose we could all take a trip to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, where CEO's were not going to replace every human with a robot the moment they could. If it wasn't because min wage was going up, it would be because Obamacare made employee benefits too expensive. Or because competitors were going to do it, so we have to do it to, etc. At the end of the day is more about the executives and investors not feeling that they should settle for merely having more money than they could spend in a lifetime, when all it takes is a little bit of [your] sacrifice and they could have more money than they could spend in two lifetimes!

I don't believe we'll ever see basic government incomes, not in my lifetime, not in my children's lifetime. A sizeable portion of the powerful would rather just the lesser humans starve and die off. They can't say it, but that's the basic translation of bootstraps. That's the eventual outcome when 100 food industry jobs turns into 10 robot technician jobs, eventually becoming 1 master robot engineer job. And since that master engineer is a contributor, and not just sucking up large portions of profit because "job creator" well... his days are numbered as well.

I avoid self checkouts when I can, because cashier jobs pay wages, self checkouts do not. Plus, the damn things never work half the time... if I had a dollar for every time the thing halted and said "ask attendant for assistance", I'd be getting my groceries for free!

 

[The Maverick]

He didn't follow the logic to its conclusion. If a robot can do the job, why pay Sally or Suzie. By law or by blood, we will eventually move towards a more socialist society. Corporate greed only speeds up the cycle, ironically.

 

[Dr. Feel Good]

I agree with his statement on food ordering. I eat at Chick Fil A a lot more now because I order on my iPhone app which saves my favorite menu item and can process my order in less than 15 seconds. It tracks where I am and my food is ready when I arrive. I can't stand dealing with incompetent human fast food employees.

 

[border]

Have you ever ordered a pizza delivery over the telephone? It's an absolutely terrible experience, usually involving being put on hold for minutes at a time with mistakes being made either due to a slack-ass employee not giving a fuck or a crackly phone line that makes it hard for them to hear what the customer is even saying. When your order isn't right and you call in to complain, you get put on hold again for minutes at a time. It seems like automation would be the answer.

But I have friends that work for pizza delivery places, and they still say that at least half of their delivery/take-out orders are taken over the phone. This is despite the fact that it's a horrendous experience.....despite the fact that people have been able to place internet orders for more than a decade.....many people would rather have the (perceived) reliability of talking to an actual human being who can tell them the specials and offer advice about their order.

As time rolls on, perhaps people will become more and more comfortable with automated order-taking, but if pizza chains are anything to go by then it will take a long long time to get there.

 

[Foffy]

It's all sugar and rainbows to want automatic, non-human made food in the future until it comes to the reality that nearly 3 million people could lose their job because of it.

Those are peanuts compared to those who have driving vocations that driverless cars directly attack. Again, the problem isn't that people will lose their jobs, it's that in contexts where automation is simply a cheaper and better means of production, people suffer because we have the childish notion one must work in order to survive. There is no sugar and rainbows, but dangerous social ideas being seen for the damage they produce when natural progress occurs. I guess you can equate it to a "lifestyle" problem humans infer too seriously onto the world, much like how we live and sustain ourselves being something we see as important, as the methods we do so destroy the earth. One of these things breaks under pressure and forces a reassessment.

The only reason 3 million people losing their jobs is a problem is because we naively assert every person on this earth must work, or they should get fucked if they don't. The problem isn't the disruption of this, but the inference of this.

when even the shittiest jobs are done by robots what are the people supposed to do?

To be brought back to objective reality: to see any inference of must that is not compatible with the world and its natural state of affairs has to be discarded.

In a cosmos where there really is nothing you're supposed to do, nowhere you're supposed to go, and nothing you're supposed to be, any inference saying otherwise will be bound to produce conflict and suffering. We will be forced to, to quote Jon Kabat Zinn, "get our shit together" when it comes to living on this rockball we call a planet. One of the ways in doing that is to see the futility in that one must work, as if this is a be all end all, and that work should be a want, to do something of interest given present circumstances. How many people can say they work out of a want, as a way to pool their time in a way that is valuable right now to themselves, and how many are forced to do whatever for money because we say money is wealth and it matters more than the people, life, and state of the earth we infer it over?

 

[sc0la]

That's what I never really get about the automation bogeyman -- it seems like currently even really simple tasks aren't automated yet. There's no reason to tie up a human being by having them prepare fountain drinks. Yet here we are in 2015 and every McD's cashier has to spend time picking up a cup, filling it with ice, then filling it with soda.

If that easy, simple process cannot be automated now then I fail to see how "employee free restaurants" are in the near future.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=310pa2k8ja0
These are common in any McDonald's that's been updated in the last 5 years. It's in the drive through though, which you said you don't visit.

Also it's 2016

 

[Hazelhurst]

I wonder how the employees are reacting to this news. This can't be good for morale.

 

[ElTopo]

T

Anecdotally, It seems like the adoption rate of the self checkout style lanes at big stores like home depot and some grocery stores is still about 50/50... sure you can checkout without dealing with a person, but it does take some effort and isn't as easy as dumping all your stuff on a conveyor and handing your card to the cashier. Sometimes the machines lock up, or have a confusing interface, so it still needs an employee to help out. Once it crosses that ease-of-use threshold, I imagine a lot less human cashiers.

The only reasons people use self-checkout is usually if they're just getting one or two things or there's a way to scam the machine and get something cheaper.

 

[EatinOlives]

"This is the problem with Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton, and progressives who push very hard to raise the minimum wage," says Pudzer. "Does it really help if Sally makes $3 more an hour if Suzie has no job?"

...so the natural solution is to automate everything so Sally AND Suzie have no job?

Your logic is shit, guy.

 

[SharkJAW]

"This is the problem with Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton, and progressives who push very hard to raise the minimum wage," says Pudzer. "Does it really help if Sally makes $3 more an hour if Suzie has no job?"

Lol, the mental gymnastics to make this kind of justification blow my mind without fail. If they could, chains would develop teleporters and have the work done overseas followed by teleportation into these new "human free" establishments.

 

[Future]

So democrats are why there are self checkout stations in grocery stores now. Thanks Obama!

The fact that republicans make these illogical statements just insults my intelligence really. I cannot take anyone seriously that agrees with him

Although ...... I kind of do want electronic ordering. No one spitting in my food is a plus too. Fast food should be FAST and ordering electronically is bound to be faster, and machines preparing the food will be consistent.

 

[Mentosrock]

What I find interesting about this right now, is that people are seeing the inevitable end of this process. People are going to be out of jobs en masse, while corporations still find a way to hoard capital among themselves through any kind of crazy financial practice. The rich will find themselves even more deeply entrenched in wealth, since the poor can't even get paid to put shit on the conveyor belt anymore.

Most people are seeing where this leads, and they're really taking solutions like a basic living wage seriously. I think that is really cool. I see the situation getting a lot more dire, but I find it encouraging people are willing to talk about things beyond capitalism. I'm worried for Americans though, they can't even get universal healthcare going, let alone a living wage. I somehow don't see either of those things being a possibility barring some kind of intervention. Scary times ahead..

 

[cpp_is_king]

...so the natural solution is to automate everything so Sally AND Suzie have no job?

Your logic is shit, guy.

No, he's saying nothing would have been automated to begin with (or, it would have taken many years longer) if it weren't for rising minimum wage.

 

[GreenTornadoX]

Carl's Jr./Hardee's employees looking at CEO-free company

Spoiler

/s

 

[B33]

The contortions these companies go through to avoid paying livable wages to their entry-level personnel is bewildering.

 

[Eusis]

Am millenial, can confirm I would rather interact with a self-checkout than human behind the counter.

Not to the extent of waiting behind a long line though, not unless I know that person is an idiot and will screw up my order. I love being able to just punch an order into my phone or whatever and getting it without that communication-based room for error (not great following spoken word that way) but some kiosk with a line kills that appeal very fast.

EDIT: And lame to take this tack with it. Though with the way wages vs cost of living is I think I'd rather have one good paying job rather than trying to juggle 3 to get something resembling a living wage anyway.

 

[Foffy]

No, he's saying nothing would have been automated to begin with (or, it would have taken many years longer) if it weren't for rising minimum wage.

He's being naive, if sincere.

What company isn't going to embrace technology that increases production and minimizes costs? A company that will be left in the fucking dust, that's what.