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Noodle Robots Replacing Workers In Chinese Restaurants
kkleiner writes "Recently developed noodle-making robots have now been put into operation in over 3,000 restaurants in China. Invented by a noodle restaurant owner, each unibrow-sporting robot currently costs 10,000 yuan ($1,600), which is only three months wages for an equivalent human noodle cook. As the cost of the robot continues to drop, more noodle shops are bound to displace human workers for the tirelessly working cheaper robots."
Hopefully, since China was the last big pool of cheap human labor, can we please finally now get on with dealing with the fact that we don't need 100% employment anymore? How can we ensure a quality life for everyone now that we know machines can do a lot of the work? By all means, people should still be able to work, but why yank away everything from someone who'd rather do something else?
Mostly random stuff.
1
a : a machine that looks like a human being and performs various complex acts (as walking or talking) of a human being; also : a similar but fictional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized
b : an efficient insensitive person who functions automatically
2
: a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks
3
: a mechanism guided by automatic controls
You're hung up on definition 1a.
A vending machine IS a robot.
It's not really a robot. It's simple kitchen appliance with dummy head.
This is basically a simple Kitchen Appliance with a face attached. I don't consider this a 'proper' Robot.. If this is a Robot then me super-glueing a Barbie head to my washing machine makes it a "Washing Robot".
Whenever Marxists talk about economy they like to overstate the importance of labour and understate the importance of capital. They are of-course completely wrong, there is always a cost associated with labour and a cost associated with capital, the more labour costs the more it makes sense to use capital to decrease cost of labour and that's why we get labour saving devices.
The first shovel displaced people from digging holes with their bare hands and sticks.
The first excavator displaced thousands of people with shovels.
Computers displaced untold numbers of individuals, millions upon millions obviously that's because computers are labour savings devices.
In the process we make the operators of the labour saving devices so much more productive because they command these tools. Notice however that without capital (savings used as investments) no person can increase his productivity in any significant manner, you can't just dig with a shovel fast enough to be as productive as a guy operating an excavator.
You can't count numbers with your ruler or an abacus or just a piece of paper and a pen as fast as a computer that runs a program. The person that operates the implement is now much more effective, much more productive than all the manual workers were, but of-course the number of workers that are needed go down dramatically.
It's interesting to hear people talk about "productivity of the economy going up while employees who grow the productivity aren't ripping the reward, instead the owners do". Well excuse me, the owners created the productivity, not the employees.
Employees are not adding to productivity, it is the owners, the investors, the capitalists that are improving their productivity. In case of the noodle restaurants the productivity of the owner (investors) of the restaurant is going up, he can serve more noodles with fewer labourers doing manual work, but it costs him the original investment into the labour saving device - the robot.
People displaced by the robot are not increasing their productivity, they lost all of it, now they have to find a different job. However from POV of the market this is a very good development - the fewer people we need to do things that we do already now, the more supply of labour exists and so prices for labour go down and more businesses can be created because it takes less capital, less investment to hire people at lower prices to do things that were uneconomical while the cost of labour was more expensive before the labour saving devices were added to the economy and replaced these workers.
It is a good thing for any consumer of goods to be able to buy more of them cheaper, to have more choice and to see more competition (even among labour and capital).
The price of the robot is higher than cost of a human noodle cutter, the prices now will come down for human noodle cutter and more restaurants may even open because of this development.
It's possible that most restaurants will eventually have noodle cutting robots and there will be a competitive advantage of having a human cut noodles, maybe somebody will advertise their restaurant as one that does not use robots, some people are gullible enough to prefer that, but that would be a niche item of-course.
More importantly, the restaurant is now more productive, the labour market has more surplus so it may be cheaper for other businesses to hire labour, and that's great. As long as the government does not try to "level the playing field", as it is now in America trying to do for Brick and Mortar stores, that cannot compete with the Internet stores, that are obviously more competitive and can do more for less money.
The government steps in and makes everything more expensive for one reason only: get more money for politicians. They can be on the side of a business that cannot compete in the changing business environment because of all the new labour saving devices (like the Internet, which is a labour saving device).
The gover
You can't handle the truth.
Great, so now two pieces of metal (arm) joined by some bolts to some motor and encased in plastic is a robot? And this is 2013 when we were supposed to be on flying cars and have robo-hookers. You suck humanity!
A vending machine cooking dried (ramen-style) noodles will not dispense the same quality product as noodles made using traditional methods, which is what this robot does.
Part of what's broken about the U.S. economy is the minimum wage. In 1968, adjusting for inflation to the current dollar, it was around $12 and hour, or so. Now it's $7 and change. And, unlike 1968, when it was the wage for teenagers working at fast food outlets, now more than 40% of the American workforce is earning less than the 1968 minimum. So how's that globalized economy working for you?
My folks used to make home-made noodles for holiday meals when I was a kid. If their product was similar to the expectations of an Asian noodle, then I can definitely comprehend the practicalities of automating the process. Making noodles is not all that hard, so long as a supply of fresh raw materials is kept in supply; a machine could very easily turn out batches as good as what a person could so long as those maintaining the machine don't get lazy about the maintenance.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
There is some truth to the saying, "An idle mind is the work-shop of the devil". Too many idle people is a recipe for mass social problems: drug abuse, crime, depression, gaming addiction, etc.
It may be better to split up work and have shorter work-weeks, but more participants in the work-force.
However, Republicans would have a hissy fit over such an idea. Reality has to bite them in the ass a hundred times before they even consider the possibility it's not 1780 anymore.
Table-ized A.I.
Who knows, but the economy will always find an equilibrium somewhere.
And if this equilibrium is the masses living in miserable slums, patrolled by the private goon armies of a tiny super-wealthy elite, like the "economic equilibrium" produced in many third-world countries with extreme wealth disparities? I'm not comforted that some equilibrium will be reached; I'm quite concerned about what the structure of said equilibrium is. "Just let unregulated market forces decide" has a terrible track record for producing pleasant equilibria.