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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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukNkCnNJuR8
YouTube link with the robots in action.
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Nothing says savory noodles like an army of robots with glowing eyes.
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".
What do I do now with my Masters degree in noodle slicing?
Robot uses it's noodle to make...noodles!
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
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.
Robots are like asteroids.
We need to keep an eye on every single one, lest we overlook the one that will destroy all humanity.
Because it has a head and Angry eyebrows, and glowing yellow eyes. Why build a machine that can be considered a tool to make your life easier, when you can build a robot that does the same thing and look like it will overthrow you during the next uprising.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
There are a lot of noodle restaurants in China. Based on my extremely limited sampling, for most of them $1000 USD would be a hefty expense.
There are also a lot of cheap (but not quite as cheap) noodle restaurants in Japan (and Taiwan) as well - I wonder if this invention might find more of a market there.
Above comment is simplistic to the point of being deceptive. Twitty $ Grubbers like that forget what civilization is actually about. Lowering labour costs when the required cost of living is higher is a problem and not an end goal worthy of being sought. Capital doesn't care if it is unused, but unused people crash pretty fast, and civil society shortly thereafter. Politicians delegate money for infrastructure. To quote Naheed Nenshi a Mayor of Calgary: "snow removal isn't a right wing or left wing issue." Capitalism seeks the excess benefits for profit while unfairly leveraging the mutil-millenial lineage of human knowledge that brought their enterprise to bear fruit. Its ours, fuck off.
sure, a vending machine is a robot but this thing looks like a guy with his legs cut off.
though that might be because the inventor invented it to do it like a human would, so the looks might actually help with sales so that people will feel that it does it like a human and not complain about quality(which could be better or worse).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
From merriam webster:
2: a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks
It is a robot.
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 note that this is a specific type of noodle called "knife-sliced noodles". Obviously not all noodles are made like this nor all restaurant serve this type of noodle.
Once all the menial jobs are replaced by robots, what do people that are only suited to menial jobs do? Not everyone can be a robot technician, and there will be fewer robot technicians than robots.
Given that it is physically impossible for the economy to keep growing (due to resource scarcity if nothing else) at some point productivity increases must lead to either a reduced population or else a lower average work week.
This is happening in North America too...here in Canada one of the major banks just got a bunch of bad publicity for shipping skilled technical labour offshore because it's cheaper. It's becoming a global economy, places with relatively high cost of living are going to have a tough time keeping their population employed.
Socialist and communist don't mean the same thing, nor are either the exclusive domain of Marxists.
Try less rhetoric and you might be a tiny bit convincing.
I'd say that work is virtuous, well, to be more accurate production is
That's actually a contradiction, but Americans have been trained to see it as shades of meaning. Production leads to happiness and the elimination of suffering, but work is just a means to production. If work were the virtue itself, we'd be best off working seven days a week.
Happiness is the real virtue, though clearly production and work are ways to get there. If Strong AI comes to pass as predicted, we're going to see a re-alignment of these values in just a few decades as humans won't be required to be all-purpose cogs in the machines. I'm hopeful that will enable people to pursue their dreams, which is much different than going to work, say de-boning chickens.
Much of the personal happiness we enjoy has come from our ancestors being lazy, care-free, and pleasure-seeking. That's not to say that we could be where we are without the laborers, it's a balance, but the goal should be our happiness, not our work. I recommend this lecture for anybody who has an hour for a mind-bending re-alignment of their historical perspective on the matter.
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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.
They are cut from a big block of dough directly into the boiling water, not dumped dry out of a package.
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.
Or it could work for the medical industry too by reducing the cost of circumcisions!
But you would totally loose a " we have a robot chef " client attraction. Noodles made by a "robot" sell a lot better than noodles made by a "machine", not because of any real difference but because of preception
I think the disconnect here is rooted in two things:
1. How quickly we as individuals think the society and economy can or will react to major changes in the cost of labor. Lower labor costs as roman_mir has said mean that everything can be a lot cheaper and hence available in large quantity, variety and qualities. Products can also improve in important ways while staying at the same relative price or even becoming cheaper. Personal electronics are an excellent example of this trend. However not everything that scales in the same way. So while you can buy a lot more computing power for your buck today than you could 30 years ago despite inflation the same is not true for other things like automobiles and housing.
I can understand disagreeing with Warren on political rhetoric but she has done some very interesting research. One of the things she has shown is that since the 70's the costs for many things have gone down relative to our spending power, while others have gotten worse. And the things that have gotten worse are typically longer term choices that you can't just cut back on in a financial crisis. Food has gotten cheaper, which is good, but that is also one of the areas that people, especially fat people like me, can rapidly cut back on in a crisis. You can't cut it all the way buy half it or more should be pretty easy. Meanwhile the cost of transportation has gone up, in a financial crisis you likely can't just tell the bank you'll be paying half your car note until things improve, the same is true for housing, health insurance, and other large outstanding loans. So basically the things that are easier for consumers to control spending on have gotten cheaper, but the big things that they can't control on a short term basis have gotten more expensive.
Of course just because that's what happened over the last thirty years or so doesn't mean that the trend will continue. And a lot of that is likely tied up in consumer expectations. For instance we own more cars today and many families don't plan to ever have only one wage earner.
2. Because of the way our economy and taxes are structured wealth continues to be accumulated at the very tippity top of the social structure faster than it is created. This doesn't make anyone evil. This happens because wealthy people tend to make rational decisions about what to do with their resources. There is some discussion of asshatery when small subsets of that group lobby for more preferential tax treatment but that's not anything that others wouldn't do if their resources allowed them to.
Extreme wealth accumulation is a problem because it inevitably leads to social unrest. The masses at the bottom eventually get to a point where their situation becomes intolerable enough that they revolt in one way or another. Such a revolution is why at least some of my ancestors came to the US, they were associated with french aristocracy. And while no one likes targeted taxes much I think most of us can say we'd rather that than face a reign of terror or similiar upheaval.
Becasue nothing makes you feel like a man then having humans do menial work for you.
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