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Automation Coming To Restaurants, But Not Because of Minimum Wage Hikes
dcblogs writes: McDonald's this week told financial analysts of its plans to install self-ordering kiosks and mobile ordering at its restaurants. This news prompted the Wall Street Journal to editorialize, in " Minimum Wage Backfire," that while it may be true for McDonald's to say that its tech plans will improve customer experience, the move is also "a convenient way...to justify a reduction in the chain's global workforce." Minimum wage increase advocates, the Journal argued, are speeding along an automation backlash. But banks have long relied on ATMs, and grocery stores, including Walmart, have deployed self-service checkouts. In contrast, McDonald's hasn't changed its basic system of taking orders since its founding in the 1950s, said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, a research group focused on the restaurant industry. While mobile, kiosks and table ordering systems may help reduce labor costs, the automated self-serve technology is seen as an essential. It will take the stress out of ordering (lines) at fast food restaurants, and the wait for checks at more casual restaurants. It also helps with upselling and membership to loyalty programs. People who can order a drink refill off a tablet, instead of waving down waitstaff, may be more inclined to do so. Moreover, analysts say younger customers want self-service options.
"automation backlash" aka increased productivity is fantastic for the economy .
The sane thing to do would be to institute a minimum basic income.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Currently, the way it's implemented in european country, McD doesn't use it to reduce workforce (you're still required to walk up to a clerk to retrieve your order).
McD uses it to accelerate it service and increase the "number served": by the time you finish typing your order and have confirmed, the order is already broadcast to employee's screen. By the time you finish paying and walk to the queue, your order is already ready.
This cuts drastically the waiting time, and european McD's use to cram more customer served per minutes.
In the long run such stategies won't neceessarily reduce the workforce that much, but on the other hand, they will be used to propel "fast food" to a whole new definition of "fast".
On the other hand, that will probably be quite alienating for the workforce: no more breaks between customers, no more small talk while ordering. Work experience is going to be Charlie Chaplin's "modern times"-style: read the screen, pack the bag, hand over the bag, as fast as possible and repeat so the next customer doesn't need to wait.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I said what I meant. We already have a basic income for the elderly and disabled in the US. It's called Social Security. There's no reason we can't extend it to cover everybody, except that doing so would require taxing rich individuals and corporations more while spending less on the military-industrial complex. It might be a political impossibility, but it isn't necessarily an economic one.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I think they're human beings. I think that money is power, and that political suffrage (the vote) is no longer enough. We must also have universal economic suffrage as well. Every individual needs to have an assurance that their annual income won't fall below the poverty line, because poor people aren't human beings in the USA.
If they don't want to work, but live on ten grand a year while sharing an apartment with a few other people who want to live on basic, that's their problem. Ideally it would help parents, especially single parents. It would help students. It would help artists. It would help open source hackers and other people who do useful work that isn't adequately valued by our system.
And it would give us an excuse to get rid of our existing welfare system. We can tell people who aren't working, "You got your basic income. If you need more money, get a fuckin' job."
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Canadian experiments from the 70s suggest otherwise. Canada tried it in the city of Dauphin, and people didn't down tools en masse. The ones who did either went to school or were staying home to care for children or relatives.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
The goal of any significantly advanced civilization should be 100% unemployment and automation.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
And why, exactly, do you think any of those rich individuals and corporations would remain in America, when you're forcing them to work just so you can steal their money and give it to the people who don't?
I'll overlook your obviously imflammatory language and answer your question in earnest.
I think that these rich individuals and corporations would remain in America for several reasons. Foremost is my belief that rich individuals specifically aren't generally sociopathic, and consequently understand the value of contributing back to the society in which one lives. Additionally, I think the comfort of living in America (partly because it's not so bad here, partly because it's a bit of a pain in the ass to uproot and emigrate) would prevent many from wanting to leave. Furthermore, I think any developed country they could move to would impose an even higher tax burden on them, and I don't think it's realistic to think any significant number will head out to the undeveloped corners of the world.
Now, to maintain some semblance of balance, I'd like to add some of my own obviously inflammatory language. Stop assraping this site with your retarded hypotheses.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
You do realize that people aren't, you know, actually, like, supposed to be able to support themselves with the lowest-paid jobs in the country? These are the kind of jobs that used to be done by kids still living at home, not those who expected to make a career and raise a family by saying 'Do you want fries with that?' a thousand times a day?
But with today's fucked economy, that's the only type of job many adults with kids, rent and car payments can find.
Our society has deep structural problems relating to automation that have been ignored for forty years and those chickens are coming home to roost. One of those major problems is that we've given preferential tax treatment to capital gains over income (labor).
We can either have egalitarian democratic society, or we can be like Mexico. I hope the walls on your gated community are high enough and you pay your private security contractors enough not to steal from you.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff