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Robots Are Already Replacing Fast-Food Workers (recode.net)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the may-I-take-your-order dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Recode: Technology that replaces food service workers is already here. Sushi restaurants have been using machines to roll rice in nori for years, an otherwise monotonous and time-consuming task. The company Suzuka has robots that help assemble thousands of pieces of sushi an hour. In Mountain View, California, the startup Zume is trying to disrupt pizza with a pie-making machine. In Shanghai, there's a robot that makes ramen, and some cruise ships now mix drinks with bartending machines.

More directly to the heart of American fast-food cuisine, Momentum Machines, a restaurant concept with a robot that can supposedly flip hundreds of burgers an hour, applied for a building permit in San Francisco and started listing job openings this January, reported Eater. Then there's Eatsa, the automat restaurant where no human interaction is necessary, which has locations popping up across California.

56 of 414 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot editors soon.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can't wait for the day robots replace the Slashdot "editors". Maybe the comments can be written by robots too to get rid of ass-hats like me.

  2. Machine by Kohath · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is there a machine that washes the dishes? That would be news.

  3. Pizza is indeed a pie by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 3, Informative

    PIZZA is NOT a PIE

    You have simply never heard of savory pies. Pizza is one. Pies need not be sweet.

    --
    Bruce Perens.
    1. Re:Pizza is indeed a pie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Your Mom's pie is very savory, but she's more of a tart, really.

    2. Re:Pizza is indeed a pie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      They don't have to be sweet, most pies outside of the USA aren't sweet.

      They do however, have to be pastry. Pizzas are bread.

      So unless your definition of "pie" is "round cooked thing", then pizzas are not pie.

    3. Re:Pizza is indeed a pie by DiSKiLLeR · · Score: 4, Informative

      THIS.

      In Austraila, New Zealand, and many other countries we have savory pries. I grew up on savory pies.

      But Pizza's ARE NOT PIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      They are not fully enclosed in Pastry. The closest thing that comes to that is a Calzone. An ordinary pizza is absolutely NOT a pie. You east coasters are just retarded.

      --
      You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
    4. Re:Pizza is indeed a pie by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Informative

      Strictly, it's a tart.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    5. Re:Pizza is indeed a pie by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Exception: Chicago style stuffed pies. Crust, 'toppings', another crust than actual 'toppings'.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    6. Re:Pizza is indeed a pie by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

      Your Mom's pie is very savory, but she's more of a tart, really.

      Have you been pecan in on us again?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    7. Re:Pizza is indeed a pie by Scarletdown · · Score: 2

      The important thing to remember though is that Pie R round, not square.

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    8. Re:Pizza is indeed a pie by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 5, Funny

      > I blame that incredibly annoying song by (I think) Dean Martin.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore

      And when it comes to pass, that an eel bites your ass - That's a moray.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    9. Re:Pizza is indeed a pie by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      But Pizza's ARE NOT PIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      They are not fully enclosed in Pastry.

      Pies are defined by their crusts. A filled pie (also single-crust or bottom-crust), has pastry lining the baking dish, and the filling is placed on top of the pastry but left open. A top-crust pie has the filling in the bottom of the dish and is covered with a pastry or other covering before baking. A two-crust pie has the filling completely enclosed in the pastry shell.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    10. Re: Pizza is indeed a pie by JoeZeppy · · Score: 2

      When the moon his your eye, like a big pizza. Aye, that's amore.

    11. Re:Pizza is indeed a pie by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

      American English's rush to reduce the number of words is reminiscent of Newspeak.

      Ahh, you're one of those who believe that his own variant of the result of "Norman men-at-arms trying to make dates with Saxon barmaids" is the Only True English.

      Sorry, doesn't work that way outside your own head(s).....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  4. Hopefully it does not end like this... by skids · · Score: 4, Insightful

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ...sad that idiocracy may eventually be viewed as a documentary.

    --
    Someone had to do it.
    1. Re:Hopefully it does not end like this... by D00MSlayer · · Score: 2

      Eventually? It already is.

  5. its a white dragon. by nimbius · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This kind of tech has been around since the invention of the multifunction hot beverage machine. It grinds beans, steeps coffee, blends creamer and such to the users specification. theres not much special about extending this to fast food. mcdonalds has had pilot instances of french fry machines for more than a decade now.

    the trouble with these machines comes when capitalism rears its ugly head. hot beverage machines become brake-dust dispensers as the drive for profit leads to borderline rancid beans sourced from auction in a 50lb hopper. in the 21st century i cant think of a single person that would stuff 60 cents into one of these and expect a decent cup of black coffee (the arguable standard by which such a machine is judged to make other beverages.) Pretty soon ingredients like cheese are replaced with cheese topping, and other ingredients become dehydrated synonyms of their original embodiment. Automation of fast food is an excellent idea, so long as silicon valley understands that doing so further enables companies to cut costs and corners, ultimately delivering a mediocre product from an almost bankrupt franchise. McDonalds is the meat-space embodiment of this capitalism-until-death model, with kiosks to place orders and automatic fry droppers and ten pound caulk guns filled with toppings shipped four thousand miles across the country. Maybe companies will realize customers dont embrace automation if the machine is flipping garbage, but the continued existence of the 'hot beverage' machine in my companies breakroom seems to suggest companies dont give a shit what customers want in an automated form factor.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:its a white dragon. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      This kind of tech has been around since the invention of the multifunction hot beverage machine. It grinds beans, steeps coffee, blends creamer and such to the users specification

      Now that you mention it, why does the coffee that comes out of those automated multifunction hot beverage machines always suck so bad?

      I mean, the machine is grinding the beans, the water is probably filtered, it's got to be a drip or pressure process. So why does it always taste like ass? Are they stretching the coffee beans by adding sawdust?

      I would think that there's got to be a way to make automated beverage machine coffee taste really good, but for some reason, it never, ever does.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:its a white dragon. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      Of course, the flipside is that it enables companies to offer customers the choice of 30% more expensive ingredients for the same cost, or having a human to serve it.

      This should be at +5 funny or something. It doesn't work that way.

      In fact, elimination of almost all labor will be a very bad thing once it happens. If say, McDonalds eliminates every job but the store manager, the stakeholders will have an involuntary orgasm. Then 3 months later, oh-oh, What do we get rid of now to increase profits? Last time I checked, Their customer base was old folks and people with kids. Neither group is all that concerned about the expensive ingredients. So I suspect that indeed, without the bogeyman of labor costs, the food will be the next thing to suffer.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    3. Re:its a white dragon. by adolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Maybe crap beans, maybe just old beans that are open the atmosphere. Maybe poor servicing.

      Any coffee snob will tell you that beans go bad within minutes/hours/days of roasting (depending on snobbery level).

      As to servicing, there's only one or two commercial vendors for this stuff in this region. The coffee I get from these machines is always consistent and OK if from a machine that sees real volume and regular servicing (ie, fresh food is vended from the death wheel beside it, and coffee-drinking factory/commercial workers have no other source for coffee during their 8-hour shift).

      This, contrasted with other coffee: I used to get a cup of coffee and sometimes a snack every morning before my work commute, always at the same place (which was the only place between my house and the highway).

      Usually, the coffee was fine -- no it wasn't a delicacy of aromatics and fine notes, but functional and tasty. They sold plenty of it every morning, so it didn't hang around long. Sometimes, though, it just tasted like socks and was undrinkable swill.

      There was nothing wrong with their process: Rinse things out, use automatic Bunn burr grinder to put fresh grounds into a clean filter and filter-holder, install said filter-holder into coffee Bunn maker with giant warming vat with a spout, push button to add hot water (and coffee!) into giant warming vat. Not ideal, but not horrible, and it tended to keep oxygen away from the brewed coffee (which is always good).

      Then, one morning, the giant warming vat was empty, and I got to learn Socks Coffee happens.

      I asked the nice lady at the register if she could make more coffee, and she looked at me sternly like I was jabbing her with the pokey end of an umbrella and wheeled around the counter. She pulled the filter-holder from the machine, inspected it for a moment, saw that it was full of used coffee grounds, put it back in and pushed the "Brew" button to purposefully fill the warmer-vat with second-run coffee.

      Then she looked at me like, "Are you happy, now?"

      I put my morning snack down and never spent another dime there.

      Sometimes, people just don't give a shit -- whether with coffee-brewing machines, or any other aspect of life.

      There's no good reason for the self-contained vending machines to produce bad coffee, though it isn't all that difficult to have them produce rather good coffee -- either. It just takes someone behind the scenes who gives a shit.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
    4. Re: its a white dragon. by Gussington · · Score: 2

      I think people will pay far above the basic cost of an item for a few items they consume (like the bread, or Starbucks coffee drinks), but most can't afford to do that for all of the things they consume. So various items can be had in an artisanal way, with people differing about what they are picky about.

      That's right, but as long as there's a market for personal service, jobs for humans will still exist (eg training services which have exploded as a profession in the last 20 years). So I'm merely adding weight against the argument that automation will destroy us all.

  6. Make them work for "the rest of us" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The answer: rank robots by capabilities, tax them as virtural workers, pay proceeds into Social Security system

  7. Re:And so it starts... by VanGarrett · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We're moving in that direction, but we're not there, just yet. I think we'll have a rough couple of years, while the automation steps in. Eventually, it'll make things cheaper, but I would imagine that the prices of things will remain on the same gradual increase they've always been alongside inflation, for a while, at least. Eventually, the reduction of full-time employment among the general population will drive prices down. Ultimately, it'll break capitalism, assuming that Congress doesn't step in to make laws preserving it (i.e., banning excess of automation). I can't imagine that we'll be in a place where a UBI is practical for another 15 to 20 years, though. There's just too many problems to solve, first.

    --
    Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
  8. Education by mentil · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Luckily all the high-school dropouts flipping burgers can just go to college and get a degree in liberal arts. Problem solved! They've lived so frugally over the years they surely must have enough money saved up to pay for that plus kids/rent while unemployed.
    Oh wait, no, maybe the solution is raising minimum wage? Oh, that'll accelerate automation you say? Hmm.

    Institutional unemployment is best paid for institutionally (free education) or else the problems will be paid institutionally anyway (crime, poverty, social welfare programs.) I knew someone who never went to high school because her broke parents were too poor to afford the $50/year fee; if that fee were waived, that $200 would've paid for itself many times over in reduced social welfare costs.

    As an increasing number of people are shuffled into a decreasing number of jobs, it'll lead to wage depression. Higher productivity will lower costs of goods and services to offset this somewhat, but lowered job security and making more people unemployable is a more serious price paid. The only winners here are those who own the means of production. Publicly available replicators or central planning are potential solutions. Nationalized real estate + basic income could work as well.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    1. Re:Education by Kjella · · Score: 2

      Institutional unemployment is best paid for institutionally (free education) or else the problems will be paid institutionally anyway (crime, poverty, social welfare programs.) I knew someone who never went to high school because her broke parents were too poor to afford the $50/year fee; if that fee were waived, that $200 would've paid for itself many times over in reduced social welfare costs.

      And instead she got to chill out for four years to save 15c/day? Sorry, I'm not buying it. Either they were so dirt-ass poor that she was doing paid or unpaid child labor to help the family like a third world country, in which case the fee is just the tip of the iceberg of lost income or they're crack addicts who can't keep two dollars in their pocket and wouldn't piss on their kids if they were on fire. There's just no way I believe that this fee was the only thing standing between her and a high school diploma.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  9. Higher Minimum Wage push brings results! by I75BJC · · Score: 2

    It's amazing how an idea can affect us! The push to increase the Minimum Wage causes those businesses that need a low minimum wage to innovate. And the technology sector (that is, /.'s readers) is innovating. We /.-ers may want a higher minimum wage but we are systemically creating and refining technology to displace minimum wage workers even before the minimum wage is raised. We should be ashamed of ourselves! Actually, how funny the prideful superiority the average /.-ers display and the hypocrisy in manufacturing and distributing the actual opposite of their stated desire. How Funny! We are AssHats of the First Order!

    1. Re:Higher Minimum Wage push brings results! by sumdumass · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There are two minimum wages. One is a minimum the government sets for all employees to be paid and the other is the market minimum in which must be paid to attract and keep employees working under the conditions presented.

      The government minimum is largely static outside acts of government but the market minimum is largely moveable with unemployment. The easiest and best way to raise a minimum wage is to reduce unemployment and let the market for employees demand a higher wage. This is a problem however because the economy has crapped out so badly that fast food jobs are seen as careers now instead of first jobs and stepping stones on a path to bigger and better opportunities. The worst part of this problem is that instead of looking at the situation and saying we need more and better jobs, a lot of people are content outside of wanting to raise the pay for these menial jobs.

      When I got my first legal job (other than mowing yards and crap), unemployment in my area was low. I started at minimum wage but quickly progressed above it. All I had to do was basically show up on time and put a bit of effort at doing the work. My second job, which hired me away from my first employer at a raise, I went the extra mile for them and did pretty much anything they asked to the best of my ability and my pay quickly reflected it too. I was making 13 dollars an hour rolling burritos and flipping steaks on a charbroiler in the mid 1990s. $13 an hour might not seem like much but according to an inflation calculator one dollar in 1995 had about the same purchasing power as $1.56 in 2016. So in contrast, think of it as being paid almost $20 per hour in today's world and the minimum wage at then was $4.25 an hour (it went up from $3.35 when I first started working a few years prior).

      If employment was there, by necessity, the minimum wage an employer could pay to keep an employee would by higher than the minimum wage. Those fast food jobs would go back to first job experiences and as stepping stones for people to show they can show up to work and follow directions enough to be hired at someplace that pays more.

  10. Re:No, thanks. by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    meanwhile the rest of us want timely service, properly cooked food, correct change...can't wait for robots to have the jobs.

  11. plan B make jail / prison cost so much that UBI is by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    plan B make jail / prison cost so much that UBI is cheaper. When people just start going in and out of the system just to get room and board then UBI looks like a better thing to do.

  12. The Ghost of Ned Ludd by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 3, Informative

    The folks with all the money realized a few decades ago: there's just too many people (as other than prostitutes and bodyguards, we don't need them anymore due to off-shoring, computerization and automation).

    But rolling the cattle trucks is a bit too on the nose, so let's go with Permanent War, sugar-based industrialized food, set them at each others' throats with race and religion-based hatreds, choke-off competent and well-funded primary education, and what the hell, add in the idea that vaccines are a bad idea.

  13. Some JackInTheBoxes have automated ordertaking... by LVSlushdat · · Score: 2

    I've been in a few Jackinthebox restaurants that have a touchscreen order taking system, you touch what you want, insert your card, and voila!! food appears by a human in a couple of minutes... I gather with all of the b.s. about a $15 min wage, these will become MUCH more common.....

    --
    THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
  14. Re:No, thanks. by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    "As such, I detest self-checkout because as a customer I should not be expected to perform employee's duties without compensation.'

    Take the lead in solving that problem by always including beer or produce in your self-checkout. Then an employee will have to come over and help you anyway.

  15. Burger King by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

    BK's "flame broiled" tag was a marketing coverup for a major robotic replacement of human labor. Dismiss the burger flippers, and replace them with a conveyor belt. And call it "flame broiled" and claim it as a "taste innovation". There have been thousands of automation tools that have been implemented over the years. It's not a new thing, and it's not a new trend.

    --
    Learn to love Alaska
  16. Re:Americanisms by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    Pies are pastry.
    Pizza is bread.

    Hot dog is a sandwich.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  17. Permit me to play devil's advocate by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    You're still taking money away from earners (the owners of the robots) to give to non-earners (the people put out of work by the robots). Venezuela just took 4.8 million toys from a company to give away to poor kids. What you're proposing is basically the same thing, at least if you take the end results. What gives you the right? They robot's owners earned it. How is what you're doing anything other than theft? If the robot owners want to give away the proceeds that's their business. But you're suggesting we force them (presumable at the barrel of a gun)?

    If you can't answer these questions I don't think socialism will ever get anywhere. At least, not until things have gone completely to shit for 90% of the population. Maybe 95%...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Permit me to play devil's advocate by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're still taking money away from earners (the owners of the robots)

      Why are they earners? Doesn't earning imply doing something, rather than having something? I thought the latter was called a "rentier".

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:Permit me to play devil's advocate by skam240 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By your line of reasoning all taxation is just like your Venezuela scenario.

      Meanwhile most normal people think some level of taxation is necessary for a government to run so then the debate from there is what is reasonable.

      Also, UBI isnt really socialism as it has nothing to do with the state controlling the means of production.

      --
      I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
    3. Re:Permit me to play devil's advocate by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      Why do you assume that someone who owns something built it?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  18. Re: Already in McDonalds by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All jobs are women's jobs.

    Well, sure, but these were primarily women's jobs at the time they were automated out of existence. "Washerwoman" is common parlance.

    Want to know what other woman's job got automated out of existence? Computer. Many women were computers. They were replaced by electronic computers. So replaced that you automatically think of a computer as a machine today, and "Many women were computers" sounds funny.

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  19. Blahblahblah save our jobs by XSportSeeker · · Score: 2

    Look people, this sort of tech has been around for decades now.

    I don't think most people know, but for some of these automated restaurant ideas and industrial food machines, you read "it has been around for years"... you'll think something like early 2000s, but it's actually more like back in the 60s or 70s. You know that conveyor belt sushi thing? It was invented in 1958. It had a huge boom, then it fell out of fashion, then it started becoming popular once again in early 2000s. But here's the deal: restaurants with regular non automated parts are still the majority and the most popular.

    Wanna see something older? Try restaurants that serves food using vending machines only. One of those existed back in 1902, and it was in the US:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    A prototype restaurant is far from replacing jobs in a large scale, and if this is about robots replacing fast food workers in a smaller scale, this isn't news. China and some countries in Europe already used adapted industrial automation systems, robots and robotic arms. The fact that one restaurant is opening does not mean that it's economically feasible as a regular thing, doesn't mean that all restaurants will copy the concept, and it doesn't mean it'll work at all.
    http://www.theverge.com/2016/4...

    Remember this Nuremberg restaurant from 2007?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    How about this japanese restaurant from 2009?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    Eatsa opened last year, but it's basically the same idea as the previously mentioned Automat that had an initial boom only to disappear years later:
    https://techcrunch.com/2015/08...

    Right now, these automated systems are on average extremely expensive, single purpose, hard to maintain, and mostly seen as novelty both by clients and from a marketing perspective. We're still probably over a century away from a multipurpose humanoid robot that can do everything human staff do, in an ideal condition where the price, maintenance costs and usefulness counterbalances paying minimum wage or so. By the time miraculous robots like those appear, we'll be more prepared for the switch, and it'll happen gradually. And even then, it's hard to imagine robots completely replacing fast-food and restaurant staff unless we're talking about a future where robots are replacing humans. Because there will always be people willing to pay for a restaurant that has humans preparing your food and serving it.

    The base logic why things like that don't suddently happen out of nowhere is easy to understand: even if by some miraculous circunstance we managed to produce perfect robots that would work flawlessly and require no maintenance in all restaurants in a city, this would automatically put so many people out of a job that these restaurants would end up having no costumers to serve, closing down before all the investment put into it had any return. But of course, we can't magically create thousands of robots out of thin air overnight, most robots and automation systems nowadays have limited functionality that's not usually adequate for fast food kitchen environments, and culturally people are not used to and will take a long time to get used to automated restaurants.

    Perhaps far into the future we'll pay more to go to restaurants with an all human staff that will only be there simply because they enjoy working with that... but here I'm entering utopia territory. If we ever reach an age where robots can do most things for use at reasonable costs, we'll either have already implemented the universal basic income, or governments will be responsible for most of the upkeep of basic population needs. I mean, you have a damn army of multipurpose robots,

  20. Re:And so it starts... by aberglas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No, the machines are now getting much smarter. Grinding flour takes a purely mechanical machine. The second generation could use pneumatic computers and simple electrical systems to control them.

    But now computers are ubiquitous and cheap. And they can see. Not very well, but well enough to automate things that were unthinkable a few years ago. Such as picking out parts jumbled in a bin. Or flipping burgers that are not in exactly defined places.

    This third generation will not take over the world. But unlike second generation machines, they can pick strawberries. And will soon be able to clean offices, and paint houses, and pack supermarket shelves, and drive trucks etc. Anything routine.

    Initially the robots are only just a bit cheaper than labour, so slow introduction and minimal price changes. But over time, they get better and cheaper, until anyone that still relies on labour will not be able to compete.

    And real "robots" are not humanoid, with arms and legs. They are purpose built machines, but with far more intelligence than existing machines.

    But the interesting case is still many decades off. When computers can program themselves.

    http://www.computersthink.com/

  21. Re:the pizza claims are bogus. by hublan · · Score: 2

    Why does all food that is made by robot taste like shit? I'm serious. I'm trying to think of some food product that is assembled by robots that doesn't taste horrible and is not horrible for you.

    Because once you've eliminated all non-essential employment costs, the only savings left is in the ingredients. Everything else is fixed and mostly non-negiotiable (rent, utilities, maintenance, miscellaneous overhead).

    --
    My spoon is too big.
  22. Re: Already in McDonalds by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    Referring to the history of the world is not sexist, slavery-ist, monarchist, communist, or any other -ist.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  23. Burger joint by LostMyBeaver · · Score: 3, Interesting

    French fries
    In a factory, shape a potato into a fixed size rectangular prism, save the rest for things like hash browns
    Package the blocks in a multi-level grid
    At the restaurant, feed the grid into a cooling unit
    Have a machine remove a row from the grid and feed it to the cutting machine
    From the cutting machine, feed the row of potatoes through one at a time
    Per serving of french fries, press a matching metal rectangular prism into the top of the container to force the potato block through a cutting grid made up of cutting wires. The wires are found on the base of the potato storage.
    The uncooked fries land in a basket and are dropped into a cooker for a deterministic period of time.
    The basked is lifted and moved over a salting area
    Salt is applied from above
    The basket is moved over a funnel
    The fries are dropped and a container is located beneath to receive them.
    The fries are moved by conveyor belt towards the customer.
    The basket moves to another station to be pressure washed
    The salting area is cleaned by rinsing with water
    Once a day (or more often) the deep fryer is turned off and once cold enough drains the oil from the bottom via a valve. From above a wire brush lowers to clean the bottom and a hose is used to clean the rest draining through a second valve on the bottom. The oil is then refilled.
    The used oil travels through pipes to be picked up by a biodiesel company collecting waste.
    Empty containers for carrying potatoes are placed in a second rack where a new grid is built from empties
    Access to the grids of full and empties are reachable from the building side where they can be loaded and unloaded by a robotic truck.

    Burgers
    Burgers are formed and packed into a tube like structure that can be stored frozen
    Burger is loaded into freezer at restaurant in rows on a rotating base to make each tube accessible as needed
    A mechanism moves up and down the tubes to the next available burger
    The mechanism places pressure along side rails on the tube to stabilize the tube
    The mechanism using pressure from the back pushes (possibly hits) the burger and forces it out of the tube into a catching mechanism
    The burger is moved onto a conveyor belt and carried into a cooking area
    The burger is moved onto a heated and oiled teflon pan, a second heated and oiled teflon pan is placed on top to cook from above.
    Bread is stored in the freezer in a similar tube but as separate top and bottom.
    Bread is moved from cold storage using a nearly identical mechanism to the burgers
    The bread is defrosted by hot air as it travels over the conveyor belt
    The burger once cooked is placed on the bottom piece of bread
    The frying pans are flipped and moved over a pressure washer, washed and then sprayed with oil
    Ketchup, mustard, etc... are placed via tubes from above onto the top bun.
    A cylinder that matches the size of the burger and bun surround the burger and vegetables are slices and/or chopped from above
    The cylinder moves away and is pressure washed
    The top bread is places on the burger
    The burger rolls onto a piece of cardboard which is folded from the sides and then put on the delivery conveyor.

    I can go on for a while... I am 100% confident that it wouldn't take much time, effort, money or intelligence to build a fast food restaurant that cleans itself, cooks all the food, changes oil, etc... In addition, the restaurant can be easily designed to support automatic loading and unloading of all the materials from the delivery truck with no effort from a human. Additionally, the truck itself can be self driving. Additionally, given time, it would be possible to automate substantial parts of preparing the food for the restaurant.

    What I don't understand is... why do we even have employees at fast food restaurants anymore. At $15 an hour, I would rather replace them with robots. Probably could do it within a year.

  24. Re:No, thanks. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    meanwhile the rest of us want timely service, properly cooked food, correct change...can't wait for robots to have the jobs.

    This has mostly been not true. Semi-automated restaurants have been tried many times. They tried phones at every table, so you can call your order in directly to the kitchen. Then they tried touch pads at every table. In general, these have not been popular. When they go out to eat, people want human interaction. Otherwise, they would just microwave something at home.

  25. I see nothing but wins from automated food systems by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 2

    One of the problems of this world is that half of all produce spoils before it's eaten. So in the cities of the future, why not have centralized, automated mega-kitchens which receive trucks of fresh raw ingredients and transform them into healthy, delicious and customized meals? Sure, they only make fast food now, but there is no reason why robots can't execute the instructions of Michelin-star chefs, and no reason why such excellent meals should cost more than fast food costs now. Together with some sort of automated delivery service, this is simply a much better way of feeding people than what we do now.

    Just think of all the time we waste stocking shelves in stores, driving to them, parking, filling our carts... stocking our fridges, heating up an entire oven for the sake of a single meal, cooking, cleaning up, etc. etc. All that requires a great deal of total cognitive load for many humans, and much wasting of resources. The alternative is that a massive restaurant kitchen cooks up exactly the meal you want, with the freshest ingredients and flavoring details that you would simply not be able to accomplish in a home kitchen. Then the meal arrives through an automated delivery car network, which also picks up the dishes from the previous meal. The city could also have dining rooms with a direct pipeline to each of the city's various mega-kitchens, and these can host social or family groups who want to eat out.

    A world like that is actually quite achievable with tech that's already in the prototype stage, and it's a much better world than the wasteful one we live in now.

  26. Re:And so it starts... by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

    Point to history when this hasn't happened before.

    We landed on the moon because we put a bunch of African American women sat in the back room somewhere doing calculations.

    We made it through 90% of humanity needing to farm because we automated the boring unskilled part. (Even parts that were so unskilled we had mules and horses do them).

    We'll be fine like we always have been.

    I'm certainly hoping we'll be fine. The trick parts will be regarding the idle population. As the work eliminated expands up the skill ladder, we'll face some issues for a while. The problem is that for one reason or another, many of the folks working the unskilled labor are not going to be capable of moving up. Some folks just aren't that smart, some folks are voracious underachievers. Some folks have problemacious personalities. Are there answers to those issues? Probably.

    But assuming that the present day attitude toward labor costs holds, there isn't a plan for people to move up, the plan is to eliminate jobs. Unless we decide to do make-work.

    So we are possibly looking at a post labor America to start, and the world later.

    The most difficult barrier is going to be the diminishment of the ages old concept of having to work to survive. This is rooted so deeply on most people that few can contemplate the idea. Anyhow, very interesting times we will be living in.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  27. Re:And so it starts... by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

    We landed on the moon because we put a bunch of African American women sat in the back room somewhere doing calculations.

    Actually, all the necessary calculations were already being done by stored-program digital computers, courtesy of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory which built one of the first embedded computers with digital ICs. Unless your "bunch of African American women" were some stowaways in the Apollo spacecraft armed with calculators.

    Is this a big whoosh? You are talking about the MIT designed Navigation computer, and OP is talking about Katherine Johnson, one of NACA and later NASA's "computers" - yes, they called the ladies computers. The respect for the woman was so high that John Glenn refused to fly unless she verified the numbers that NASA's first digital computer spit out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  28. Re:Capitalist Class: How dare you tax our property by roman_mir · · Score: 2

    companies have not decided to shutter their business or relocate en masse

    - they have not? :). They have not, you say? So that 500,000,000,000 dollar a year trade deficit that USA has been running for over 2 decades is due to influx of capital investment and of new business and it is not due to businesses leaving or shutting down? Interesting alternative reality you have constructed yourself there.

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  29. Re:And so it starts... by chill · · Score: 2

    You're not taking it to the logical conclusion.

    The removal of the worker from the equation removes their ability to obtain capital, and this participate in private ownership and operation of property.

    By removing what could eventually be upwards of 90% of the participants in the system you will break the system.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  30. Re: Already in McDonalds by Jeremi · · Score: 3, Funny

    Not "sperm donor".

    I'm not sure that counts as a job. i.e. Working an 8-hour shift, 5 days a week would be difficult for most.

    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  31. Re:And so it starts... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    Even if the Mercury vehicle wouldn't have worked without one additional person doing some manual checking, which is highly implausible because of how the laws of physics work, John Glenn didn't land on the Moon or even try landing on the Moon.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  32. Re: Already in McDonalds by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    You're utterly incoherent. The fact remains that mere referring to history, e.g. describing past events, ipso facto does not involve condoning or disapproving of these events.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  33. Re:No, thanks. by freeze128 · · Score: 2

    This also works if you purchase a gift card. It needs to be authorized by an employee.

    But if you don't want to use the self-checkout at the supermarket, that's fine by me. I get through the checkout 4 times faster than you because there is one line feeding 4 registers. If you're looking for the shortest line, be sure to divide the self-checkout line length by the number of kiosks.

  34. Re:And so it starts... by RabidReindeer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We're not all going to be the robot owners. Robots are capital, and the trend of the last 30 years has been to push more and more of the capital upwards and away from the 99%.

    Yes, robots will get cheaper, too, but cheap isn't free and if we continue laying off people faster than they can amass capital to buy their own robots, then the magic isn't going to happen.

    Nor are a lot of us suited for the limited set of jobs that are expected to remain - and I should note that Japan has expended considerable effort on robotic care for the elderly (thanks to a shrinking lower-age population), that IBM's Watson is considered a first-class medical expert in its own right, and that robot surgery has been out of the realm of Science Fiction and part of everyday reality for some years now. So that wasn't the ideal example of where the newly-unemployed can retrain for a new source of capital.

    Historically, new occupations have been spawned when older occupations died, but we're simply not seeing anything new open up on a major scale this time. What? You think that Robot Repair is going to be a growing field? We ALREADY have technology sufficient for a simple robot to roll up to a more complex one, unbolt a failed component and attach a new one, then roll over to the dumpster with the old one. Nobody's going to be tinkering with fine-grained repairs any more than they repair the electronics on a digital watch or TV. It's simply more cost-effective to get a new unit from the factory and scrap the old one.

  35. Re:And so it starts... by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

    How does one operate private property? Am I holding it wrong?

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.