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More Fast Food Restaurants Are Now Automating (qz.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
Wendy's is adding self-service ordering kiosks "to at least 1,000 restaurants, or about 15% of its stores," reports the Los Angeles Times, while McDonald's and Panera Bread are now planning to add kiosks to every restaurant. "Lots of restaurants, not just fast-food chains, are really trying to mitigate the costs of higher wages," says one market research firm, while also citing a survey which found 40% of millennials willing to use kiosks (compared to 30% of restaurant-goers overall).
But in some cases this means more work for human employees. Quartz points out that McDonalds doesn't plan to reduce its workforce after installing kiosks, and Panera Bread "has said that at some locations where it has ordering kiosks, it has actually increased human hours to help the kitchen keep up with the higher number of orders that come in through the more efficient ordering system."
But in some cases this means more work for human employees. Quartz points out that McDonalds doesn't plan to reduce its workforce after installing kiosks, and Panera Bread "has said that at some locations where it has ordering kiosks, it has actually increased human hours to help the kitchen keep up with the higher number of orders that come in through the more efficient ordering system."
after going to japan where many of the major chains had at-table ordering device of some sort and no tips, i cant go back
Not necessarily. If food is faster, it might make it more likely for some people who might otherwise keep lunch meats in their refrigerators and a loaf of bread on their countertop.
But in practice, yes, it probably does. And of course the next step is to automate the making of the sandwiches, at which point there won't be a human in the place other than maybe the person who cleans the tables and bathrooms (and only until they perfect the self-busing table). At that point, the destruction of those low-end jobs becomes near-total. In the long term, the only jobs available for humans will be:
That's about it. I might have left out a few things, but that's about it.
The good news is that this will take longer than most people think. As those displaced workers enter the job market, there will be more people willing to do various jobs, which will bring down the cost of that labor to the minimum wage and make automation much less attractive.
The bad news is that automation will indirectly decrease the number of non-minimum-wage jobs by turning them into minimum-wage jobs.
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All these people whining about minimum wage increases causing more automation like it's a bad thing. You've all got it backwards. Human labor has been undervalued, so nobody bothered to put effort into being more efficient. If anything, this suggests that we need to raise wages globally so we'll actually quit wasting so much human effort.
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Libertarians would have us live in a dog-eat-dog society. They ignore the rule of law that allows them their freedom. And they'd like everyone armed to the teeth to defend their property.
They'd like everyone to have the right to be bankrupted due to medical issues. Social Security and Medicare keep Grandma off the Libertarians' front lawns. In Ayn Rand's world, airlines could allow for a certain number of plane crashes a year consistent with their profit margins due to customers deciding not to fly and employees finding alternate jobs. Smog and pollution would exist only up to a threshold number of deaths due to pollution. Mercury would not be a controlled pollutant; if you ingest too much, it be your own fault. What? You didn't know you were eating it in that seafood? How come you didn't pull out your home chemistry kit and do your own testing?
What Libertarians do not get is statistics. If you ignore statistics, then you get the every doofus for himself mentality. If you pay attention to statistics, a lot of government programs make sense.
What Libertarians do not get is statistics.
Just taking a good look at the Prisoner's Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons should be enough to understand that you need government programs to enforce cooperation for the benefit of all.
If someone wins the lottery you say 'wow good for them! All their needs are met!' But if someone were to work for 1 hour and meet all their needs for a whole week, suddenly this is 'wrong'?
Of course it's wrong. When you look at the lottery winner, you're forgetting about the 10 million or so other people who bought a ticket and lost. There's no free ride. The lottery company made a profit. The winner keeps a bit of money. And all the losers paid for it.
Hey don't get me wrong I would love to live in a world where I could meet all my needs by working 1 hour per week. However it doesn't work that way. Perhaps one day, when automation has reached a point where everything basically runs itself and all people need to do is a bit of tweaking here and there. But not yet.
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How terrible! We should stamp out morals and ethics right away.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How terrible! We should stamp out morals and ethics right away.
What I meant was more along the lines of "I think X is bad. Ban it!" where X is in "dancing", "drinking", "women voting", "pacifism", "homosexuality", "women's voting rights", and so on.
Morals and ethics are a find thing. They're the only thing which makes society work. Just let's please agree where yours end, mine begin, and what are the ones we agree on.