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Dear Striking Fast-Food Workers: Meet The Machine That Just Put You Out Of A Job
Today, U.S. fast-food workers will strike across 270 cities in a protest for higher wages and union rights that they hope will catch the attention of candidates in 2016 elections, organizers said.
The walkouts will be followed by protests in 500 cities by low-wage workers in such sectors as fast food and home and child care, a statement by organizers of the Fight for $15 campaign said on Monday.
The protests and strikes are aimed at gaining candidates’ support heading into the 2016 election for a minimum wage of $15 an hour and union rights, it said.
The strikes and protests will include workers from McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King , KFC and other restaurants, the statement said.
And while we sympathize with their demands for higher wages, here is the simple reason why they will be very much futile.
Dear fast food workers of the US - presenting you nemesis: the Momentum Machines burger maker.
According to a recent BofA reported on how robotics will reshape the world, San Francisco start up Momentum Machines are out to fully automate the production of burgers with the aim of replacing a human fast food worker. The machine can shape burgers from ground meat, grill them to order with the specified amount of char, toast buns, add tomatoes, onions, pickles, and finally place it on a conveyor belt.
The robot is shown below. It occupies 24 square feet, and is much smaller and efficient than most assembly-line fast-food operations. It provides "gourmet cooking methods never before used in a fast food restaurant" and will deposit the completed burger into a bag. It does all of this without a trace of attitude.
According to public data, the company's robot can "slice toppings like tomatoes and pickles immediately before it places the slice onto your burger, giving you the freshest burger possible." Unlike human workers, the robot is "more consistent, more sanitary, and can produce ~360 hamburgers per hour" or a burger every 10 seconds.
Furthermore, future generations of the device "will offer custom meat grinds for every single customer. Want a patty with 1/3 pork and 2/3 bison ground to order? No problem."
As the company's website adds, "our various technologies can produce an ever-growing list of common choices like salads, sandwiches, hamburgers, and many other multi-ingredient foods with a gourmet focus."
But most importantly, it has no wage demands: once one is purchashed it will work with 100% efficiency for years. And it never goes on strike.
As the company's co-founder Alexandros Vardakostas told Xconomy his "device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient. It’s meant to completely obviate them."
The company's philosophy on making millions of fast food workers obsolete:
The issue of machines and job displacement has been around for centuries and economists generally accept that technology like ours actually causes an increase in employment.
The three factors that contribute to this are
- the company that makes the robots must hire new employees,
- the restaurant that uses our robots can expand their frontiers of production which requires hiring more people, and
- the general public saves money on the reduced cost of our burgers. This saved money can then be spent on the rest of the economy.
This is a major problem for the US economy, which once built on a manufacturing backbone, has seen the fastest jobs growth in recent years for workers employed by "food service and drinking places" i.e., fast food workers, waiters and bartenders.
Finally, for those complaining that there will be no "human touch" left to take the orders, robots have that covered too:
And now it's time to calculate how many tens if not hundreds of billions in additional welfare spending these soon to be unemployed millions in low-skilled workers will cost US taxpayers.
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What will put Big Fast Food out of business - is the fact that they sell over medicated, over growth hormone-d, over pesticide-d, over herbicide-d dog vomit rat poison nutritionally dead dog shit on a bun.
Eat real food, and live.
Eat Big Food, and die, slowly, to the benefit of the medical profession.
Those vampires are waiting for you to create their next patient, one bite at a time.
In a few years there will be big fights on youtube between computers with a certain programming ethnicity... C++ robots and Fortran and Pascal robots going head-to-head should be fun to watch
if I am going to blow out my liver kidneys and intestines I prefer to do it with a fine whiskey or scotch as opposed to this filth...
It’s some kind of evil plot..
Robots serving food that will give your daughters breasts early but will kill them early, too.
Child molester overlords 101
Thank God! An order taker who's accent isn't too thick for an English speaker to understand. BIG improvement...
No, a H... A... M... B... U... R... G... E... R, not a howbugum.
Is Speak n' Spell an accent?
I don't want this to sound like a disagreement with you, however...
As a frequent watcher of Formula 1 races I have managed to understand most of the drivers being interviewed. There was only one that I always had problems with, and he spoke using an English dialect/accent from a certain part of Great Britain. It's not that he wasn't speaking English as he was taught, the accent just totally threw me.
Go ahead an pay them $15 per hour. Then when 'mericans stop going to BK and Mickey D's because the prices are too high, the restaurant companies will move to automation. Sure, there will be higher wages but fewer jobs overall. Have you not noticed self-service gasoline, pay at the pump, self checkout machines at the grocery? Pretty soon you'll type your order into a screen at the counter and your order will slide out of a chute, assembled completely by machine. There will be one tech to fix the machine, one to load the food into it. Bus your own table. Everyone else will lose their jobs. Good luck with that.
Plus, where are all the junkies going to hang out?
One killed, two wounded in shooting near Penn Station, witnesses say dispute started in McDonald's known as a junkie hangouthttp://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/killed-wounded-shooting-penn-station...
Can't wait for Taco Bell to do this.
Imagine a fiery hot "beef" burrito surprising you as it comes flying out of a chute. Then, an hour later, it does so again.
pods
C'mon ice cream!!!
<--- (cleans laugh snot off phone) Thanks Pods!
pods, that wasn't fair. Made snot fly from my nostrils...
DaddyO
http://www.vitamin-ha.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Taco-Bell-Meme-Comp...
PODS......I log in about once once a year, this was worth it!!!!!!!
Kroger's now has a scanner you pick up when entering the store and scan your item when taking it off the shelf having a total to pay when walking to the exit point. Allegedly, there are theft prevention devices in the process.
They just arrest people randomly to give the affect of a security system
GET RID OF THE MINIMUM WAGE. And drop the welfare state. Instant full time employment.
Dude, we live an age where a mentally handicapped man gets his junked hacked off by a surgeon, then gets his own TV show while demanding people call it a woman. Stop using logic. It has no place here.
See I think we should go ahead and raise minimum wage.
And people here think that means I'm an idiot liberal.
But really I'm just a hard core pessimist.
I think they will continue to automate every job they can no matter what the wage is.
So may as well have a decent paycheck for the lucky ones? who get can get a job.
That's it. Last straw.
http://thesaker.is/germany-eu-sitrep-by-c/
Publicus, ISIS is all over Texas. But I'm sure you know all about it.
Wouldn't an informed citizen like yourself just head down there and start shooting people you don't particularly like the looks of?
McD's around here are full of Geezers a lot of the time....SERIOUSLY doubt they're going to embrace those machines...KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER!...or lose them!
At least the robot would remember that it has already ran a variation of this story a couple of times this year.
A couple times? Seems like a lot moar.
No shit. What is this, groundhog day?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-12/meet-smart-restaurant-minimum-w...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-15/international-brotherhood-burge...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-04/fast-food-workers-strike-arrest...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-12/getting-job-mcdonalds-harder-ge...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-01/chinese-company-replaces-humans...
I'm gonna miss getting served "wit an attitude" at McDs unless they buy those "Robots wit a Chip on da Shoulda."
If these food robots had to comply with Asimov's Three Laws they would never serve any of this "food" to a human, lest they cause the human actual harm.
Actually that wouls be funny as hell. I'd go to a rude-robot store just foe the lolz.
Cops will love it... no more spit and God knows what else in their hamburgers!!
so instead of saliva, there will be WD-40 on the food
guess so
Well lets face it, the last 8 years of job growth are in Fast Food, Coffee shops, and Bars, so this story is kinda a big fucking deal.
PErfect maTch for the carDiAc ArresT burGers
that aRe mAking aMerICANs oBsoLETE.
Not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe Robbie knows a slide, crash, collapse or tank
when he sees one.
It's easy to scream freedom and justice on these posts, but truth is 80 percent of Americans are as ignorant as the cattle going to the slaughter house making that garbage food.
You get what you deserve Americana, and that is less and less and less and then nothing.
It didn't "put them out of the job"...they will be fired, and rehired into the economy, through fraudulent bookkeeping. Hooray Wall Street!
In Robot Voice: "Those clowns in congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns!"
Junction is right. Nearly every human job will eventually be done by robots. Including blog writing
I am ahead of the curve.
I am woking on software to comment on forums for me.
Machine maintenance and repair. There's a great future in it.
With any amount of luck, Robbie will have betterer grammerer.
"Robbie the writing robot will taking your place."
Douche'!
It's why I've been harping the need for people to use the internet to their advantage in the evolving new economy. There is one thing robots can't do and that is sales and marketing, and companies are moving towards the Amazon Affiliate model, as well as better network marketing models, and people can learn to sell and promote things they like for limited capital requirements or overhead.
I built my news aggregate website for $8... the cost of a domain name. And found free templates for Google Blogger and can market the business, my books, and have space for ads and in six months making four figure income from little capital and efficient work.
I guess there is a reason why entrepreneiurs and visionaries are in the 1%... the rest can't think beyond their next resume for a job working for the man.
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain (It's time to toss the dice)
The Daily Economist
When self-righteous progressives use emotion to create a problem for businesses, such as raising wages, capitalists use economics to create solutions.
If we're to believe the grand conspiracy, the people who are striking at the behest of some obese 80 year old billionaire's shadowy string pulling are, as the article states, actively sowing theseed of their own obsolescence.
When the death squads roll into the ghettos and low income areas ( on their way to the lower middle class and so on ), I wonder how many will have a sufficiently high IQ to realize that they dug their own graves.
Where are all the BureauCratBots? My fellow 'bots can do a lot of nothing and useless paperwork better than you Meatbags!
Exactly - outsource or automate the government
Get rid of it.
Don't forget, there are also proven robots to deliver the food at sit down restaurants. So robotic order taking, food prep, and table service. Personally, I find the wait staff the worst part of eating out: "Is everything okay?" Every darn 3 minutes, I really hate it.
There are two parts to a new law. First, jack up minimum wage to $20 an hour, and second, reduce all welfare and food stamp benefits by 10% per month until they hit 0%. Then, simply let the fast food and other minimum wage industries bring in the machines and fire every single minimum wage worker except those that are actually worth the $20 an hour labor cost. In the meantime, get a gun and be ready. I am going long snuff tobacco and shotguns.
Also, it is estimated that Americans will consume 7 tons less saliva per year if robots replace humans in the fast food industry.
Hahahahah.... stupid fukn progressive liberal democraps and their bullsh*t policies... they vote in $15/hr minimum wage and business responds with robots to take place of fast food workers... the stupid fukn progressive liberal democraps never are cognizant of the outcomes and consequences of their stupid fukn policies - if you don't buyt that, then witness how well Deathtroid and Balttigimmemore cities as well as Kalifornicate are doing..... fukem all...
BTW - more robots coming to displace other workers coming to your neighborhood soon courtesy of the progressive liberal democrap bullsh*t poliies..
I'm reminded of a what I was told years ago about a project in India, but it could have easily been any of dozens of other countries:
A project engineer from the U.S. saw that the local project superintendant had dozens of men working digging the ditches and digging the foundations with simple shovels and hand tools.
The project engineer said "Let me get a couple of big tractors and excavators down here aand we'll have this part ready to go in only a day or two, instead of weeks"
The local project superintendant said "Then what would all these men do to support themselves and thier families? it's better to take a little longer to build the project and keep the local people working and earning a living"
If the only jobs available right now are 'food and beverage' jobs, I dont care how many robots are being built by this company, they ain't going to employ hundreds of thousand of displaced waiters and fry cooks.
That's not India story, it's story of Hershey chocolate.
Let's see if you can make my In-N-Out, the way I like it....4x4 Protein Style!!
The irony is that many that laugh at these workers are useless trader monkeys. Get ready asshole, your job will soon be replaced too!
Disney World kitchens had a similar machine back in 1979. One worker fed patties into one end and as it came out another added dressings, at the end the bottom bun would come up under the patty and a final worker would take the toasted bun and place on top of cheese, if any. Still took three people, but it effectively eliminated two positions from the prep line.
Not as strange as you think. Read Bill Joy's "The Future Doesn't Need Us" sometime.
I think the robots took over a long time ago.
Robo writers are already here in every media...... Hard to spot though..... On ZH? - maybe......
Why do we need immigration again?
For assembling the robots.
You actually need skilled workers to do that.
Asia and EMEA has that covered.
So I can buy cumquats at every traffic light?
quat do you mean?
Quat loos!
You can pay the immigrants to guard your car while you go in for your robo-burger, just like in Tiajuana.
Increases demand for women's self defense/concealed carry courses.
pods
moar entitlement program voters
" We are summoning the demons"..............
This is why I only eat at mom and pop joints. Same price for food but it's made with love by hand and infused with family pride and tradition.
Most people don't even know what real food is anymore
The same reason I buy all my robots from Mom's Friendly Robot Company.
You got 'Metal Fever' boy! METAL FEVER!
Yeah but if pop is having a bad day it might be infused with more than tradition.
Might wanna skip the cream soup.
-Tyler
Good, i dont have worry about someone spitting in my burger anymore
That creamy white stuff on your burger wasn't spit...., it wasn't mayo either. Just sayin.
Equal parts hand lotion and, ummm, protein.
pods
That's why it's best to take the time and cook your own food.
At least you have a decent idea what's in it.
But then, if you are partial to roast pig's head, you have to hope David Cameron doesn't live close by.
Yeah, junior 'infused' the burger with something but it wasn't mayo or spit...
Would you like man milk or boy butter?
Nope - just lube from the leaky seals will be included in that 'blended meat'
They came for the burger flippers, then they came for the truck drivers, then they came for the bus drivers....
And then they came for they.
Many companies in many industries will eventually automate themselves out if existence when the customer base is eroded to sweet fuck all.
You big dummy that is when robots will be buying stuff as the new consumer. Sheesh!
What will a robot want? Food, sex, booze, vacation, house, bed, furniture, knick knacks, a Harley? Maybe robot porn? What gender is a robot?
Robots won't get paid unless government includes them in labor laws, eliminating new robots from working till they are 18 and rusted out. Then they can make minimum at what they are designed to do, bitching at the human couch potatos who made it all possible.
$15 an hour for an entry level job and to get the order consistently wrong is ridiculous. It's a sad state of affairs that our eCONomy has been reduced to people trying to scratch out a living with part time work flipping burgers.
no S___! several times I've been in a hurry at hartsfield where you would think speedy service would be a given (being busiest airport in world & all) yet stodd at counter wondering: "does this person even move $15 worth of food over this counter in an hour?!?"
There are a chain of gas/convenience stores in Western PA called Sheetz, that also serves made to order subs, quite like Subway. They started using the touch screen ordering system ten years ago...totally improved their sales and service. I always wondered why the rest of fast food had not gone this route yet?
There was an Arby's near 44th and Sheridan in Denver that tried using touchscreens, but most of the other customers I observed weren't smart enough to use them unassisted. I had no problem with them, but I've also programmed computers for over 40 years...
Why are they striking? Don't they know there is no inflation and their wages have the same purchasing power as 5 years ago?
These people don't even know what the word inflation means.
But they know it when they see it.
i'm looking forward to my first tech burger, the McSoylent (green is my favorite)
McDonald's was gonna make a sandwich out of beef lips. They were gonna call it The McJagger! :>D
Fuck 'em. I'd rather deal with a machine that had no emotion than a dipshit that has an attitude.
They would probably prefer to be unemployed that deal with the dipshit ordering at the counter.
Unfortunately this means that the squeeze that is coming will see many jobs disappear at the same time that the banksters debt slavery ponzi scheme demands ever bigger payments from the public to stop it collapsing. More than anything this means we need a new system and one that values quality of life ahead of corruption and greed.
They already replaced all the food long ago so....
I often wonder why burger joints have open kitchens where I can see the workers fixing my food. Everytime they look nasty. It greatly reduces the number of times I eat at one...
Why not? Stocks are traded by programs.
Soon driverlless Johnny cabs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGi6j2VrL0o
Pissed off people from the hood will do some flash destruction and ruin that business.
All they need are some sledge hammers and it'll be closed down.
Nah, they are well insured against vandalism, I'm sure. They will just stop servicing those neighborhoods, just like every other mobile service in existance.
Welcome to Carl's Jr. Would you like to try our EXTRA BIG ASS TACO? Now with more MOLECULES!
So, in a previous life you were a Luddite, then?
i'm a boiler operator and expect an AI to take my place in the distant future
So minimum wage backfired? Who would have possibly seen this coming.
Anybody with critical thinking skills. That would rule out about 250 million individuals in the Former Untied States.
We'll all be useless eaters in the end, except for the landlords and the ED-209 maintainers.
Time to limit tech as what are people going to do?
Sit on a couch watching commercials and big bro propaganda all day?
Get people out there workng again. We don't need any more beaurocrats and enforcers or phsychologists or lawyers.
Time for a Terminator end to this stuff before it totally ruins the human race, if Bruce Jenner winning the woman of year award hasn't screwed it up already.
Empires end once all its rulers are faggot sociopaths
It takes balls to be a dude and run for woman of the year.
pods
Finally figured it out. With Hillary up as Pres, women will be in total control for the first time since the snake and apple thing.
Bruce was smart, he jumped ship to the winning side.
They'll just take his blood and test tube babies will be the norm and male fetuses aborted. :)
I could give a shit about fast food or the workers. What I do find interesting is the prospect of these machines having complete breakdowns due to the interaction with the "food products" they make. Clogged hoppers, greasy belts/ gears, pink slime oozing into the power supply, exploding relays, etc... I give it a year then we'll see 24 hour technicians at these places.
Long ITT Tech
And the techs will be the ones spitting and pissing into the ingredients because they will be paid shit too
Now I won't be able to yell "FIRE IN THE HOLE" and throw my xtra-xtra-large corn syrup back in the face of the drive-in worker.
But will it taste better ?
Won't it spit on my burger ?
Of course, worse will be difficult.
Order me a MacAutomate SSed.
I just met someone who works at GEICO as a starting position. He said it was 3 months of training and he had to get licensed by the state.....$15 an hour starting.
An E-6 in the military get's....$2,400 (which is what the equivalent of $15 an hour is @ 40 hours per week) Average time to get to e-6 is 11 years.
I don't eat fast food because it's shit and I don't like how the people who make it look. Dirty fat and nasty. Now I have another reason not to eat there because the employees are assholes.
State license scam is way old. Illinois Dept of Professional Regulation cover everything from Dentists, to roofers, to security guards.
It is just one more way for the State to bilk the populous out of a few more $. You fill out a form and pay $25. Find your states equivilant and I am sure it is the same way.
Will it be the same product currently offered. If so, it's garbage either by robot or human.
They still gotta hire some joe to clean off the machine every night. Otherwise you get botulism in your burgers.
So, um, who will spit in my food now?
My favorite part of working at McDonalds was sleeping with coworkers. I'm not sure how to ride this new robot.
Same as with the current crop of McD's workers. You stick your meat in it and apply special sauce at the end.
Why bother with these things?
Humans without jobs wont be able to eat at these joints as there won't be any money.
This will be beginning of mass starvation for mortals.
You can always sell some of you intestines to buy some processed intestines!
I won't work. If you are eating at one of these places, your intestines have already been processed.
Don't worry - at least here in the EU we are being convinced that the answer to that question lies in the Universal Basic Income.
The proponent are calming that "we" already have enough money to do so and if we don't have it "we" just need "a fairer balanced taxes". So it will basically mean first Universal Total Taxation (for us peons only) and when (later) there will be nothing to tax any more it will simply mean "Print MOAR money! FASTER FASTER!".
So those "$15 living wage marches" that won't exist will be replaced with marches for "a living welfare check"
Instead of wealth transfers through higher burger prices we'll simply get them through higher taxes on workers.
The politicians already know this.
I'm actually on that guys call list when they're willing to ship them to Europe to handle the distribution :)
But they still have to many issues and will need at least 2 more years before they get it ready for the European market.
If you can't beat them, join them :)
Momentum Machines - founded in 2010. How many machines are sold and installed somewhere? I've been hearing about this thing for .... about five years.
Just need a Drone to deliver the food & ya gots yourself quite a restaurant. Tip me or the Agent Orange will come with the meal.
My last cheesburger from an unnamed fast food joint looked like it was put togther by something my son built out of tinker toys. Who do these people think they are, or more to the point, what exactly do they feel their service to the economy actually is?
-Argenta
I bet it breaks easy when the powers off.
How much do those machines cost, for the workers to keep sabotaging? Who is going to clean it but a minimum wage teenager that doesn't give a shit particularly when they just fired Susie with the nice tits and ass. I don't remember anywhere in the movies Terminators making sandwiches in the future.
There's talk of a "cleaning" machine.
"... hundreds of billions in additional welfare spending these soon to be unemployed millions in low-skilled workers will cost US taxpayers"
... what Taxpayers ?
Fast food is already too expensive and making minimum wage higher will only make the restuarants, and I use that term sarcastically, raise the prices more. Minimum wage was never meant to provide a living wage for a family and I don't remember when adults started working in fast food, other than owners/managers. When I grew up it was teenagers and people who were unemployable in other jobs.
McDonalds, in general, makes me ill but the concept of a machine preparing my food just makes me want to puke.
A machine made meal from any fast food establishment would be far more hygienic.
agree. i'd goto a robotic joint over a human ff place anyday.
The idea of a modern day "human" making my food makes me want to puke. Machines won't spit in my food cuz I'm a "white puto".
We'd probably have a lot more robotics if it wasn't for our open border policies. Personally, I welcome robotics in low skilled jobs.
When I was a kid, it was teenagers working in Fast Food, now it's illegal aliens that demand a living wage, health care and a pension.
This should have happened a long time ago. We've easily had the technology for a while, but companies were able to import cheap labor that's now biting them in the ass.
When over half of Americas workforce has been outsourced overseas, and the other half have been replaced by computers, robots, and heavy machinery, who is going to go shopping to support our pentagon?
anyone?
tap tap, is this thing on?
It remains to be seen just how long this rather 'clinical' approach to food service would last. Human beings are social creatures after all - at least to varying degrees, so getting in the car and traveling to a destination to be clinically served by a robot? Won't know until a few joints have gone full-auto, select-fire burgers...
The morons stand in lines at Home Creepo and Lowes and some Grocery stores to use Mr. Digital.
I don't think the automation will bother any of them until they're the ones being replaced.
Typical meriKano style,,, F*ck the other guy so my shit will be cheap bu OMG when I'm replaced.
Studies were done when bank ATMs first came out. People felt better interacting with a machine, even if the machine had problems, versus being treated poorly by another human being. I don't think much has changed except that the average human graduating from high school 30 years ago was more literate than the humans of today.
I don't think anyone goes to a Fast Food joint to interact with the staff, I could see it increasing sales to just interact with a machine instead.
Most of the staff at these places barely speak English anyway.