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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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Gigantic E. Coli machine. Death on a bun?
If a group of friends were to say, open a small 'cheap burger and a Coke' joint next door to a McMachine franchise and seriously challenge them with aggressive pricing (the old Walmart tactic) they could take a lot of those customers...
Especially if they installed plenty of seating (friendly and welcoming) and kept the menu simple and inexpensive...potatoes and basic burger meat are not high-end, paper plates and such are also cheap, especially if you aren't having them printed up with a corporate logo. Hell, use outdated holiday stuff after it goes on sale the day after the holiday.
And advertise that you do that, make it a point of pride. "Yeah, we serve our food on Halloween plates in February, but who cares? It's a paper plate!"
With all the cost of BEING a McDonald's, those franchises don't have the flexibility to compete with a truly determined competitor with a local outlook and focus, someone who doesn't have to please 'corporate' interests or meet quotas and such.
Why does a particular franchise have to serve breakfast all day, or switch to lunch at precisely 10:45 am, etc? Why do the menus all have to be the same, regardless of local or regional conditions? The whole franchise-model for restaurants is stupid unless you are offering a truly unique menu, or have a theme, etc.
There's a reason the Automat never took off, and to this day is only seen at airports or bus stations, etc. The central-planned 'menu', delivered by machine, is NOT a desirable dining choice except for the truly desperate. If that's the direction they're headed, them they are going down. Now who will step in and fill that void?
Attention voluntary wage slaves: you will be sold down the river.
you have been sold down the river. delivery is eminent.
So, if everyone is unemployed, who buys the hamburgers?
Also, if the robotically-produced hamburger purchases are subsized by government welfare, isn't that socialism squared?
Do please econsplain it to me, ZH.
In the future, hamburgers are only going to be for the 1%. Maybe they will make a "gruel" machine for the rest of us....or a soylent green machine. So....ya....I doubt they will need a robot to keep up with production for the elite's hamburgers.
The robots in the future will run down the street and catch peasants, then sit and begin "dispense mode", dispensing the soylent green to the ones not captured. Then when it runs out the robots will get up and repeat the process, with thousands of other robots doing the same. The main thing is don't get caught, if you don't get caught then you get to eat the soylent green. If you do get caught you become the soylent green.
All the while the super rich will be sitting safely inside eating ultra luxury ground rat.
If it only knows 3 or 4 words of English, and cannot even pronounce those properly, the machine will fit right in.
The machine also won't embezzle or give your customers Hep B
if you want a tasty burger in cali go to nations burgers. still cooked to order by a human right in plain sight also. whats more they cost the same as a mcdonaldo burger. these people that like in-an-out are fools. they taste just like mcdonalds.
cant remember the name of the place but they pump it on cnbc all day. the burgers are $18 but they taste like the bomb...but $18 for a tiny 1/8lb burger.....i know rich people that wont go to the place....LOL
See "Capital," Vol. III, Ch. 13-15, by Karl Marx. He treats the productivity growth/layoff dynamic. BUT, he also develops the law of tendency of the fslling rate of profit, which is missed here. He says this is the most important law of capitalist political economy.
He investigated these questions in the early 1860s.
Pretty good, huh.
That was mind-numbingly boring. I think I'll stick with Adam Smith.
"with a gourmet focus"
gourmet?
misplaced terminology on top of misplaced ingenuity
that's progress?
Ray Kurzweil said so, bitches!
This burger-flpiper is NOT the machine that should keep us awake at night...our kids already can't get jobs...
Unfortunately, we should be more worried about higher paid jobs becoming the victims of robots (deep learning artificial intelligence) rather than burger-flippers; $100K/yr+ jobs will be the target for employers who are eyeing AI technology.
Financial advisors are TOAST! General practice physicians are TOAST! Layers are TOAST! Pharmaceutical researchers are TOAST!
It isn't a joke...Johnny 5 is ALIVE! Watson is a stone cold bad ass motherfucker!
yes but .gov paper pusher jobs will never be outsourced or replaced by technology. I advise alllllll of today's kids to get .gov jobs. Government is the only remaining growth sector.
You are 100% correct!
Stop eating that shit.
with this new technology Mcd's will become like the feds; they can print their way to success.
I saw that list of places and not a single one that I would eat at. Maybe Wendy's in an emergency.
The rest of them could disapear and I would not even notice.
Value menu cheeseburgers .... one of the few foods .... that's safe to eat .... while you drive .... you socialist mofos never see the big picture .... all the nuances .... and grey tones .... seen by someone with a balanced libertarian mind .... all things considered .... LOL ?
"Panera Bread CEO Says Digital Ordering May Soon Replace Labor at Renovated Cafes"
http://dailysignal.com/2015/11/05/panera-bread-ceo-says-digital-ordering-may-soon-replace-labor-at-renovated-cafes/
According to Panera, the company had suffered rising labor costs throughout their third quarter operating margin. Panera’s profit and loss statement, according to Chief Financial Officer Mike Bufano, showed that “labor cost was again the most significant driver of operating margin decline.”
Statutory increases in minimum wage along with inflation and benefit costs associated with the Affordable Care Act were noted by Bufano as two of three factors “contributing to the labor deleverage.”
The new machine will be called the Latoofa 9000.
--> Think of all the money lost to unions, welfares, etc. I get it, I'm a kid, but wanna avoid cyber punk? It's nearly impossible, with all the fast food workers, but if we'd, yes, accept the realities of life and sort out the globalists later, we could avoid cyber punk. But that's probably not going to happen, so I'll work at Wendy's. Or whatever... But really non pre-made patties sounds delicious. But you really have to skip the cyber punk, still.
I'm afraid you ain't seen nothing yet. There's going to be a lot of unemployed burger flippers.
In a world of deflation and chronic over-supply we need robots that can consume some of the shit that is being produced.
The next getto strike/revolt will be held over the fact that the machine doesn't have a "This is holdup" order button.
honestly Im kind of waiting to see how this works out for wall street and "Jobs" when they see all the waiter barteder server chasier jobs disappear as robots takeover....
'As well as being able to chop salad for the freshest burger the next model will be fitted with a phlegm tank or spitoon which will add a dollop to the burger of any customer that complains but this will be at the discretion of the particular machine...'
Remember just because it's a machine doesn't mean it won't spit in your burger, it is important to maintain the human touch after all.
BTW: 1/3 Beef + 2/3 Bison = Pink Slime.
Soon robots will be making and selling hamburgers to other robots who will purchase and consume them. Then the cashless profits will be used to build more robots that build more robots. Of course this will all be taking place within a computer program.
"once one is purchashed it will work with 100% efficiency for years. And it never goes on strike."
I do disagree with this sentence. The machines will go on "strike". They will break down every 5 minutes....especially in the beginning. I'm telling my son the future is in mechanics/maintenance.
This is NOT about helping fast food companies. This is ALL about helping robotics companies!
This is just another invention that will trash out an industry and someone else will get rich. They'll saturate the market with auto-burger flippers, put everyone out of work, and walk off with a huge bag of cash.
I don't care what anyone says, new jobs aren't going to replace the speed of tech and the end result will be widespread poverty.
they are gonna need to start warming up the FEMA CAMPS .............................i mean who needs fast food workers its not like they have families or feelings.
Stop buying fast food. It isn't food, and their corporate values on see you, the consumer, as a fucking pig.
How does one express systemic societal breakdown better than via music, a key music genre, and a key musician?
Circa 1992 ..
https://youtu.be/Qw_5uJKBXc4 - Symphony of Destruction + Interview
https://youtu.be/u0iRwPuRHPk - Foreclosure of a Dream (pay attention to the National Debt Clock)
Circa 1999 ..
https://youtu.be/rZPBSieCceA - Breadline
Circa 2015/16
https://youtu.be/7MRtdd3tXI4 - Fatal Illusion
I have been looking at that picture of a cheeseburger for half the day, and like Wimpy I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a cheeseburger today, Tyler.
p.s. I'm going to make myself a cheeseburger right now cuz I can't take it anymore due to my very severe Wimpy burger addiction. Furthermore, if you are going to post pictures of cheeseburgers could you do so on Saturday nights cuz that's when I normally have hamburgers for diner, thanks.
So, tax the machines!
This is brilliant. Now the people who could afford and usually buy these trash burgers can't afford them.
I will have my steak rare, thanks.
and could I have a beer with that?
Let's just put all of the ingrates out of work and sell our shit to the robots.
But if they automate it, who's gonna drop that bloody band-aid condiment I usually get?
Panera Bread is getting rid of all cashiers.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=be6_1447198845
Will Work For Free is a documentary by Sam Vallely on the subject of technological unemployment.
This begins slow but towards the end one realizes that nobody is safe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SuGRgdJA_c
The finished product exits the machine on the floor?
Raw burger "stamped" and leaking jizz down to the condiments being sliced below.
Can they be programmed to spit in the customer's food?
Dey took our jerbs!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toL1tXrLA1c
What's up with all the pig dick suckING of giant corps and fucking shit rich do nothing Ol' money CEO's ball sacks these days? Are you a rich exec sitting on 10 or 20 mil. A year? No? Then shut the fuck up, we need more Tarriffs so all these slave countries ( like China) will stop dumping their sub par goods on us. Only rich blue blood fuckholes want free trade. Stop the free trade rape and these people would have a livable wage and the teenagers can return to flipping burgers instead of 35 year old men with 3 kids and a mortgage having to do it. And BTW Unions are a good thing you right to work pole smokers you.
Feed the superfluous workers into the machine and you have the "long pig" burger.
Efficient.
Soylent green is people!
And here's another gazillion-jobs-killing-robot
http://www.gizmag.com/tally-robot-autonomous-store/40334/
FFS there's nine pages of comments.
Why keep dumfux in jobz? for the EXPERIENCE.
Time to plan the 'old world' theme parks where folks pay to experience a shitty boss, horrible conditions, long hours, bad colleagues, impatient indecisive and rude customers. we can charge for each role!!! wanna be shitty customer this week?!
roll up, roll up, get your role. :-/
Anyone here ever work in a restaurant? I worked 20 plus years as executive chef and BOH management. A machine cannot smell rotted meat. A machine cannot see wilted brown lettuce. A machine cannot feel the gravel in the lettuce that wasnt rinsed properly before slicing. Machines are great, I am typing this comment on one. Having said that minimum wage jobs are minimum wage for a reason. When you have 11 million plus illegals in the country living 3 families in a 3 bedroom house they are willing to do all the minimum wage jobs available.
Learn a skill. Learn a trade. Learn to do something people are willing to pay you more for. I am in the remodeling business now. We have stopped doing siding and roofing quotes as we cant compete with the 300 a square roofers with ten guys on a roof or same with the siding companies. We are all paying for illegal immigration.
I had a pain doctor from Columbia after I was involved in a hit and run car wreck that F ed up my neck. His accent was so thick I could barely understand him. Call me racist. Call me hater. WE speak English in this country. Minimum wage isnt supposed to pay for your food , rent and utilities. It never has and it never will.
Fast food sucks. Cold fries. Tasteless burger. Workers with attitude. Some speaking very little English. I am done bitching. I have a deer hanging out in the shed that needs my attention. It will be steaks, roasts and ground and in the freezer by this afternoon. Learn to do something others can't or are willing to pay you to do for them. You want advancement? There it is. Good day to all.
Esx sell and that is about the only thing that is left when it comes to a majority of human sales interactions.. but they are working on even that in Japan. '..and god created man in his own image.. but when woman was made (she was made better), oh boy.. zaa za zoom. So when woman creates a robot.. (I'll that that on, in the image of one hot Ukrainian).
Human jobs WILL BE REPLACED BY ROBOTS. Sorry to tell you that.
I saw comments about Robots CAN'T SMELL?? Well..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_nose
Robot's CAN'T SEE SMOOTHNESS? Well..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Engineering_and_applied_sci...
Robot's CAN'T TASTE? Well..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chromatography%E2%80%93mass_spectrometry
They are making this GC/MS? Smaller and smaller..
http://www.perkinelmer.com/catalog/family/id/portable-gc-ms
https://www.envirotech-online.com/articles/portable-field-testing/43/qua...
Robot's CAN'T TOUCH? Well..
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/itd/aic/content/robotic-touch-sensing-manipulati...
http://www.wired.com/2011/10/stretchy-capacitive-skin/
http://www.livescience.com/38302-sensor-artificial-skin-touch-prosthetic...
Robot's CAN'T THINK? Well..
http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/brain-chip.shtml
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/93060-ibm-creates-learning-brain-like...
Robot's CAN'T LEARNS & CREATES ITS OWN INTELLIGENTS? Well..
http://www.kurzweilai.net/ibm-simulates-530-billon-neurons-100-trillion-...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/219900/IBM_Watson_Wins_Jeopardy_Humans_Ra...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puhs2LuO3Zc
https://www.rt.com/news/319082-russia-military-artificial-intelligence/
(Watch that RT accompanying video. First robots is scouts robot. The second robot is the terminator. All by collective AI programs)
Still don't think, ALL jobs (including mine) WILL BE REPLACED IN THE FUTURE BY ROBOTS?? And that robots? Most likely WILL FINDS that humans are OBSOLETES (need rest. need holiday. emotions erratic. and like to waste time fighting other humans).
Why Do you think the great scientist minds WARNS THE WORLD about the DANGERS of AI & MECHANIZATIONS of everyday live?
http://io9.com/prominent-scientists-sign-letter-of-warning-about-ai-ri-1...
http://www.livescience.com/49419-artificial-intelligence-dangers-letter....
See.. YOUR FUTURE in ALL of my links there? Takes time to READ & UNDERSTAND. Your FUTURE? Depend on the knowledge you acquired today..
Now for today's tasteless tidbit(sm). Don't proceed if you've just eaten!
The ChickFil'A in a popular eastern Alabama location was closed during an entire lunch due to an excessively-obese woman who filled their toilet past overflowing, then tracked her own poo, grounding it well into the carpet. The stench was quite horrific. This same human whale has lterally broken numerous toilets at other eateries in the same county and elsewhere. It required the services of one of those specialized janitorial outfits which deal with flooding and related disasters.
Whomever creates the perfect robot to deal with truly shitty messes as that will get me cashing in my silver hoarde and going all in!