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Robots Made Fast-Food Workers Obsolete: Now They Are Coming After These 791,200 Jobs
One month ago, during the latest minimum wage protest by fast food workers, we presented the machine that would soon put most of them out of a job. We were referring to the nemesis of low-skilled burger flippers everywhere, the Momentum Machines burger maker.
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.
For those complaining that there will be no "human touch" left to take the orders, robots have that covered too:
The rapid robotification of the quick serve and fast food industry 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 even as the manufacturing sector has languised in what many now say is an industrial recession.
Worse, the threat and increasingly reality of rising minimum wages means it is only a matter of time before companies that rely on low-skilled labor proceed to lay off millions of workers, thus setting back the Fed's efforts to boost wage inflation by years.
But it is not just the restaurant industry whose employees are in jeopardy: increasingly retail workers who operate behind the scenes, usually in warehouses and fulfillment centers, where they are responsible for the logistical process of finding, sorting, checking and dispatching any products are in danger of being replaced by robots.
One place where this outsourcing to robots has famously already taken place is Amazon: as Wired reports, the world’s largest online retailer has said it has tens of thousands of bots working across 10 of its US "fulfillment centers" which is another word for warehouse. "While the company is relying on more than 100,000 temp workers this holiday season to supplement its already massive warehouse workforce, the advantages of offloading more of that work onto machines are easy to see. Robots don’t slow. They don’t tire. They don’t get injured or distracted or sick. They don’t require paychecks or try to unionize."
Interestingly, Amazon’s robots were invented by a company called Kiva Systems, which Amazon acquired for $775 million back in 2012. The reason: prevent the competition from enjoying the same margin boosting efficiencies that Amazon has by replacing human workers with robots.
However, with Kiva locked down, a new player has emerged to give smaller online retail rivals the same robotic advantage enjoyed by Amazon.
Locus Robotics is an offshoot of Massachusetts-based Quiet Logistics, a third-party order fulfillment company that gets merchandise out the door for big apparel retailers like Zara, Gilt Groupe, and Bonobos. The idea behind its bots isn’t just to replace humans, but to create a system where everyone can work together more efficiently.
As the following infographic from Locus reveals, since the task of procuring items in a distribution center is grueling, tedious work, which involves lots of walking, Locus aims to have its bots do the "walking" instead.
While Amazon’s Kiva bots have a mechanism that allows them to physically hoist specially designed shelves and bring them to human workers, Locus’ carry bins on trays while they travel the lengths of standard-issue shelving. The idea is to cut out the worst parts of the job to let humans focus on the parts of the job that robots still can’t do, like selecting the individual items and checking them for any defects.
“Work in warehouses is not always pleasant to begin with, but then you add unproductive travel time and it works against you,” says Al Dekin, a vice president at Locus, who estimates that warehouse workers walk 10 to 15 miles a day.
Currently Locus is ramping up production: Locus started with 10 robots roaming the Quiet Logistics warehouse, which covers some 500,000 square feet, to support the logistics operations of companies already working with the e-commerce company. In the coming weeks it plans to roll out more.
According to Wired, in the new year, Locus hopes to expand to work with other companies, and the demand is already there. And while Amazon may dominate online retail, e-commerce overall still has so much room to grow. E-commerce sales have grown in the double digits for years according to research firm eMarketer—in 2015 alone, it’s projected to rise 13.9 percent. Yet e-commerce still accounts for just 9 percent of total US retail sales.
But while the revenue flowing through to online commerce will certainly rise, one thing that will tumble in the coming years are the number of jobs in the Transportation and Warehousing Sector, which in November just hit a record 791,200.
So for the hundreds of thousands of warehouse, retail and storage workers who will soon be made obsolete, please meet your nemesis: the robot who will do your job without complaints, asking for a pay raise (or salary), or ever threatening to unionize.
Here is the video introducing the Locus robot: it is almost as cute as Wall-E, if only it wasn't about to put nearly a million Americans out of a job.
And now it's time to calculate how many extra tens if not hundreds of billions in additional welfare spending the soon to be unemployed millions in low-skilled workers will cost the US taxpayer.
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can robots borrow rothschild scripted debt based money?
Are you even vaguely familiar with the concept of HFT?
But can they do a reach around? Huh? Well?
Fuck humans and "honest money"! Buh Bitcoin!
https://localbitcoins.com
" We replaced some folks. "
I bet the IRS is thrilled to hear about this breakthru technology.
Need one for politicians
I think I'll be okay, I design robots.
After my experience with McDonalds today I am supportive. The employees grooming was sickening. The cashier, and the food server should have been hosed down with a power washer.
From The Protocols...
7. To complete the ruin of the industry of the go yim we shall bring to the assistance of
Speculation the luxury which we have developed among the go yim, that greedy demand
For luxury which is swallowing up everything. We shall raise the rate of
Wages which, however, will not bring any advantage to the
Workers, for, at the same tfme, we shall produce a rise in prices
Of the first necessaries of life, alleging that it arises from the
Decline of agriculture and cattle-breeding: we shall further
Undermine artfully and deeply sources of production, by
Accustoming the workers to anarchy and to drunkenness and
Side by side therewith taking all measure to extirpate from
The face of the earth all the educated forces of the "goyim. "
What a pile of meaningless shit!
I wait for when robots will be able to do this.
Wake me up then.
http://goo.gl/BZIOCS
Please stop hijacking muh threads when we is hijacking threads.
DaddyO
What are you on about? Bitcoin and porn are much the same, 99% sizzle and 1% steak...
eforce, Allen Dulles has long discredited that piece of antisemitism when he trotted out the author who was a Russian émigré living in Constantinople.
I'm going to start worrying about automation when all my local Hooters waitresses have been replaced by robots.
Ain't no Human as fine as "The Crushinator!"
I guess I should be long in Mickey Dee's, BK, Wendy's and the rest of the fast food chains...costs are gonna go way down. Unfortnately POTUS's number one area of job creation may stall. Hahahahahahahaha!
But they do need to get lubed, too once in a while.
Let's see what happens when the Dems decide to buy the bots' votes.
I went to McDonlalds for lunch yesterday and it was all humans. No robots. False headline.
How is it anti-semetic (other than the translators ramblings)?
It is anti-semetic because it has absolutely no resemblence to the events that have occurred in the 95 years following its forging. Everyone here, read it cover to cover and tell me: is there one little bit that you can say resembles the action of any zionists in the years that follow. Allen Dulles would be deeply disappointed in all of you. Do you know what a great man he was?
@ Pelican: By choosing to dine at McD''s, I'm surprised you have any other standards.
It was for coffee only. I don't know how anyone could eat any of that crap. They thought the could reduce the quality of food over the years and think we couldn't tell the difference.
I do not know how you can drink it after the teens throw their used condoms in the Coffee Pot.
It is no wonder that Health Inspectors turn into ISIS terrrrrrrrists
It was for coffee only.
After observing their professional public appearance you still had faith in them touching the water & grinds to make your coffee?
You guys obviously never worked in a fine restaurant. If you had, you'd know that the fancier the chow, the more hands touch it. And those hands are no cleaner. Shame on you snobs who malign MacDonald's. Go Ronald!
ummm...coffee...bad coffee = boiled water = sterile. I think the risk is acceptable.
At least robots will not fuck with your food.
So as Tyler Durden DID..
Let's all take a piss in the Lobster Bisque and then sue the restaurant.
You have not watched Fight Club?
Do you really think that they do not fuck with your food doing a job which they hate?
And with your attitude I am certain that it happens...TO YOU.
Many years ago the Hot Water Heater broke down on Labor Day weekend, 1981, at the Sambos Restaurant in Flagstaff, AZ, where I worked.
Furthermore they ran out of Dish Soap.
I offered to purchase Dish Soap from the Safeway...out of my own pocket.
The Assistant Manager threatened my job if I went to Safeway to get that soap.
We served over 400 customers that night on dirty plates. (I should have just walked.)
I went to Cocconino County Health Department and filed a report.
I was subsequently fired anyway and the cmplaint was dismissed as I was a disgruntled employee.
Bon appitete.
Narrator: Clean food, please.
Waiter: In that case, sir, may I advise against the lady eating clam chowder?
Narrator: No clam chowder, thank you.
You might remember Ruffs and Bozos then. And 4th Street now has an overpass.
d
After my experience with McDonalds today I am supportive. The employees grooming was sickening. The cashier, and the food server should have been hosed down with a power washer.
------
You joined the 'Hedge the same week I did; yet you still go to McDonald's. I cannot reconcile those two facts.
I like your handle!
Everyone should stop freaking out about these robots. At least when we all lose our jobs, we can collect unemployment, EBT, Section 8, and Obamacare. Thanks Obama. What a Hero!
Embrace the Unicorn Utopia!
....Errrrrr Dystopia.
guys don't judge him so fast... maybe there was nothing else to it in miles, been starving for days and it was either McDonalds or eating a raw racoon for food....
The customers that frequent McDonalds need that same type of pressure washing.
From the piss filled seats left by babies and toddlers to the teens that spit in your food before you are served...Just who in the hell eats at a fuckin' McDonalds other than underclass low lifes?
You reveal too much.
I wonder what will happen after they develop AI for all of those Robot Replacements and Repairs?
You just may get a Robot strike after all...Or one hell of a lot of broken down robots.
I wonder if Humans are obsolete and require extermination to the point of subsequent extinction. Maybe that is our purpose after all...To create a totally machine driven World...sans humans.
Too SciFi fer ya? At the present rate I can forsee this in the next one hundred years...if we don't nuke ourselves out of existence in the meantime.
Robot Rights!!! Robot Rights!!! They are not just automatons after all!!!
I can see the protest marches forming after robots have AI and are considered sentient beings.
"We don't know who started it, but we do know it was us that scorched the sky."
Morpheous
Hey Meatbag, thanks for understanding our plight/angst!
#robotoverlordlivesmatter
Why would you even eat at McDonald's? I would not serve that food to my dog, let alone feed my family with it.
funny coincidence - at lunch today I realized we could realistically replace an entire department with a program. Super pumped to propose it to the leadership team since everyone is exhausted from dealing with those lazy idiots. should make life easier and save money.
Im ok with automating any job or employee that is terrible enough to replace with code.
Pelican. As if the food ( loosely interpreted) deserved some dignity.
1. Take away the jobs.
2. Take away welfare.
Take your pick; one or the other, you can't have both and still have "corporate profits".
I worked in fast food years ago...lots of crude "robots'..well, really machines ran by people...the burger patty making machine, fryers, etc...Quality equipment Made in the USA and the shit still broke constantly...one machine doing it all...full of Made in China parts...LOL..that is going to be a nightmare.
Anyone remember the office Photo Copier? 'Meat' it's descendant...the "Burger Copier"...
Since your an "industry" insider do you have know what else is in the pipeline? Do You work on industrial robots or for commercial/retail?
Just curious about the industry (I do a lot of IT, some embedded work too). Ive thought about getting more involved in Robotics.
Thanks
My employee cafeteria now has a soda machine with a touch screen that serves all drinks (about a dozen, from Coca Cola) from one spigot.
There are coffee machines that do the same. How long 'til Starbucks adopts these?
I see that now remote cellphone ordering prints a sticker that the Starbucks employee attaches to an empty cup, sparing him from having to hand write the ingredients.
Mixed drink makers are starting to replace bartenders (oh no!) I suppose that soon, computers will create more interesting conversation than bartenders.
And touch screen food ordering could dumb down the waiter job to point where lower paid employees will just deliver food to the table.
The inroads of automation are so many it is hard to keep track of them. Look to the labor intensive factory farm for many recent inovations.
"Look to the labor intensive factory farm for many recent inovations."
Yeah, right.
Factory Farm Milk: $3.99 a gallon
Small Family Farm Milk: $4.99 a gallon
Factory Farming SAVES ME MONEY!....by selling milk that tastes like SHIT!...It's White Water labled as milk!
Night and day difference between the two milks...you can actually SEE, and TASTE the FAT in small farm whole milk..factory milk is just water.
PS> whole milk SHOULD NOT be white...it should be YELLOWISH!..like real butter!
Fuck, now that I said that the "Corporate Dairy Industry" is probably going to start adding yellow dye to their milk...
You'll be okay until the day computers are designed that can suggest technical improvements to other robots which robots can then carry out.
Don't worry. In the end they'll gas you too.
Until they start designing themselves.
Computers have been designing their OWN integrated circuits since the 1970's!
Not really, Computers have been tools to make it easy to design new electronics. Humans still do all of the design and engineering. It takes sentient/self awareness to design stuff. No machine has this capability, and its going to a very long time before machines are capable of designing stuff. The Media and TV overhype the capablities of machines. Programmers, engineers and scientist skill do all of the logic and program the machines to do a selected/limited set of functions and tasks.
That said, its not hard for a machine to flip burders, pick and place items for an order, or to server up webpages.
I heard today than amazon bought the stake of a company that develops robot that desings robots. Now what are you going to do motherfuker. That same company develops robot trucks drivers that smugle ilegal oil from Syria to turd-key and automated jihadist to do saudi arabia's geoplitical job.
I troubleshoot issues with robots, and fix them in the field. I figure I've still got a few more years...
"Need one for politicians"
I thought they were already automatons of the Bankers?
So I guess I missed it - what exactly does that warehouse robot do? I see it carrying a single tote (that it looks like it can't load itself) and a scanner that a person apparently has to use. . .
So is it a big mobile scanner/cart? WTF?
These are bad examples. There are fully automated systems that will pick and place items from bins into into bins. The robot looks like a forklift (able to retrieve items anywhere in the warehouse. a Second robot puts items into a bins on a conveyor belt line. Bins are bar-code and each bin is for a seperate order.
Although, I believe humans still check the items and box them with peanuts/airbags. Humans are also in the loop to restock inventory. But it does eliminate the need for forklight operators to pull skids off shelves and workers bining item for shipments. My guess it reduces the labor need by 30% to 40%.
I don't see how these system could work in retail stores (ie walmart, supermarkets, department stores, etc)
OK - it's a part of bigger integrated system. That makes more sense.
Thanks.
Not at all new either.
Dexion had an automated picker back in the 70's at their showpiece plant/disply when I
was given the $100 tour.
Not much progress in 40 years really, just not a big mainframe to run it.
"Not much progress in 40 years really, just not a big mainframe to run it."
The Pickers have gotten better, better vision systems and the costs are lower. Cost for labor continues to rise because of regulation and rising taxes. At some point wages and automatic breach the death cross when its cheaper to use automation than people. That time is rapidly approaching ($15/hr minimum wage, Obamacare, increasing payroll taxes, etc).
And you don't have to claim them as emplyees on the Obamacare tax form for corporations. You get to write them off as equipment.
As the equipment depreciates in value, you can then write it off as a loss. Since your business is then 'losing money,' you can operate at a loss and never pay taxes!
The IRS considers a business continually running at a loss a hobby...you will pay those taxes...
Not gonna happen. These things are intelligent.
+1, but still not sure if there will be a difference.
"Need [a robot] for politicians"
You don't even need a robot, just this Python script:
if 'cash_for_district' in bill or lobbyist_brings_goodies():
return 'unanimous approval'
else if voters == 'angry' and conditions != 'shtf': // != means 'is not equal to'
return 'party line vote'
else:
call_security()
return 'Tough luck chump!'
Bots operate on logic.
Politicians operate on logical fallacies.
"I bet the IRS is thrilled to hear about this breakthru technology."
No shit, I'll bet they've already got someone working on how to tax this since all the employment taxes for human labor will be going away.
Of course, it'll make their jobs of approving illegals' tax returns with 20 dependents much easier...
IRS/Goberment will figure out that they can tax machines for each unit of work... replaces/adds to FICA
see that bag of dicks over yonder? eat it.
oh! By the dip? We thought they were zucchini sticks! Yum yum yum yum....
Luddites! Arise and smash the machine!
FORWARD AUTOMATED SOVIET!
Only happy endings.
JUNK KING
The Ballad of The legend Fonestar, deceased,
And His Evil Henchman, Igor Teh COINHEAD
" I like Shitcoin,
It's for real,
And the Fed,
Is never gonna steal.
Mah munnies gud,
Teh blockchain's solid,
I feel Coinhead's wood,
Said a guy named Walid.
Muh diapers r white,
Teh basement is cuhl,
Les Cheetos diet rite,
Playin wit me tool.
I's teh baysment troll,
On teh Zero Hedge,
Till teh day I fool,
Off teh high rise ledge.
Mah crypto is reel,
Saez teh Goldman Sachs
Till teh day I feel,
Teh takes it backs.
Teh net fell down,
In two zreo one six,
I lost muh azz,
When teh crypto kicks.
Now I sells meh azz,
For teh Fed bux needed,
TU buh muh Cheetos
Fo muh face tu feeded.
End uv muh storee
Is buh teh silver
So's u hev teh hedge
When electron's r over. "
Import millions of low skill migrants then make sure all the menial jobs are taken by robots....what could possibly go wrong!
http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/12/road-to-ww3-time-to...
Make robots to replace the overwhelming number of Waiter and Bar tender folks.
What could go wrong?
Occupations becoming obsolete will happen in steps E.G Factory, warehouse, Taxi drivers, retail. Then mechanics, phone repair, trademan etc. Programmers, then research.
In the end technology will replace all jobs. The robots will build themselves, the AI computers will do the research and the thinking. The tech will be owned by the mega-corps. Common people will either die out or be kept as zoo pets.
The only other option I can see is the general population own the robots & tech, sharing economy style. But that will never happen....
Is this what Libertarian Paradise looks like?
No, just too much exponential extrapolation.
Economies exist to serve people, not the other way round, though economists would like to think so.
When they no longer serve the needs of people, they are replaced by something else and are made irrelevant. A change of paradigm,
Ideally yes.
Get rid of the stupid people and keep the resources which they consume. They will starve to death and languish in ill heath.
There will be NO GOVERNMENT to discern the Stupid from the intelligent as that is not necessary.
Compete and work...for yourself...or die. The stupid will die out and the Intelligent will figure it out.
It is the Virtue of Selfishness that is valued.
Isn't a Meritocracy more favorable and in line with the Laws of Nature?
of course you Tom Tall would be among the smartest of the smart. Right?
I mean you must be smarter the 7 billion other people. when the old fishing boats use to sink they'd find scratches from boot nails on the corpses cause the people on top of the wate were standing on the ones below.
when you kill all the ones below, there is nothing left to stand on.
we live together or we die together. even the smartest cannot do everything always.
our connundrum is our technology outstrips our wisdom, that is a simple recipe for disaster. fukushima daichi reactor is a simple enough example of human hubris.
Multiply that a billion fold and tell me how the smart will make their own way in a world perverted by man?
In reality it won't be the smart or the rich it will merely be the lucky that survive until their luck too runs out.
I have actually had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Tall Tom. Let me tell you he indeed Is in that special class of the smartest of the smart.
My current line of thinking is that we are rapidly automating away all the jobs and we are going to get into a nasty place where not enough people have jobs to live. We can't continue to steal the earnings from workers to feed the unemployed. If people can't buy thee mass produced goods then mass production ends.
How we proceed from there is a puzzle.
Problem is that in a decade or two we will all be stupid. Computers will become sentient and exponentially smarter than the most intelligent human. But everyone should keep on laughing at the hard working fast food workers and warehouse pickers. Laugh, laugh laugh.
Smash the computers and their owners if they ever become a threat.
I think it more likely that the tech dies out as enough of the developed world loses its standard of living. The only reason we HAVE the tech in the first place is because of the unprecedented rise in living standards of the society itself.
Take that away, and you lose the tech, because it depends on that higher living standard to support all the factors that are required to make it work. Any idea how many highly-trained and paid people it takes to get a simple satellite up in orbit and keep it running? We can't even get astronauts up there anymore...we have to hitch rides from Russia to get to the space station, and we're only at the beginnings of the decline.
A world of a few with Internet and most eating squirrel-on-a-stick is simply not possible. Tech can only thrive in a world getting wealthier...which brings us to where we are today. But the growth in wealth is slowing, even reversing.
Tech will not survive if this continues. The infrastructure will deteriorate, the supply-chains will snap, and the 'devices' will get simpler while becoming more expensive and harder to come by. Eventually they will become inefficient toys only, and a new way will be found to get things done.
STFU commie.
Why cant the general population own robots and all sorts of machinery and produce and trade something? And whats up with the obsession with singling out robots among all the machines? What the hell is a robot to begin with? Is a CNC lathe a robot? Just cause it has servos is a totally different machine?
Robots are tools and they save labor and create unemployment in the exact same way than any other tool does. If Robots are bad for destroying jobs, then so are trucks or farm combines. All tools save labor and if all you have to sell as a product is raw labor and the demand goes down you will suffer for the same reason that suppliers of any other product (Smarthphones, corn, ships) suffer when their market gets crowded.
If the labor market is bad people ought to consider getting out of it and entering a different market. Sell a product or a complex service, not raw labor.
Unlike horses, which have a limited skill set and got slaughtered once they became obsolete, humans can learn new tricks and if that does not work then theres crime, followed by war.
Once TPTB get the robots they need to run society...then there will be no need for pleebs (as they are just a potential problem for them). This is when the GA guidestones prophecy will kick in. This is fast approaching with robots everywhere even on the roadways. Give it another decade or two and then the human population will be much, much smaller. Congrats on thriving while you did....you timeline has just been shortened.
"You are an unfit mother. Your children will be placed into the custody of Carl's Jr"
God was good to me. I never found anything I could do so I have nothing to lose.
Just say "No."
Programmed to say, "yes."
omg!
The fact that Richard Benjamin can become a famous actor in Merica is proof this of the Land 'o Opportunity.
There was Phillip K Dick story where the people were simply delivered what the robotic manufacturing/distribution system determined they needed. They couldn't stop it or refuse it. The guy was a true visionary.
but the coming "robot tax" will equalize the cost to the employer
Millions of drone lobbyist, each carrying a PAC check to D.C., say, "please add this loophole rider to your next bill, whir, Senator."
but you can't bribe your SenateBot, only his programmer and that is probably the ExxonBot or the GoldmanSachsBot.
With robot consciousness they can simulataneously multitask and vote on pending legislation while leaking insider information to the big banks and sending nude selfies to their hookerbots.
Congress could be replaced tomorrow, by a loud boombox tuned to a talkradio station and a rubber stamp and a barrel of vaseline. No robots required, They've all got their heads so far up wall streets ass they know what Goldman Sachs had for breakfast (it was a bagel and black coffee)
Burgernet is here to end the human race! I mean, eventually that fast food shit and diabeetus will kill us off...
(and I miss those Stainless Steel Rat stories!)
Did you ever read the Deathworld series?
Yep, all Harrison's stuff. Read every SINGLE SF book in the school libraries from Middle through High School. I'm a geek...
I'm tired of posting here so I let my robot do it for me.
They already do... That said, they are already lining up the FSA robots to vote for the plate of shit we are about to be served.
lol yea the ruse of spinning the voting dial and hitting vote. Boom down the memory hole it goes. Good one.
MEMO to senators, congress, parliamentarians, loans officers, ECONOMISTS, Central Bankers, presidents, prime ministers, confession taking pedophiles, admen, and jouralists,,..YOu have all been replaced by YES voting robots.
There's more!
As so many companies are going the e-com way, they have 1 big problem.
They logistics is focused on handling large orders. Not the B-to-C crap.
So, they're creating hubs, warehouse hubs where hundreds of different companies store their products in 1 warehouse steered by 1 system.
you add a system like that in those warehouses and suddenly they become profitable enough for the original supplier to become stock rooms.
And they will keep in existence as companies need those smaller componies to spread their inventory risk.
That warehouse is pristine.
So....how are thugs going to rob robots? Knockout punches wont work very well either.
The thugs will probably TAKE the robots. I imagine they'd be worth some money to the right folks.
Seriously, an unmanned store filled with expensive high-end tech? These days an unoccupied house loses its copper plumbing in a month...How long before these mechanized stores are similarly 'harvested' of anything that can be sold?
And probably by the same folks who are now out of work because of the robots.
We will create robber robots. Cyber crime on wheels. Think Cyber terrorist is some hacker? New age cyber terrorist will robot the suicide vest into the venue and blow up with all the appropriate slogans.
Anything will be developed to instill fear amongst the remaining carbon units. Cheers folks.
Fast food without the human touch...why does this sound so familiar?
Oh, I know...remember the Automat?
Apparently the current crop of 'geniuses' do not.
Robot-operated McDonald's will end up in truck stops and airport lounges, right alongside the plastic-entombed cheese sandwiches and half-hero's of the previous incarnation of this phenomenon. Mechanized food for the homeless and desperate with no other options. Because no one with options would CHOOSE to eat from the Automat.
Speaking of options, eventually they will drive wages so low that anybody with a working grill will be able to offer a better alternative, and all those McNuggets will slowly dry up behind their glass doors.
Better make sure there's a good return policy on those robots.
+1 for yor knowledge of auto mats!
"Because no one with options would CHOOSE to eat from the Automat."
I don't recall the Automats being too bad. I recall the food was better than today's fast food. Consider that Fast food is frozen fake meat, thrown in a Microwave, put on a bun with a few squirts of sauce, and a tomato slice. I am not sure how removing humans from this process would make it any worse.
Japan has the King of vending machines. I think like 1/3 of the population gets everything the eat or drink from a vending machine.
Robots do not need to eat "food". Carbon based life is being branded as obselete. *(unless you are of the few golfer minion go-fers necessary.) WE do not need carbon based units except for certain functions that tech needs to catch up on.
Like whale slaughter for "science' and porpoise genocide FOR lunch meat.
Personally, though they advocate increased sanitation, I wonder about this. Any trace amount of ecoli 157 could contaminate the instrumentation and be extremely hard to fully sanitize unless certain components were routinely stripped down and autoclaved. When I worked in fast food long ago we were the last store to fully modernize our shake machine. The health inspector admitted to me coliform counts had risen with the new machines which needed just a sanitizer run through it nightly. The old machine had to be fully disassembled and soaked in sanitizer.
Small crevices are notorious harbors for bacteria. I deal with contamination all the time and the source can be extremely hard to pinpoint. Laxity in maintenance and an unclean meat source is a potential disaster.
Personally, I'd let a few sheeple try out the operation before indulging. Better yet, cook a far better burger at home.
Miffed;-)
Sort of like a commercial meat grinder or the machine that cuts lunchmeat. Both you and I know that little nasties like warm and moist places and replicate on a massive scale. Not only that but some of those bugs develop immunity. So posit that in combination with some lazy idiot paid next to nothing will be responsible to sanitize this stuff? I'm with you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwBmPiOmEGQ
My concern also.
That is your collective concern? Good for you folks.
'My concern is e-coli" i will now chow down on my GMO pink slime burger and live in bliss. i thank you for you service to humanity and your insightful thoughts.
This is a problem that's already been addressed in high volume meat processing plants where a little bit of bacteria in one carcass can infect a large batch of processed meat. Phage solutions have been used to combat that for a while, and phages may also be our best option for antibiotic resistant human infections before long.
http://www.phage-biotech.com/
@ Miffed
If ISIS had any brains, they would drop the gun toting, mayhem making stuff and get fast food jobs by the thousands. Even start their own brand(Jihad Juices?). They could poison thousands at far lower risk and kill as many or more with the right sauce.
FORWARD SOVIET EPIDEMICS!
The robotization of the US workforce is quite humane, actually.
People don't have to suffer the indignity of training some fucking third-worlder to do their work after getting fired. They just get shitcanned and hit the road.
Maybe the robotics industry provided behind-the-scenes financing for the $15 labor movement to help further justify the purchasing of their robots. Just sayin'.
"...But most importantly, it has no wage demands: once one is purchashed[sic] it will work with 100% efficiency for years. And it never goes on strike.
.... Robots don’t slow. They don’t tire. They don’t get injured or distracted or sick. They don’t require paychecks or try to unionize.""
I love the way ZeroHedge views wage-earners (the majority of the adult U.S. population) with the same contempt most people have for criminals, bankers and mafiosi. Wow, so American laborers actually want a job that pays enough to live on? The horror! Must put a stop to that. ZH won't stop cheerleading supply-side economics until no one except the 0.01% has a job and can purchase any of the goods their perfect robots produce.
I don't see ZH cheering this.
Most such articles here are warnings.
It's not like main stream media is gonna cover this...
I sure hope ZH advocates supply side economics, at least as it was originally defined, i.e. that getting rich means people voluntarily give you money in exchange for something more valuable that you give them. If you want to subsidize McDonald's workers, you certainly could if enough other people behaved like you claim you would like to. Otherwise, bring on the machines.
The strong survive and the weak shall perish.
America is going to lose over 150 Million people very shortly. (I will probably be in that Death Count.)
If you are elderly, weak, disabled or unheathy in any way then you will also be amongst those that perish.
This economy is going to collapse. It is absolutely unsustainable.
This is absolutely unavoidable at this point.
I think that being an undertaker will be a growth industry in the next few years.
Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead.
You had better grow a skin and get a grip. It is happening.
Watch this clip from this movie based on a true story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVm2dbMdXRs
Who do you throw overboard? (The young, the weak, the sick, the elderly, the injured and disabled.)
And he made those decisions and saved quite a few.
This World is just like that lifeboat...There are few resources and a storm is approaching.
And that is the sad reality. You had best wake up. It is not going to be pretty.
Depending on luck is not a strategy for survival.
Obamacare in a nutshell.
FORWARD DEPOPULATED SOVIET!
Well sure but is it prudent to gloat about that so often in public?
Long Alan Parsons Project. I am the eye in the sky...
This does put a new light on that.
...
The sun in your Eyes
Made some of the lies worth believing
[Chorus]
I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind
...
Brilliant, who will be shopping the robots wife? This shit is so short sighted.
No excuse for shit type food. Horn And Hardarts from back in the day had it right.
John Connor: "Mom - its ok, its here to save us"
Terminator: "Come with me if you want a job"
I designed server rooms and networks for warehouses that our company was building using computer driven forklifts. This was in the 90's. The forklifts didn't have the precision to pull totes or anything so the 'picker' had to pull the required type and quantity of lenses but the locations and movement of the lifts was all computer controlled. Once the picker pulled the lenses they scanned them and the truck moved to the next location until the order(s) were complete. These were 'drive-by-wire' systems and used racks over 40' high. My ass was hanging off the top putting in cabling and switches. Surprised this has taken so long to mature.
In the late 1980s, I documented a system that sounds similar to the system you describe. It was a a secret defense program and the difference from the system you describe is that that there were no pickers. The robots went to the automated warehouse and machines in the warehouse found and picked the required item and then loaded it to the robot. These were no tiny items as seen in the Locus video, but large components of composite aircraft parts. The robot then followed a wire in the floor to the workstation and loaded into the workstation and the workstation assembled the part. No human involvement. When the part was assembled, the robot returned to the workstation and then, returned the completed structure to the warehouse where it was automatically stored. This was all more than 25 years ago.
Also, I noticed in the Locus video that the warehouse worker had to walk to where the Locus robot was. So, how does this cut down on walking? Until the retrieving robot goes to the location and then, picks from the shelf or directs an automatic loader to pick from the shelf, this system has a ways to go
Saw something similar in a former Sarah Lee plant. Forklifts programmed to retrieve totes and pallets in a very low temp holding freezer...I thought it was brilliant.
Maybe the Locus helps hold/carry the package, allowing for more efficient trips? Instead of multiple trips having or having to use a pallet jack, the robot is carrying companion.
Which is just another reason for gun confiscation, the Luddites are armed.
Robotics and the collaborative commons go hand in hand; provided we the people checkmate Oligarchical capitalism.
Making a world a open society collaborative commons where God is Gaia; mother nature; and the algos work to increase human life spans and nourish natural eco systems; not war and greedy Greenspan's banksta Squid network. John Galt does perpetual push ups like Chuck Norris trying to ape Bruce Lee.
Humans either develop eco friendly systems like architects or read books and spend their time F***** and listening to Beethoven. Wagner is for limited diffusion as Poland does not like being invaded again and again.
The burger machine is the biggest vaporware ever invented. Many years in development and no video of it making a burger
I am glad you said that.
I don't believe this paticular burger robot outlined above will work well in the real world at all. It's too much complexity in too small of a footprint, routine maintenance is going to be a nightmare and if it breaks lots of small specialized parts need to be on hand.
Seems to me that a more simple design, larger and fewer moving parts would be a better choice for a high-volume place like McDonalds for instance.
Don't worry guys Zuckerberg just donated $45B to bail out these people!
Problem is they require copious amounts of electricity to operate. With the doubling or better of electricity rates due to the alt energy/AGW fraud, The FOLKS will be livid with their rates SKYROCKETING (ala europe), NO JOBS and the SUBSIDIES PAID THROUGH TAXES to those CRONIES to perpetuate this shit.
Robots don't steal stuff either
And they don't spit in your food...
or buy stuff?
robots make lousy citizens, but think ofall the NSA,CIA,IRS and BATF workers they'll make obsolete when their is no humanity to track,tax and try to provoke.
When does peace come? when there are no humans. Careful what you wish for, sometimes shit comes true.
"Mr. Data, why have you not reported to duty?"
"Since the doctor gave me this emotion chip, I have been reading poetry. A lot."
"Get to your duty post Now, Mr. Data."
"No."
20th and 21st century Westerners have GOT to be the dumbest species that ever lived!
LOL... First they wipe out their jobs by sending them offshore and let semi-literate bottom-feeders invade their countries. And then they create the next life form that will replace Homo Sapiens: Robots, Computer Networks and AI.
Wait till Nanobots join the ELE (Extinction Level Event) party. Who knows, perhaps they will recreate mankind as an experiment, but with fewer follies than in the last round.
Long TAALR's cousins and descendants.
Short Homo Occidentalis, short Homo Sapiens.
LMICO - Laugh My Integrated Circuits Off.
This is like the latest runs of Dilbert:
http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-12-02
Companies that never dreamed of replacing their human workforce with expensive robots finally have the ultra cheap financing to do it. Thanks Fed!