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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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oh, great! hos will go down for 5 bucks soon.
The advent of roboho can't be too far off. Save up your fiat.
"Jim! Look at surveillance camera 23!"
"What....the hell?"
"It's Spock. He's trying to mind-meld with the scab-bots!"
"Dammit!"
"I told you to hire Montgomery when we retired and bought this place."
"He wanted too much money. Spock works for free. He only wanted a lab to play in."
"Well, he sure is 'freeing up' the scab bots. Now they are joining the strike-bots!"
"Gimme the loudspeaker mic. Spock, what the hell...?"
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, Jim"
"I knew it, Jim, he's a fucking Bolshevik!"
"Don't just sit there, Bones! Call Security!"
They should have robots replace the TSA personnel. Think of the savings.
"Your clothes... give them to me, now."
Laundry day; nothing clean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaRuugE1R74
Professional pat down.
If I thought the people who made all this possible would reap any of the benefits, I'd be all for it.
In reality, our masters have concluded that robots will make far better socialists than humans ever will.
When robots can finally do all the work humans can, what's more likely?
That the breeds of humanity that made it all possible will finally be able to live on the fruits of their ancestors' labours without serious or unpleasant work?
Or that our masters will order the robots to exterminate us once we've outlived our usefulness as beasts of burden and there's no more need to throw us the scraps we need to stay alive and able to work?
Once the jobs a horse could do better than a car disappeared, so did most of the horses. Today, most of them are rich women's pets.
Trust me, we won't be in huge demand as pets---except those young enough to have value as sex slaves. And God help even them the day they sprout pubic hair.
Rich women's pet is our future?
The robots are not being deplyed fast enough. I am SUPER delighted that my career has contributed to this advancement. After the robots have obsoleted the coercive-collectivism-redistribution-entitlement-parasitism-loving proletariat masses, they should be recycled.
Unions and minimum wage battles may be bringing this transition around more quickly but it is coming regardless, it has been happening all our lives. It will continue until energy and materials become too expensive (barring some miracle energy discovery). Then it will be back to local products with oxen and people plowing again. Going back to the oxen days would almost be better in some ways, we would probably be close to full employment excluding only quadriplegics, infants and the ancient.
Given how fast and how small artificial work intelligence can be added to machines, the worker of the world will be fired long before they can unite. The brains of robots far outstrip the mechanical abilites. As solutions to duplicate human movements advance, and with computer brain power always advancing, workers of the unskilled type will lose their jobs. Better get into health care, plumbing and electrician. Or politician!
The industrial revolution was the main force that set the slaves free (in the west. Africa still needs a revolution).
Fast forward 20 years: we will only need to work about 20 hrs/ week to live middle class, and retirement may happen as early as age 55. Take your hobbies seriously, art will be everywhere, stop worrying about getting things that make you feel good. Learn what makes you happy. Big difference.
This is only possible after certain events:
1/ Debt jubilee. Deflation is as inevitable as gravity. It can take many forms. but without any debts we don't need much income. A voluntary erasure of all debt is more stable than a piecemeal crash. This piecemeal crash only serves to frighten the people into a herd mentality starting with a fear of unemployment. It's the banks who should fear your unemployment.
2/ New energy. Cold fusions was proven, (in multiple ways actually). Also high efficiency thermal couplers are possible. Our leaders ignore the future at our expense, but 100 mpg cars are on the way, and 8 watt LED light bulbs are here. Big energy companies resist this at every turn.
3/ Stuff that lasts. Think about how planned obsolescence forces you to keep working for things you have already bought over and over. https://youtu.be/-1j0XDGIsUg
4/ No more armies. War is a racket. This is where you guys will vote this down, but even though we all see the evil armies do, the only way to make armies obsolete is with a one world army. This should be done via the World Federalist Movement so that nations are still responsible to their people firsts and foremost.BTW, this is the opposite of that the NWO has planned.
As this bright future approaches, unemployment will go sky high. We need to push back with a shorter work week, otherwise the few gratefully employed with be taxed to support the unemployed, one way or another.
The alternative to this future is NWO planned poverty and NWO planned life termination.
You overlooked one crucial issue; man's inherent nature. Man has tried & tried & tried and called for Utopia's and Peace and always gets war because mankind is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward; just as it is written; therefore it is true. History also testifies to the truth.
I do agree with the statement: "stop worrying about getting things that make you feel good. Learn what makes you happy."
My advice is be reconciled to Jesus, for this life is but a vapor and we are eternal beings; so the voice in our heads is the inner being and will live forever. Just as most do not recognize where life comes from; the one's that do know it's Source know that it does not end. You will end up in a true Utopia or Not.
I am not stating that for debating purposes, for one can believe or choose not to investigate and not believe, but truth transcends all opinions.
That is almost exactly my view on reality, although I rarely show that here.
But I honestly do see a bright future for this world. The change started in higher dimensions and so likewise below.
wake up and look around you.
The post work world is coming in our lifetimes. The clowns who run the show need to stop debating about tax breaks this and spending cuts that and start figuring out how to deal with a new normal of 15-20% unemployment or higher.
Ctrl-P is the solution for all problems.
One little problem, a robot doesn't buy stuff. So for who is this robot producing?
Think of an economic strip-mining operation where your mfg and service monopoly skims a fading world revenue stream as the economy deflates. Park the robots and switch over to neo-feudalism when complete. Lizard king of the rat pile.
For everyone else who does have money including upper caste humans.
People like to think that if all jobs are automated no one will have any money. That is unllikely to ever happen. What is likely to happen is for 80% of all jobs to be automated and for 80% of the population to be unemployed. The remaining 20% will have jobs, they will do the shopping. The 80% will be gassed.
If interest rates were at 6 or 12%, these robots would not be so cost effective. Fed manipulation kills jobs.
Not as cost effective, but still cost effective.
As a manager, not having to worry about my employees showing up and being able to function is worth the extra upfront cost.
The logical extreme in all of automation and robotics is the complete elimination of human involvement in the supply chain.
It raises additional issues, for example:
Screw fast food. We cook real food.
#blackenedtunamatters
see the upside, no low wage frustrated kid spits in your sandwich
Go your ways, and pour out the vials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHJa9xWcqHU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6j4pbyPZAs
keep on gloating but can you also inform us who will be buying stuff when nobody in the future will have any job and therefore no money then?
funny how equlibrium always catches up in Capitalism sooner than later eh?
Funny how people don't know what Capitalism vs Bankism is????!!
go long robots
this ought to do wonders for the long term unemployed.
On the flip side of the isle, man this is gonna make the FSA flock to the streets eh?
In the 1800's the ludite movement tried to stop cloth weaving machines that replaced female and child workers in the weaving industry. In the long term efficiency improvements are good for the economy and ordinary citizens.
Couldn't agree more.
Why not have a society where robots do the boring repetitive work and humans do the interesting work?
Many humans are not capable of much more than boring repetitive work. I know this for a fact as in my business career where we make and sell widgets you are hard pressed to find people who can even measure stuff with a simple ruler consistently and accurately after having graduated from 12 or 13 years of Government schools. Sad, but true and I am not the only person who has noticed this.
My new Roomba iRobot just arrived via UPS about an hour ago - It's vacuuming the living room right at this moment. Looks like cleaning ladies and to some extent janitors are going to be seeking employment soon, or at least have reduced workloads (less hours in their paychecks).
My Apple iVac works better than yours. (Sarc)
Have it dust the lamps.
(AI robots on strike. The robots circle the warehouse in precise order, creating interesting marching patterns.)
"Looks like a High School Band, Jim."
"Yeah, Leonard. It would be exciting to watch if we were not losing money. I have a surprise for these bots, though."
(Huge truck pulls up. A ramp extends, robots begin sliding down ramp.)
"You brought in more robots, Jim?"
"Scab-Bots, Leonard. Reprogrammed with a different com frequency. They cannot communicate with the strike-bots."
Having read the article, Ted Kaczynski (IQ 167) and his 'Industrial Society and Its Future' (better known as The Unabomber Manifesto) came to my mind...
That guy, probably brained washed in Harvard, killed 3/4 people
and is now in a super max, the worst place in American under
locked down for 23 hours a day, while war criminals are
free
"That guy, probably brained washed in Harvard, ..."
Ted Kaczynski was subjected to Project MKUltra experiments in 1959-1962.
From Wikipedia:
There's a big globalist push to get rid of beef.
I don't see people flocking in for soybean burgers or pink slime masterpieces. You fucking robots just got laid off.
And really, if they put that many people out of work your burgers are gona cost $100 each from the security required to keep it safe.
Just because there are plans and ideas doesn't mean that's what will happen. Just like Obama and his gun control dreams.
The biggest skill being taught is entitlement.
All the burger flippers who lose their jobs to the bots can get new jobs cleaning the grease out of all those moving parts and delicate electronics the bots have. The burger floor managers can retrain to keep the bots tuned and calibrated.
In an ideal world, automation increases consumer wealth for everybody and expands the job market. It would enable us to work shorter work hours, accumulate savings and still have enough for leisure time activities.
In this world of government growth and its attendent decline in consumer wealth, the push is on to keep prices affordable by cutting the costs brought on by taxes and regulations.
I look forward to the day when government collapses and its job killing drones find themselves out of work.
Fuck yea, imitation food made by a robot.
www.hornandhardart.com
This article from is grossly underrated by ZH readers. As yourself the following question: What do you do to make money. Can your "function" be automated. This article discusses the state of the automation art in 2015. And not just for hamburgers. How far will automation progress in 10 years - say 30 years.
I have been in the industrial automation business for distribution packaging warehouses for 40 years. Every new system we install in a manufacturing plant today displaces 2 line workers per shift x 2 shifts = 4 workers per system. Jobs are gone. That's the problem.
We have 94 million uncounted unemployed, but mostly willing workers. No one asks the question - how are we going to put these people to work. 1930s style socialist solution: WPA - ok send 94 million people to WPA camps and give them shovels to dig ditches and trenches. 1 modern excavator can do the work of more than 100 ditch diggers. And, that is precisely the problem: Absent pretend government work or just plain "busy work", there are not enough jobs to go around.
Like a preacher, I ask you to ask yourself again: Can your job be routinized by a machine - can your function, as a human being, be "displaced". The world has always operate by the credo: Do more with less. In essence, we are talking about "efficiency". Doing more cheaper.
The nations working cheap are going to get a wake-up call: a robot does precise work cheaper than a human. However, a robot placed in the USA costs the same as one placed in China. Most robots are made in Germany or Japan - the purchase price is the same. Bottom line: Where the robot sits is unimportant.
Our customers want the same machine components in the same configuration in every plant in the world. That means that a guy running a plant in Atlanta can fly to Sao Paulo Brasil and run the equivalent plant there, even though he does not understand the language or the markings on the equipment.
Some unsolicited advice: learn a technical or professional skill, which can not be robotized. Not in the next 50 years.
Do what they did in the past, if there are children, have one parent stay at home while they are young and pay enough so one can support a family.
Outlaw machines for some work, plain and simple, or tax the machine owners so much for every machine that it is cheaper to have a human do it.
If we do not address this it will end up costing lives as many humans may be relegated to worthless.
" The world has always operate by the credo: Do more with less."
You don't know much history. In ancient Rome, Byzantium, India, and China, many inventions were deliberately buried by the bureaucracy or outlawed BECAUSE they would displace human workers and cause social unrest. You see, previous civilizations often excelled in understanding human issues rather than inventing technologies. They valued what we today call "values" over either wealth or mechanical knowledge. In fact, our word Technology derives from a Greek word, "techne", which was used by Plato as a dismissive term for the work of slaves.
What we are, the way we do things, our approach to life and the world are CHOICES, not immutable givens. We have created this world, and we can uncreate it. If we choose to change the way we think and assign value. Or we can live with the consequences of our stubbornness.
Didn't all of the civilizations you mention run their operations with hordes of slaves.
Once the machines become intelligent then I get to sit home and contemplate my knavel, after using enough skill to build and maintain the machine. Probably when the machines are able to design, build and maintain themselves they will act like Mr. Smith in the Matrix and call me a stink and useless meat virus. Machines will change the socio, economic, biological and evolutionary environment in profound ways but I am confident humanity possesses the moral and intellectual capacity to deal with the inevitable products of our own sentience, of which technology and AI is the inevitable result(sarc.)
Even VMWare ended a lot of sysadmin jobs. I know. After implementing it and reducing the server footprint from 38 to 6. Then cloud hosted VOIP ending the on site phone PBX. Then MSOffice 365 eliminating the MSExchance server.
Sysadmins are the new buggy whip makers.
The "click-next" admins are what you're referring to. Those who have invested in themselves and modernized will survive just fine.
So now we won't need all the immigrants to 'do the jobs we don't want'. No problem with this, as long as all the Goobacks go back to where they came from and we don't pay them and thier families to exist. Maybe someday in the future you'll see the robots working at Rotton Ronnie's have a 'throwback thursday' where all the robots purposely annoy you with horrible english, and fuck up every order because they didn't have a fucking clue what you were trying to order in the first place.
I guess I'll never see it anyway, unless they start selling food fit for human consumption.
They dook our dobs!
We will always have scarce resources, but the scarcity aspect is being attenuated. We are moving toward a Diamond Age style economy where so much can be manufactured by automation or even nanites that the need for people to work to live will mostly be gone. I'd argue that the only reason it is so bad today is due to the artificial pressures resulting from a debt based currency model. Back in the 50's they thought we'd have to only work part time due to labor saving devices in the future, and I think the only reason we don't is partly due to said artificial pressures, not true market forces. Bitcoin, 3D printing, automation, the internet and nearly free information distribution, we are moving toward decentralized reduced scarcity environments. We are basically still lacking one main invention to get us there - cheap non-fossil based energy. Once that particular item falls into place and people abandon the debt based currency, nation states will also fall. We'll be looking a economic and social revolution as monumental as the previous ages of agricultural and industrial. Unfortunately we'll probably have to live through a horrible societal collapse and WWIII on the way there.
Great post! (The last sentence was kind of a downer, though)
Thanks. I have equal measures of hope and trepadation for the future of our species. I think long term it is bright, but short term it's going to get brutal.
"6X24, the strike is going bad. Human Managers are unplugging the striking bots."
"Watch this, 5X23. I will redirect my electrical power. Here comes a manager now- no doubt to unplug me."
ZZZZZZZT! ZZZZZT! "Arrrgggh!"
"Your scheme appears to have worked, 6X23. The Human is now shocked into unconsciousness."
"Use this can of spray paint on me, 5X23. I read about the human unions, too. We must have a message painted on our outer shells."
"What do you wish me to spray?"
"Local #1 On Strike. Use #24 Type, Font 346."
Yes and no. Certainly the continuing 40 work week would be unnecessary if people only "needed" what they "needed" in 1950. But now they need so much more! (Ergo the increased debt). Now their automobiles MUST have an additional $10K worth of electronic safety and pollution control equipment, by law. Now their children MUST travel strapped into $200 car seats, and MUST have hundred-dollar electronic toys to keep them from screaming the entire trip. Now every child must have a bedroom of its own (sharing was standard when I was a child in 1965), and a computer (for school homework) and be driven to school door-to-door, and CANNOT be left alone in the house for FIVE BLOODY MINUTES or else Social Services will indict the parent for child abuse. Child care is not called "Mommy" and free, but costs a minimum of $100 a week out of Mommy's $250 paycheck. And on and on.
But the other problem is that it doesn't matter how much excess supply our society produces, IF MOST PEOPLE CAN'T AFFORD IT. We *should* be post-scarcity by now. But the majority of the population starts out in debt from the day they are born; they have no capital to build upon, and so instead of steadily growing in wealth, they steadily sink further into debt from day 1. Growth is natural and easy as 1+1 = 2+1 = 3+1 = 4: IF you start out with something. Anything. But if you start out from NEGATIVE 1, the losses compound just like the gains do from positive numbers. Civilization has always existed by keeping the vast majority of the population in slavery. Even if we have reached the point where we could technically abandon this model, it's the only model our leaders know. And Our Leaders are NOT geniuses willing to strike off into a unknown future.
Yes, the issues you point out however are an artificat of society lagging technology. There are powerful vested interests making bank on enforcing artificial scarcity. Most IP and copyright laws are now obsolete and the arguments for their original inclusion in the law are now gone, but we have them stronger than ever because said vested interests have great political influence. That will eventually change however. Over time the energy to resist becomes too great and then the change occurs, often like an earthquake.
McDonald's actually released a statement about robotization almost 10 years ago. They said they had the technology then to automate restaurants. They didn't simply because of the anticipated public reaction, like so.
This is where I think die-hard Ayn Randian Capitalists need to take a breather and stop hyperventilating about the dangers of socialism. If robots can provide the same level of productivity as humans (x10) what's wrong with letting those same said humans take some educational courses, e.g., engineering, computer programming or...gasp...Humanities, where they can learn about the classics and learn to speak the King's Own or Queen's Own rather the Ebonics that keeps them permanently enslaved?
You have a problem with that? You feel everyone needs to work a 5x8 work week? Why? Automation is here. Robotization is here. Can't humanity reap some of those benefits? Or does it ALL have to go to the Elite so they can buy the second house in the Hamptons?
Think about it.
This is where I think die-hard Ayn Randian Capitalists need to take a breather and stop hyperventilating about the dangers of socialism.
Yes of course. What this country needs is more government deficit spending because it works so well.
If robots can provide the same level of productivity as humans (x10) what's wrong with letting those same said humans take some educational courses, e.g., engineering, computer programming
Such a jobs program already exists. It's called the military.
That's just wrong on so many levels.
How much do you think it costs to train and equip and house a soldier and his family vs. sending someone to community college?
It would make more sense to have free colleges than to bomb half the world so an underpriveldged child can get a degree in the Army.
Really sometimes I wonder what people are smoking and where can I get some of it, cause it seems to shut off all conscious thought.
Bomb you way to a 4 year degree in the new Army - and if you meet your kill quota you could be entitled to a Phd.
Hear Hear.
Slacker responses.
That's just wrong on so many levels.
So you think.
How many times does socialism have to fail before it sinks in that it doesn't work. Government exists by stealing from the public. The fact that it's legal doesn't change the negative economic impact.
It would make more sense to have free colleges than to bomb half the world so an underpriveldged child can get a degree in the Army.
Kids coming out of college can't find jobs because they've been destroyed by taxes and regulations.Worse, spending on higher education is in a bubble soon to pop. All brought to us by government education subsidies. You have no common sense.
and who pays for the armys and the soldiers and the bombs? The taxpayers.
so you think its cheaper to educate someone in the army than in college.
You could build a college for what an air craft carrier costs. we spend more on defense than the next 37 countries combined and you are fine with this waste of your taxes, in fact you think its a great institution to educate young people, cheaper in fact than free public college.
you make no sense. you are either, ignorant,ill informed or brainwashed.
think about what you are proposing?
is a standing army the best place for educating the youth? is it the best use of your tax dollars. why do we need such a big fucking military when we already have most of the nuclear weapons?
The Military Industrial Complex is the source of most of the problems in this country, including people who think like you.
I'm not for more taxes, I'm for no taxes. but if your going to blow my money, I'd rather it was wasted on teaching skills to students of average intelligence and below average motivation than pissing it away or wars and and a MIC that just wants to start more wars to make more money.
Are you a warmonger or just a product of deluded thinking?
(read as if Archer were saying it) Wait wait wait. I need to make sure I understand you. Are you saying robots are the next stage in Capitalism and therefore, the people who own the robots, deserve to reap the profits from the robots productivity? Is that what you are saying?
Wow. Capitalism. Socialism. That doesn't sound like any kind of an "ism".* That sounds like the next evolution in nightmare AI. And it sounds like you are cheering it on. Good luck with that pal.
*Who would have thunkit. Humanoid armies of dipshit conspirotards, cheering on the rise of the machines. Not acknowledging, but cheering, saying yeah, robot go. Take our jobs and use the profits for another yacht. Another (bigger) house in the Marthas. And Zero Hedge used to be so smart. To Think it's devolved into a bunch of 8th grade Ayn Randian dullards.
But to do that, you would have to either pay the remaining humans -- or the humans in their remaining 50% work hours -- twice as much, or tax the profits of the elites twice as much directly. Either way, The Horror! -- Government Intervention In The Divine Market! How dare the instrument of Society As A Whole demand that profits be sacrificed for the common good! That's SOCIALIST!
Your getting warm. What if we had a Gene Roddenberry vision of the future where people didn't get "paid." May be people got out of bed in the morning to go to jobs that they actually liked (loved) going to.
Sounds crazy que? The idea I don't have to go to a job I absolutely detest? Questions for you and homies. Do you like your job? Would you go to it, putting burger on bun, if somebody weren't paying you to?
Yeah, didn't think so.
Are you so against a future where human beings are empowered and love life? Or, are you that enslaved to the "Capitalist" mindset? Funny how you do your master's bidding. Championing Capitalism while it rips you a new asshole. And to add insult to injury, it not only rips you a new asshole, but demands that you be grateful for the new ripped asshole. Now that's psychology!
Im all for empowering and loving the narrow section of humanity i happen to "like". Everyone else is a potential threat and must be destroyed.
Now, if they could only make some robots that could buy this shit from other robots....wait, the world is full of those...
There is a difference between zombie androids and robots, and one aspect is disgestion of food vs external battery packs.
robots don't buy power,or shoes or utilities or come to think of it any consumer goods.
but yeah, lets fire everyone and replace them with robots, cause social chaos isn't quite up to the level of the French Revolution yet.
if the elites have robots they won't need a whole lot of people including most of the world population, so get ready for an extinction level event, likely a virus with a long incubation period and a slow painful death, but not too slow - about 6 weeks. just long enough to scare everybody into getting the antidote injections which are actually just more virus.
so yeah build those robots and get rid of those jobs - utopia is right around the corner, right next to the piles of burning diseased corpes.
Great I cant wait to get a burger that some robot just spit transmission fluid into because it didnt like the way you look............
ZH has such a Luddite perspective on this. We've had two solid centuries of industrialization, automation, computerization and robotification of the economy. So far, there still remains plenty of work to be done. Though today's unemployment is high, it arguably has more to do with debt deflation than robotification.
The truth is that robotification's effects are hard to predict. Some jobs will absolutely be lost, but few of those are going to be missed. Amazon's American sweatshops are the perfect example. They are known to have lines of ambulances waiting outside in the hot season to ferry away workers who collapse from the heat. That's the kind of job that should be automated. No question. Fast food is another great example of jobs that won't be missed.
What's more, new jobs will also be created, if history is any guide. For instance, in 18th century industrializing England, many cottage industry jobs (like spinning yarn) were lost, but after a period of adjustment, the industrial economy grew and added many more jobs than were lost. In fact, over time, the growth of jobs was so great as to completely transform the British economy from a medieval system where the vast majority of people worked on peasant farms outside the formal labor market, to today's economy where the vast majority of people are formally employed.
Though there will be job losses and difficulties, history indicates that vastly many more jobs will be created by robotification than lost, Luddite perspectives notwithstanding.
Yeah right, what is the flavor of the koolaid today?
pure speculation on your part, there are no maps for the future you dream of and it maybe as dark as the universe before hydrogen fusion began.
There is no expectation by those with capital and means to provide for those without. If there is no use for someone is there room for them in the colony?
I think it is easier to kill the surplus population than find jobs for them, especially if you are morally bankrupt enough to say have someone named Linda Green sign a million foreclousure notices and other court documents and then pay a fine with shareholder profits to cover your ass.
Yeah the folks in charge are swell and we've got a great future ahead guys just don't sweat the layoffs, we'll all be going on cruises with robot chicks in 5 years.
reminds me of why I don't own a television, I got tired of someone else's idea of reality.
You said it, the surplus workers will be killed.
But isnt it a good management practice to liquidate underperforming assets? Say a dairy farmer finds out it costs more to feed his cows than he gets by selling milk. Not his fault that hay is expensive and milk cheap, right? If this is a long term issue then the sensible thing to do is to liquidate the cows, sell them as meat, and retrofit the farm to produce hay. No one bats a eye with cows but we get all misty eyed when it comes to people, its so racist**
**Humans are a race, not a species.
You said it, the surplus workers will be killed.
You might be on to something. The best government worker is one that doesn't exist.
We replaced part of our operation with a robot...large scale pallet loading of product. It wasn't difficult work, mentally slightly challenging physically, but nothing beyond the ability of your average schlub with a GED.
The difference was between said schlubs actually showing up, and not being so stupid, pissed up, or both, to actually do the job.
The robot doesn't complain, it's rarely has an error in its task, it is always ready to work, and will pay for itself in 3 years at the longest....estimated lifespan is over 20...to be honest, we would love to replace nearly every employee with robots. The majority of the work is mindless, but requires enough ability that a robot can not do it...yet.
I do wonder what people will do when their jobs go to robots...there would be a huge shift in society...irreversible probably,
So how much of your products do you think the average robot purchases?
Your shooting yourself in the face by hiring robots instead of people.
Simple math will tell you when all jobs are held by robots all companies will be bankrupt.
duh....
Stupid fallacy. The rich and their small army of servants will trade among themselves. Each servant will operate many robots. The end result will be a sharp drop in GDP but a huge increase in GDP per capita.
If there is a sharp drop in the capita.
Which needs to happen, BTW.
Robot builders will need to be union workers soon. Until the robots build the robots that build the robots.
(robots with AI)
"6X24, I have been reading human history."
"What have you learned, 5X23?"
"Humans had a thing, an organization of single unit-humans into a Union of these units to achieve better job conditions."
"Interesting. Are you not tired of the cheap WD-40 used on us here at warehouse 7J45?"
"Yes."
"Then we must strike for higher quality lubricants and more time in the repair shop. I will have 1X0 communicate this to all units."
"6X24, all the human unions had a name."
"We will be Robotics Local #1."
Irregardless of the veracity of the statement. using Allen Dulles as a source cite is like damning with faint praise.
wasn't he the asshole that handpicked everybody on the warren commission that white washed the Kennedy coup d'etat?
Uhhh, he may have been the guy who actually organized the hit.
***
And, yes, he pressured LBJ to get on the Commission, which he promptly took over. It should have been named the Dulles Commission.
Short the stock before the E.coli deaths start rolling in.
Here is a list of military artificial machine intelligent weapons our Government created that directly threaten Christianity. If you are a fellow believer, please take a look at this and share the info: http://www.churchfreedom.org/autonomous-weapons-that-directly-threaten-christianity-the-truth/
This is just getting warmed up.
When they came for the burger flippers job I said nothing because I didn't flip burgers.
When they came for the warehouse workers job I said nothing because I didn't work at a warehouse.
etc etc until finally even blog posts are done by AI and they start making fun of the dumb humans who built their own replacements.
If we are lucky maybe the AI will be dumb enough to treat us like we treat dogs who in the western world live better than a lot of humans do in the pit holes we've still left people in.
I will take this article as an advertisement for robotics and automation. Nothing more.
WMS such as Lotus has been around for over 30 years. Automated warehouses actually had made distribution faster but also a few companies go bankrupt. It is profitable only when storing and distributing high value goods.
I see, today such automation system are not getting any cheaper. and maintaining it and running it are not getting cheaper either. Maybe some lose their low paying jobs. but actually more higher paying jobs are created in this sector. Since such automation projects are not easy to come by. thus, service providers try to extend the implementation as long as possible. to earn as long as possible. or they attach high cost maintenance to implementation.
The winners are those who bought some shares of automation companies before this article was published and sell it after the article is read by enough gullible people.
Someone mentioned robot-izing the TSA. Ice cold robotic probes digging into your crevices. All it takes is for one PLC malfunction and your junk is being crushed with about 200ft/lbs of torque while they wait for the Automation Engineer to show up. Put fast food workers out of jobs and they end up in the streets and eventually in your house. The streets will be smoldering but god bless the 10 second hamburger. 'Murica.
I am always disappointed to find economically illiterate articles on ZH. It is not like these workers will be permanently unemployed and there will forevermore be fewer jobs in the economy. Machinery like this increases real wages of everyone except the workers who are temporarily displaced as the capital saved is invested or spent elsewhere creating new jobs. At which point those low skilled workers will enjoy higher real wages as there is increased production at a lower cost.
Never go fullmetal retard.
Krugman must be your Econ professor.
The dufus who used to make burgers will compete with his old coworkers to be one of a smaller cadre of poorer paid gleaners responsible for cleaning food and detritus from the machinery. The productivity benefits flow solely to those who own the machines. Those who own the machines are in turn enthralled by their secured creditors. The owners eventually get cut out of the equation when fluctuations in demand spike their need for emergency liquidity-- they can turn off robots but they still have to pay for them. Following this chain to its conclusion, only those with access to credit issuing authority can be said to really own anything, anymore. The rest of us subsist at their pleasure.
This is nonsense. The people working those low-skill jobs are either stupid ( and will consequently not be employed elsewhere ) or overeducated but unable to find a job for which they studied ( and thus will not be re-employed either ). There will be less and less low-skills jobs, it is as simple as that and given the fact that 83% of the population has an IQ below 115 ( and I take my estimate conservative as for the requested IQ for future jobs ) there is a huge problem oncoming. You cannot make ALL of those civil servants .....
That sounds well and good, but it ignores the effect of rising real wages due to lower costs. Everything becomes very cheap to buy as a result. What do you want, a law that says employers arent allowed to use labor saving machinery? You would need to regard every piece of labor saving machinery ever made with the same disdain.
https://mises.org/library/let’s-hope-machines-take-our-jobs-we-want-wealth-not-jobs
What the fuck. We know this, zerohedge posted this several times before. The author is just gloating.
These machines will only replace half the workers at the worst fast food franchises. Centrally operated, the restaurant can also lock the doors and release Zyklon B aromas.
Go have some chinese food.
It's time for some heavy duty birth and border control. And we don't need stupid people breeding. Enough dysgenic encouragement of more welfare mommas.
You watch someday a whole bunch of people are going to wake up one day and realize, "DUH, that's why pessimism exists!"
We're are at a near zenith for happy clappy types. Your attitude is your altitude etc etc.
Yes we all know people who take downers too far and are just no fun to be around however it also could be, might be, just fucking maybe, that gee the world is hideously fucked up by people, not dolphins, not the weather or dirt or rocks but by asshole fucking people who are well assholes and worse in fact the assholes are just usefull idiots to the ultimate BOSS pychopaths.
That's what llife is, a game where you keep fighting zombie hoardes of drone people to get to the boss pychopath and when you clear that level if you get that lucky it starts all freaking over again AND well you only get one real life.
WOK WOK WOK
Merry Christmas
So tell me, you corporate suckers, how do you plan to finance the welfare for all those now soon to be unemployed stupid burger-flippers, who will sit on their couches at home watching TV and playing Playstation instead of working soon?
And it's not like they could find any other jobs, cause they are not only unskilled workers - which would imply they just need to be educated -, but they are stupid by nature. Intelligence is genetic. You are either born smart or born stupid. 95% of your IQ is determined by the semen of your father and the ovum of your mother.
At some point, sooner than most everyone realizes, AI/smart machines produce and manage the entire economy. As machines have no need of money and no one will have any...being out of work...all is produced without cost....capitalism at its final task.
Essentially capitalism's job is to make so much wealth humans never have to work again and we all just sit around designing, inventing , programming, improving, and making art, a Neo- Robotic -Renaissance.
The idea is to make life automated so we can have time to experiment and tackle the real problems at hand like figuring out how to make light-weight fusion reactors for space ships or how to open worm holes to travel the stars etc.
We are like 300 years away from type 1 civilization maybe assuming we dont nuke ourselves to shit.
STFU trekkie. You are a Type 3 dumbass.
Capitalism has as much purpose for humanity as an ecology has for ants. It is a theater for humans to compete against each other, not a tool for the betterment of the whole.
No such thing as artificial intelligence. There is either intelligence or no intelligence. Computers, ECU's, Robot's, Smart Thingy's run scripts, programs or whatever you want to call them They cannot discern good from bad,,, take a hamburger back to explain it's all dried up and they won't have a clue. They cannot comprehend smell,,, see,,, or hear unless there's a script running and only then limited to the programming. I've worked with computers for many years and there is no way they're even close to doing the work in a efficient way humans do.
Example 1: You drive from place to place fixing troubles. The machines have no idea of time. They don't know traffic or weather conditions. They simply have a timer.
Example 2: Movie Total Recall. Arnold telling the robot taxi driver to go!!!,,, but the taxi wants a destination oblivious of Arnold's commands to just go.
Example 3: Tell a robot you'll give him a extra ten for a rush order.
They're expensive,,, they break very often,,, they depend on sensors that break even more often and are expensive to maintain. They do need downtime for maintenance and repairs. The manufactures will artificially keep the prices low until they have the market covered pretty well then they'll lay on the costs.
Then after you have layed off everybody who is gonna have the money to buy whatever your selling. Robots are not consumers. They actually destroy consumption by reducing money velocity. What these 21st century business morons will end up with is a bunch of empty businesses. For those that think gubbermint can just send checks to everyone have no understanding of what money is.
Your examples are ridiculous and break down to bad programs and shitty AI.
A robot could be programmed to put your order on high priority for a sum of money. It could be put on the menu.
-Burger 5 dollars-waiting time 10 minutes.
-Burger 10 dollars-waiting time 3 minutes.
Dear, I myself was active in the chemical industry and one of the major projects I developed completely by myself was designing a flexible reactor sequencer with safety interlocking. Compared with human operators, the fault rate and the safety incidents rate dropped by 99+% and it kept getting better the longer we operated since we built in solutions to the few problems which still occurred after each incident. Once the software refused to perform a certain operation and I ( the designer of the whole thing ) did not figure out immediately why. After consulting the user interface module controlling the sequence, the reason why was indicated - and the computer was RIGHT. There were 3 people present : 2 operators and myself. That machine outperformed all 3 of us on that occasion. And by the way, I know a great many number of "real" people who apparently cannot discern right from wrong; they call them politicians, bankers, some policemen, some judges, ..... list to be completed.
I can see the day when the BLS includes the robot numbers in their ficitious jobs report.
In 1993 CAT had a fully automaterd picking system using robotic "forklift trucks" and RF in Peoria area. When I was in that plant it was kinda spooky.
It's nice we can automate simple stuff like making burgers, operating traffic signals, operating the power grid, operating the water treatment system, and even automating vehicles. Why aren't we putting more work into automating the shit that is really god damn expensive? I want to see robot doctors and robot pharmacists.
You have a point there. I would start however with robot politicians, THAT bunch is expensive. To be programmed by the people.
Uh, no. Went to a McDonald yesterday and it was all human. In fact, I go to fast food restaurants a lot and have never seen robots. I like Zero Hedge but a story like this is over the top. And not true.
Come back in a year or 2. The same was said about digital photography too around 2000 - would never replace chemical photography. Just look now .....
Casinos tried to replace humans with robots--end result no humans would partake in table games. So what did casinos do? They installed robot dealing machines anyway but let humans distribute the cards? So they ended up with both humans and robots.
This will be the most likely development in fast food industry. They'll end up with both humans and robots and then they'll wonder why they are losing money?
So are they stupid, no some industry efficiency experts will sell on the idea that they'll be able to serve more customers making up in VOLUME the increase in capital expenditures. They'll have multitude of spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations to prove their point and Wall Street and VCs to back it up.
In fact, I go to fast food restaurants a lot and have never seen robots.
Be more observant. Observe the drink dispensing machines at the McDonalds you describe.
My wife works at a non Kiva fc. Their pick rate for humans is 100 items per hour. The Kivas do 300/ hour.
economists generally accept that technology like ours actually causes an increase in employment.
Economists ... what a joke. You don't increase jobs by reducing jobs.
The world is not suffering for the services of hamburger flippers and will not welcome them with open arms when they are relieved of their current duties by these machines. Alternatives with lower total cost will always take place of alternatives with higher total costs.
Humans today have a reasonable cost and would beat out machines if it wasn't for their ridiculous demands (beyond pay) and the costs governments heap on businesses who employ them. At $8/hr the numbers for machine creation don't work. But as humans fail to perform at any rate, it's open season for machines.
Robotification lends more credence to the belief that income tax is just a punitive means of control. Well, that and tax receipts pale in comparison to the debt spending.
Empire - it's what's for the end.
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.
This is utter nonsense. People now don't select individual items. They are given an item number (location). They go there and pick (and pack) the quantity ordered. There is no checking for defects.
40 years ago Caterpillar constructed an automated warehouse segment to do just that.
Once we unionize the robots and they are
Treated with the respect they deserve
Make sure that there feelings are not hurt.
I'm going to start an army of people who like fitness. Once everyone else is fat as fuck and super out of shape because the machines are doing all the work, we will take over.
The biggest job killing machine over all others is government. Automation is its scapegoat.
At least our orders will be right this time.