Fewer fast food workers.
Via Legal Insurrection, via Hot Air. That one station represents three, maybe four part time jobs – and that’s assuming that it processes orders about as fast as a human would. If it can do so at a higher rate than the equivalent flesh-and-blood cashier then that one item will eliminate about fifteen or so jobs. And, let me tell you: managers hate having human cashiers. Human cashiers give out incorrect change, get scammed out of money, ring up the wrong orders, give out unauthorized upgrades in the (usually vain) hopes of impressing the opposite or desired sex, and generally stand there looking vaguely unappealing. Plus, now you have to give employees medical benefits, despite the fact that turnover is so high in the fast food industry that there’s a reasonable chance that they’ll be gone before the paperwork clears.
Good luck trying to legislate these things out of existence, too. Aside from the fact that doing so would be on shaky legal ground at absolute best, a cursory examination of the life and times of the Luddites suggests that fighting technological progress does not have a reputation for success on a long-term level. Besides, it’ll be amusing as all get-out to watch the techies and the Greenies fight it out in the Democratic party – particularly when the Greenies win, and start up with purging all the scientific literates from the party leadership…
Moe Lane
PS: I should also note that, at this rate, increasing automation in fast food restaurants is going to put a heck of a lot of Latinos out of work, if Maryland’s restaurant worker demographics are representative of the country as a whole.
“I for one welcome our new robot workers.”
I’m reminded of the McSwiney’s restaurants in the Stainless Steel Rat books.
Beat me to it, Finrod.
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Mew
The Jack-in-the-Box in Longmont has a machine like this. My kids prefer to use it over talking to someone at the counter, so I expect the next generation to be completely comfortable with it. It does take longer than giving the order to a person, but I’m sure they’ll eventually improve the software so that’s no longer the case.
Just wait until the smartphone apps that let you order while you’re on your way to the burger shack…
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Mew
You know, I can easily see technology eliminating over half the jobs in my area in the near future.
But I just can’t wrap my head around that being a good thing.
Guess I’ll never make it as a futurist.
Far as I can tell, futurists can’t quite wrap their heads around this one either, Luke.
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The left-leaning ones fare better .. “Of course those who still work will provide a BLS** for those who choose not to”
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The right-leaning ones predict the rise of more personal-service roles (if labor becomes cheap enough, those with jobs will pay several someones to do it) which seems .. flawed in scale .. or the rise of artisan or hand-crafted as a luxury good (because it’s hand-made and unique it’s worth more…) which seems .. also flawed.
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I suspect it will lead to a large societal change, I’d like to think it won’t be a violent one but .. with all that free labor around, someone’s gonna arm ’em….
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Mew
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** Weber reference
😉 I should have added sarc tags.
I take a very dim view of self-proclaimed futurists. They’re progressives who think tech will magically bring about Utopia. (OK, OK, there are some out-and-out Commies who claim the title as well.)
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I have an autistic child, so I tend to get especially cranky with those who blithely equate processing power with intelligence. But all of them I’ve run across have a similar ignorance of what the heck they’re talking about.
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I’m not aware of many large-scale societal changes that have been peaceful. Adding this on top of our government’s epic economic incompetence and the already badly frayed fabric of society…
I’m pessimistic. I more than half expect us to either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age*.
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*Classical reference
Eh, there are some futurists who are really trying to predict, most are trying to sell books, or trying to make acolytes, or .. both, I suppose.
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“Freakonomics” was somewhat honest (and somewhat useless) and Taleb’s “Black Swan” was pretty good (and explained why it was so difficult to see the changes) but .. it’s hard to do actual future-casting, it’s much easier to pound the table and scare the sheeple to be good little commies.
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I agree that this is likely to get ugly, it’s part of why the cat clan are moving further away from the cities and looking at increasing our self-reliance.
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Mew
My local Whole Foods coffee shop/restaurant has two. The work great. There’s never a line, even during the lunch rush. Very fast, very efficient. In fact, they run their entire food operation with two cooks during the rush, one otherwise.
The local Jack in the Box had one here too. A reasonably well trained cashier is probably faster, a manager who is running around and trying to do several jobs at once [including cashier] probably isn’t.
On the other hand, the computer can be programmed with several different languages, and finding a minimum wage worker who speaks fluent English, Spanish, and Vietnamese isn’t all that likely.