*"As fast food employees across the U.S. continue to protest for higher wages, a California chain restaurant has decided to hire a new staff member that works for free. The competition for the company’s low-wage workers: a burger-flipping robot named “Flippy.”
CaliBurger has announced they will be installing the high-tech replacement in 50 of their locations around the world. “Flippy,” the robotic kitchen assistant, was created by a California startup company called Miso Robotics and is expected to roll out in 2018.
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Ironically, the futuristic short-order cook has been developed to replace workers in one of the most progressive states in America. Several California cities have already raised the minimum wage as the state plans to push the rate to $15 by 2022."*
They say “ironically”. I don’t think it’s ironic. I think it is directly related.
Anyone seen the Rally’s episode of Undercover Boss?
I was amazed at the sophisticated grill they use for burgers. All sorts of buttons and lights. The guy working there didn’t understand most of it. The Undercover Boss got frustrated and called in the franchise owner.
The Undercover Boss mentioned the grill is timed. That the patties go in, computer controls the temp and signals when done. They’ve eliminated the human element as much as possible.
There’s no burger flipping any more. It’s already highly automated except for assembling the sandwich and putting in a bag.
I looked at the website for the manufacturer of the robot but it wasn’t clear exactly what the robot does. If it’s literally just cooking and flipping burger patties, that’s of limited use. I imagine that the cook in a burger restaurant is doing much more than just that. If it’s not able to assemble the burger, for instance, you still need a human for that and if this robot costs, say, $30-50,000, is that worth it if you still need the human?
And there already are other ways to save labor costs in the fast food industry. For one thing, many of these restaurants expect the customer to fill their own drink cup at the soda fountain. Some restaurants use touch screen self-service ordering kioss, which replace cashier/order takers. And I heard of one franchisee who was using essentially a call center operation for the people who took orders at the drive through. (At most drive throughs, you’re speaking into a microphone to a person in the restaurant whose voice comes out of a speaker. The innovation was instead to centralize this function in one spot and service multiple restaurants.)
If anyone hasn’t seen it, a guy who goes by CGP Grey on YouTube made an excellent 15 minute video back in 2014 called Humans Need Not Apply about the coming of jobless times ahead thanks to robots and autos and computers. It’s interesting, well-made and chock full of information and things to ponder.
Dewey, there’s a machine in the video called Baxter (it’s fairly early in the video, too) that can be taught to do nearly any task that his arms can reach. That tech is over three years old now, so who nows what’s available today?
I wonder how many of these so-to-be-making-$15 burger flippers have bought items that used to be made by workers in their countries, but are now made in China?
Automation is going to be a big problem. That video indicates 45% of the work force could be potentially unemployed.
That will be a significant social problem. Humans need to be productive. It creates a sense of independence and self worth.
A life time of unemployment is not a life I want to face. Boredom is a problem for retirees and inactivity can result in a decline in health… Imagine being retired your entire life.
The only solution I see is workers rights laws. Certain jobs and professions need to be protected and reserved for humans. Otherwise businesses and manufacturing will eliminate every job that a bot can do.
A hundred years ago, some large percentage of the American population worked in agriculture. If you told them then that many of those jobs wouldn’t exist in the future, they couldn’t imagine what they would do. Fifty years ago, some large percentage worked as secretaries or file clerks in offices. Again, they couldn’t imagine that in the future there would be much less need for those professions.
It’s the same thing today. Twenty or fifty or a hundred years from now, people will be employed in ways we can’t imagine.
