Will Fast Food Workers Be Replaced By Computers?

one, why would anyone care at Mc D's ? like, what, the service and quality could get worse?

two, since when is this new? this, from 1902 it's called an automat

 

Roofing. Not so important? Think again. Every building in the world has some type of a (hopefully) watertight system in place. And those systems of whatever type, are going to fail at some point. The only roofing type I know of that is done in a factory, is on cheap mobile homes and the work, especially the "skylight" installations are very poorly done. Try a robot on the installation of roofing and it will bust its ass in the first minute.

Anyone see those commercials with the robots on an auto assembly line? Used to be people doing those jobs. I know , because I was one of them from 64 1/2 through '67 on the Ford assembly line in Milpitas, California.

I never use self checkouts--those machines don't need jobs--people do.

When Walter Reuther was head of the auto workers union and Henry Ford showed him some automation, he replied---" And how many Fords will they buy?"

I sure as shit don't shop at Walmart. I choose Costco.

Oh yeah--fast food workers replaced? probably, at some point.

 

^I think everything will be replaced with automation. No need for human work, no need to pay people...just pure profit for a small few who will hoard their riches and do everything they can to keep society at large from rising up.

 

the sci-fi idealism is machines will free the people from inhuman
labor and the population can just lolly about fat and easy . the
welfare state is the reality , which is minimal support for the dis-
placed . Why is it minimal and also disparaged ? the robots refuse
to be taxed .

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Yes. You want too much pay for flipping hamburgers, then expect to be replaced.

 

the fact is, a majority of fast food workers are family people and singlw mothers who have children and or a family to care for, bills, etc.

 

This is probably true, altho it makes me sad to think about the blues being performed by a robot.

Last night in St. Martin, I went to hear a "very good" reggae band, which turned out to be two guys. One was a fairly good singer, the other a guitar player standing in front of electronics which produced a fake bass line and fake drums. It sucked.

I know, I know, in the future things like this will be better and we were actually talking about composition, but goddammit, live music should be performed by humans in real time!

 

Robots only have to be paid once...

 

But who will buy their products if they put everyone out of work?

 

The only time I will use a self-checkout is if I'm buying a single item and all of the lines are going to take me at least 10 minutes. I also try to make a point of seeing the bank teller instead of going to the machine by the front door. ATMs save the bank a lot of money in wages, but somehow I'm still paying the same bank fees, so unless I see some of those savings, I'm going to try to help those people keep their jobs.

And Costco is much better to their employees than Walmart, at least up here. They start at a decent wage and give their employees benefits. I know a few people who work there and they all like it.

 

They can't make any money if people can't afford to buy what they're selling. It would probably make more sense to just pay people to buy things... sort of like negative interest rates.

OR human labor will be so devalued that people will be working for less than the cost of maintaining the machines... but only if they could convince people to work for that wage. And they probably could.

This is why going on welfare is better than accepting low-paying work... if you accept the low-paying job, then you're driving down wages for everyone and creating the illusion of a rich marketplace (probably by going into debt, IMO).

But if you go on welfare, you're actually raising the demand for workers and helping salaries to go up. The corporations NEED you to buy their shit... they don't care if you're going into debt to do it, but they do care if you stop buying shit altogether.

Americans are actually in a real position to affect a global change because they're still the richest consumer market in the world, and if they're not paying Western prices on things, then either the price of goods will drop or salaries would have to go up... but probably the latter, because the former would make the cost of shipping and manufacturing higher and effectively destroy the value of the American market for overseas manufacturing (and it's almost all overseas manufacturing).

Personally, I think everyone should go on welfare. Taxes would have to go up to support all of the dependents, and salaries would go up to try and entice people back to work. Then the wealth imbalance would be corrected. It would be like the most peaceful, practical, effective protest ever.

If you have savings, you could sock it away in some offshore account like the rich people do.

But there would always be some right-wing superhero who thinks only of his pride and decides to accept the 3 part-time jobs he needs to pay rent on his shitty apartment, buy gas and shitty food, and live in complete social isolation.

 

except that the taxes to pay for all those people to be on welfare don't end up coming from the rich, they come from low-middle income earners who then have a harder time getting by.

 

Yeah, it would have to be a pretty massive effort that's probably unrealistic... for now, at least.

Considering the middle class is disappearing, I don't think it's out of the question in another 10 years or so... except of course, by then the impact of climate change will have completely changed the political landscape and they might just end up shooting people who can't find jobs.

 

However this all works out, I think that anyone that considers the present system of world wide capitalism with any forethought at all, can see that it WILL have to end. More jobs--more jobs, is still the mantra of those in all "classes" that believe humanity and the earth itself is just fine staying the course as it is. The earth is now one giant, supposed endless store of goods, which obviously will be to the detriment of sentient beings(most) with the continuation of the resource extraction. The natural world is disappearing and will continue to disappear to all but the Darwinists. Their enclaves will be temporarily efficient, but not permanent. This era, I believe, will look as ridiculous as any over the past thousands of years. If humanity survives. Oh yeah---buy more. Buy more now.

 

I see that Red Lobster Restaurants will be for sale. It's the same people who own Olive Garden.

Cheesecake Factory and Chillis recently got new kitchens installed. It can be about adding menu items or faster production times as much as labor costs.

These new kitchens are written off on tax returns as capital improvments. Let the deduction be withheld if it results in a job loss.

 

I really hope that fucking place goes out of business. (In that event I'd also hope the people who work there found new jobs...)

 

So. The collapse of the ceiling in the theater in England has been(preliminarily) traced to a leaking roof. Yeah--send some roof robots up there. They'll fix it right up! hahahahaha-----

 

Are you suggesting we should hate the Walton family? How should we feel about other billionaire families, hate them too?

 

Except for the fact that those low-middle income earners pay very little, if any, income taxes at all.

 

Should we criminalize progress if it results in greater efficiency requiring less human labor?