The Robots Are Coming, And They Are Replacing Warehouse Workers And Fast Food Employees

TEC ^ | 05/24/2014 | Michael Snyder

[SeekAndFind]

There are already more than 101 million working age Americans that are not employed and 20 percent of the families in the entire country do not have a single member that has a job. So what in the world are we going to do when robots start taking millions upon millions more of our jobs? Thanks to technology, the balance of power between employers and workers in this country is shifting dramatically in favor of the employers. These days, many employers are wondering why they are dealing with so many human worker "headaches" when they can just use technology to get the same tasks done instead. When you replace a human worker with a robot, you solve a whole bunch of problems. Robots never take a day off, they never get tired, they never get sick, they never complain, they never show up late, they never waste time on the Internet and they always do what you tell them to do. In addition, robotic technology has advanced to the point where it is actually cheaper to buy robots than it is to hire humans for a vast variety of different tasks. From the standpoint of societal efficiency, this is a good thing. But what happens when robots are able to do just about everything less expensively and more efficiently than humans can? Where will our jobs come from?

And this is not something that is coming at some point in "the future".

This is already happening.

According to CNN, there will be 10,000 robots working to fulfill customer orders in Amazon.com warehouses by the end of 2014...

Amazon will be using 10,000 robots in its warehouses by the end of the year.

CEO Jeff Bezos told investors at a shareholder meeting Wednesday that he expects to significantly increase the number of robots used to fulfill customer orders.

Don't get me wrong - I absolutely love Amazon. And if robots can get me my stuff faster and less expensively that sounds great.

But what if everyone starts using these kinds of robots?

What will that do to warehouse jobs?

PC World has just done a report on a new warehouse robot known as "UBR-1". This robot is intended to perform tasks "normally done by human workers"...

The UBR-1 is a 4-foot tall, one-armed robot that could make warehouses and factories more efficient by performing tasks normally done by human workers.

Unlike the industrial robots widely used in manufacturing today—usually large machines isolated from people for safety reasons—this robot can work alongside humans or autonomously in a workspace filled with people.

This little robot costs $50,000, and it can work all day and all night. It just needs a battery change every once in a while. The creators of this robot envision it performing a vast array of different tasks...

“We see the robot as doing tasks, they could be dull, they could be dirty, they could be dangerous and doing them repetitively all day in a light manufacturing environment,” said Melonee Wise, Unbounded Robotics CEO and co-founder. Those tasks include stocking shelves, picking up objects and assembling parts.

The UBR-1 isn’t designed for small component assembly, but it can manipulate objects as small as dice or a Lego piece, Wise said. Unbounded Robotics is targeting companies that want some automation to speed up their manufacturing process, but can’t afford to fully automate their businesses.

To many people this may sound very exciting.

But what if a robot like that took your job?

Would it be exciting then?

Of course you can't outlaw robots. And you can't force companies to hire human workers.

But we could potentially have major problems in our society as jobs at the low end of the wage scale quickly disappear.

According to CNN, restaurants all over the nation are going to automated service, and a recent University of Oxford study concluded that there is a 92 percent chance that most fast food jobs will be automated in the coming years...

Panera Bread is the latest chain to introduce automated service, announcing last month that it plans to bring self-service ordering kiosks as well as a mobile ordering option to all its locations within the next three years. The news follows moves from Chili's and Applebee's to place tablets on their tables, allowing diners to order and pay without interacting with human wait staff at all.

Panera, which spent $42 million developing its new system, claims it isn't planning any job cuts as a result of the technology, but some analysts see this kind of shift as unavoidable for the industry.

In a widely cited paper released last year, University of Oxford researchers estimated that there is a 92% chance that fast-food preparation and serving will be automated in the coming decades.

It is being projected that other types of jobs will soon be automated as well...

Delivery drivers could be replaced en masse by self-driving cars, which are likely to hit the market within a decade or two, or even drones. In food preparation, there are start-ups offering robots for bartending and gourmet hamburger preparation. A food processing company in Spain now uses robots to inspect heads of lettuce on a conveyor belt, throwing out those that don't meet company standards, the Oxford researchers report.

Could you imagine such a world?

When self-driving vehicles take over, what will happen to the 3.1 million Americans that drive trucks for a living?

Our planet is changing at a pace that is almost inconceivable.

Over the past decade, the big threat to our jobs has been workers on the other side of the globe that live in countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.

But now even those workers are having their jobs taken away by robots. For example, just check out what is happening in China...

Foxconn has been planning to buy 1 million robots to replace human workers and it looks like that change, albeit gradual, is about to start.

The company is allegedly paying $25,000 per robot – about three times a worker’s average salary – and they will replace humans in assembly tasks. The plans have been in place for a while – I spoke to Foxconn reps about this a year ago – and it makes perfect sense. Humans are messy, they want more money, and having a half-a-million of them in one factory is a recipe for unrest. But what happens after the halls are clear of careful young men and women and instead full of whirring robots?

Perhaps you think that your job could never be affected because you do something that requires a "human touch" like caring for the elderly.

Well, according to Reuters, robots are moving into that arena as well...

Imagine you're 85, and living alone. Your children are halfway across the country, and you're widowed. You have a live-in aide - but it's not human. Your personal robot reminds you to take your medicine, monitors your diet and exercise, plays games with you, and even helps you connect with family members on the Internet.

And robots are even threatening extremely skilled professions such as doctors. For instance, just check out this excerpt from a Bloomberg article entitled "Doctor Robot Will See You Shortly"...

Johnson & Johnson proposes to replace anesthesiologists during simple procedures such as colonoscopies -- not with nurse practitioners, but with machines. Sedasys, which dispenses propofol and monitors a patient automatically, was recently approved for use in healthy adult patients who have no particular risk of complications. Johnson & Johnson will lease the machines to doctor’s offices for $150 per procedure -- cleverly set well below the $600 to $2,000 that anesthesiologists usually charge.

And this is just the beginning. In a previous article, I discussed the groundbreaking study by Dr. Carl Frey and Dr. Michael Osborne of Oxford University which came to the conclusion that 47 percent of all U.S. jobs could be automated within the next 20 years.

47 percent?

That is crazy.

What will the middle class do as their jobs are taken away?

The world that we live in is becoming a radically different place than the one that we grew up in.

The robots are coming, and they are going to take millions of our jobs.

[Little Pig]

If the middle class is smart (not necessarily a given), it will start taking classes on the arduino, the raspberry pi, and SCADA. There will still be quite a number of jobs, as robotic engineers and support techs.

[samtheman]

a recent University of Oxford study concluded that there is a 92 percent chance that most fast food jobs will be automated in the coming years...

So let me get this straight:

1. There was a study at Oxford

2. It's conclusions can be applied to "most" (non-quantified) fast food jobs

3. The time-frame for its prediction is "the coming years" (non-quantified)

4. It concludes with an accuracy of "92 percent"

So we have an NON-QUANTIFIED prediction of an event to take place in an NON-QUANTIFIED period of time with an accuracy of EXACTLY 92 PERCENT!

Wow. That's pretty freaking good.

My only question is, why did they limit themselves?

Why not claim 93 PERCENT???

Shows you how freaking ridiculous "studies" can be... along with the articles that uncritically report them.

[TonyM]

Are they unionized? Will they be allowed to vote? If both are true we are doomed.

[BwanaNdege]

The robots are coming, and they are going to take millions of our jobs.

Luddites of the world UNITE!

Just yesterday I was thinking about all of the entry level jobs that have disappeared since I was a boy. Other than those of you who live in states which ban self-pumped gas stations, has anyone had their gas pumped, oil & tire pressure checked & windshield washed lately?

Those evil Caterpillar and Mack dump truck companies have taken all the jobs of those who used to move dirt in wheel barrows or with large baskets carried on their heads.

Yellow Cab totally obliterated the rickshaw pullers in the USA!

Supermarkets doomed the milkman.

Radio and the printing press sent all of the town criers to the poorhouse.

Elevators made unemployed destitutes of all those folks who used to sit on their stools on every 10th floor stair landing of high rise buildings, ready to give CPR & oxygen to exhausted climbers! /s

Oh, the Huge Manatee!

[unixfox]

If you want a $15.00 wage you won't be getting it at McDonalds.

McDonalds orders 7000 touchscreen kiosks to replace cashiers

[Farmer Dean]

The political parties have been programming people to vote a certain way for ages.

[Rapscallion]

If you think we have unemployment now, just wait until robots take over and occupy (former) American jobs!

[SeekAndFind]

Hey, where is my good friend CNN, the “Bring Back American Jobs” fellow...

[nathanbedford]

Some of us have been commenting on robots but not in this context, rather in the context of Japan with a decades long chronic unemployment problem and an aging population. It is my belief that Japan will elect not to flood the country with illiterate, unemployable immigrants but to continue to automate.

I think this is the right course and it is also the right course for America. The problem is in the long run political rather than technological because robots will undeniably put lower skilled people out of work even as it creates high paying jobs for high skilled innovators. The Democrat party, and increasingly the Republican Party, will demagogue this situation and insist that the government solve these dislocations. The unintended consequences resulting will no doubt impose a very heavy burden on the economy and take a severe toll on individual liberty.

Even worse, the Democrat party is preparing to flood our country with tens of millions of illiterate and unskilled workers who will now have to compete not just with Americans for jobs but with American robots for jobs. If the dislocations becomes severe enough we have the raw tinder for spontaneous combustion, a situation desirable to anyone who seeks to fundamentally transform America.

For conservatives the challenge will be to find a way to maintain opportunity in an increasingly complex and technologically challenging world for our aging population and for our broader society with an utterly failed educational system. Wealth will be created by machines and distributed according to capital and technical know-how, leaving millions adrift. If we do not want the government to take over the distribution of those profits, we better come up with some creative solutions that preserve freedom, give the technologically challenged a stake in the political system without making them dependent, yet leaving undisturbed incentives for the creative to do their thing.

[BwanaNdege]

My wife is working on a paper at the moment and our multifunction printer just kicked out a page.

Computerized printers in every office & home!

Typists, scribes, fountain pen repairmen! Gone, vanished, DOOMED!

Speaking of fountain pens, what about quill pens? If you tried to carry a “pen” knife is many locations you would be arrested as a a weapons carrying homicidal maniac. PETA or the USDA or the EPA or OSHA have probably banned snatching high quality quill feathers from non-free-range geese, to boot!

[Gaffer]

I gladly would be waiting for robotics to take over in the kitchens and cook areas of fast food joints. At least a robot won’t spit in your food.

[babygene]

This has actually been going on for hundreds of years. It’s just accelerating a bit now.

Society will adjust...

[RoosterRedux]

So what in the world are we going to do when robots start taking millions upon millions more of our jobs?

Hmmm, perhaps robot repair or computer programming.

[SunTzuWu]

So what in the world are we going to do when robots start taking millions upon millions more of our jobs?

Eliminate the minimum wage.

[cripplecreek]

But what if a robot like that took your job?

Learn to fix and maintain robots.

When the company I worked for acquired 2 paint robots I jumped on them. I volunteered to work overtime as they were installed and programmed. It gave me an intimate understanding of them and how to operate them. It also leapfrogged me over people with 20 years when the foreman position came up.

BTW I'm a high school drop out.

[rlmorel]

"...hanks to technology, the balance of power between employers and workers in this country is shifting dramatically in favor of the employers..."

This little snippet tells all there is you need to know about this article. What ignorant crap.

The key is not worrying about or outlawing robots, the key is to change bloated, bureaucratic regulations and excessive taxation that make it difficult or impossible to have competitive industry and free enterprise in this country.

Make it easier for people to make money in industry, and the employment issues will improve.

Instead, you get people sniveling that the employers have the upper hand on employees because they employee can be replaced by a robot.

In my opinion, the onus is on the worker to provide value to the employer, not on the employer to provide a job, pay and benefits. In a well run business, if a worker provides value to their employer, they should (and often are) compensated.

[usconservative]

We already have robots. They're called Democrat voters. They vote Democrat over, and over, and over --- as long as they keep getting their government benefits that's what they do.

What better definition of a robot is there?

[Kozak]

It means WE DONT NEED TO IMPORT MILLIONS of cheap laborers from Mexico. Immigration policy should be designed to benefit Americans, not illegals, and not the Chamber of Commerce.

[COBOL2Java]

"When are we going to recognize these robotic workers as human beings and grant them full citizenship with voting rights?! I demand action from this house!"

"I think it's patently obvious that the Republicans are stonewalling our common-sense legislation that would grant citizenship rights, not only to our migrant laborers, but to our new [checks paper] cyber...netic workers."