Bump
People should boycott this MDs. People need people and human interaction. In this world we are getting further and further from each other. This fosters this unhealthy trend. When robots start going to MDs then they can open up robotic MDs to service them.
They will probably be leased for just less than the minimum wage plus benefits.
More crappy food, robots or no.
But now it should run quite smoothly with all of the people trained to use ATMs, scan their own groceries, pick a drink from a hundred different options from one of those new drink dispensers, etc.
But will I be a ble to order a Big Mac made with quarter pounder meat and extra sauce from a robot??? I think not.
Its called pricing yourself out of the market a mistake usually only made in professional job markets.
You usually dont see it happen in entry level positions but Leftist politics is involved here so the usual rules are out the window.
Society needs to think about what we will do when a significant portion of the population simply cannot find productive work.
I fear inevitable socialism as millions of people need to be taken care of because they cannot contribute to their own well-being. I mean: we’re already there.
Personally (my personal bias for a life that I would find pleasing) if I were supplied with the equivalent of 40 acres and a mule (probably more like 5 acres today) and told to produce what food I could: grow vegetables, raise chickens, have a few goats. I could move to Nebraska and just live in the country. If I were a poor farmer, the government could boost my living standard with bags of beans and rice, boxes of cheese, and perhaps small checks.
The alternative (it seems to me) is that we crowd everyone into the inner cities of Oakland, Detroit, Newark, etc and send them checks for life while they boost their living standard with drug dealing and crime.
Overall, I think society is not going to have a wide range of options.
Imagine how disgustingly filthy these kiosks will be, can’t stand touchscreens in retail settings, yuck.
Robot technicians will, probably more.
... and dream of electric sheep?
Actually, whatever they are paid they will cost whatever the government wishes. The government will demand they cost a lot so that the government can get a lot.
A turd on a bun is still a turd on a bun, no matter how you have order it!
Robot tax
No, robots will make $20 an hour because having an employee carries roughly a 1/3rd hidden load for the employer. The boss pays the emp’s share of SS and has an accounting burden maintaining all the typical records req’d. The robot will not make; but the employer will save 100% on his disability insurance. I have only had an employee once in my multi-business career, but at least in CA, disability insurance is very costly. I can’t recall exactly but in 1991 my $1K a week salesman who never touched nor lifted anything but the on-off switch on his computer (a 286!!) and a pencil/pen and maybe a shipping label or FedEx waybill or two cost nearly $200 a month in state disability insurance. No doubt, the robots will break now and again, so this cost does not fully go away, it morphs into a repair.
Has anyone noticed that bus boys are disappearing? In addition to taking orders and bringing food, waiters and waitresses are having to take away the dirty dishes and clean the tables.
They have been playing with order kiosks off and on for more than 20 years. I remember being in a McD’s between Dallas and Houston in the early 90s where they had order kiosks that weren’t being used. And I saw them in a train station in Europe a few years ago. (Those machines only seemed to have the local language, so I had to go to the counter to order in English).
I suppose some exec has said “this time will be different”.
ping

In an ironic way liberal policies often push industry innovation since businesses have to find better ways in order to survive. Fracking is a prime example.