Posted on 03/01/2020 7:50:52 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
If your job is working at a restaurant flipping burgers you may soon find yourself replaced by a robot that works for only $3 an hour.
The new robot named Flippy developed by Miso Robotics costs less to employ than a minimum-wage worker. Currently, Miso Robotics charges an up-front fee of between $20,000 and $30,000 to install Flippy into restaurants.
The LA Times reports:
“As a result, Miso can offer Flippys to fast-food restaurant owners for an estimated $2,000 per month on a subscription basis, breaking down to about $3 per hour. (The actual cost will depend on customers’ specific needs). A human doing the same job costs $4,000 to $10,000 or more a month, depending on a restaurant’s hours and the local minimum wage. And robots never call in sick.“
According to Digital Trends, Flippy is a “burger-flipping robot arm that’s equipped with both thermal and regular vision, which grills burgers to order while also advising human collaborators in the kitchen when they need to add cheese or prep buns for serving.”
When Miso Robotics set out to create their first units, off-the-shelf robotic arms sold for upwards of $100,000. Today, they’re going for about $10,000 and are only getting cheaper, according to the LA Times. Get the latest from The Mind Unleashed in your inbox. Sign up right here.
In 2017, international chain CaliBurger was the first to install Flippy, which can flip 150 burgers an hour.
Flippy isn’t the first robot to take over the kitchen and it won’t be the last. It turns out Taco Bell was the first to use a robot in the kitchen with their “Automatic Taco Machine”—a long-forgotten relic from almost 30 years ago, because it failed due to too many problems. However, Taco Bell has given up on automation and is looking elsewhere in the form of self-ordering kiosks, which it had planned to install at all its 6,000+ locations across the United States by the end of 2019, according to Business Insider.
Last year international fast-food chain McDonald’s reported they would begin employing automated fryer robots throughout their different branches across the world. Former McDonald’s USA CEO Ed Rensi told Fox Business, “It’s cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who’s inefficient making $15 an hour bagging French fries.” McDonald’s has also introduced touchscreen ordering kiosks to some of its stores.
Restaurant chains that are using automation include McDonalds, KFC, Panera, Wendys, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Arbys according to Business Insider.
Meanwhile, in China e-commerce giant Alibaba has a chain of automated grocery stores with attached diners staffed by robot waiters that take your order. Real estate giant Country Garden Holdings recently opened its first fully robotic restaurant in Guangzhou, China where computers and robots handle ordering, food prep, serving, and even the cleaning of tables.
Robots aren’t just taking over restaurants, a report by the McKinsey Global Institute indicates there are 800 million careers (or 30 percent of the global job force)—from doctors to accountants, lawyers to journalists—that will be lost to automation by 2030. The report concludes that hundreds of millions of people worldwide will have to find new jobs or learn new skills.
A report by the University of Oxford suggests we will soon face a robot job apocalypse predicting that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at risk of being replaced by robots and Artificial Intelligence over the next fifteen to twenty years.
How much does the robot's Cheese Boy get paid?
Fast food joints can’t hire enough employees. The ones they do hire are indifferent to their jobs. The turnover rate is over 50% and often much higher. Service sucks. Why not hire robots? Most of us would enjoy, for once, getting everything we order when we go through the drive-thru.
Opportunity cost, baby.
Economics says when something becomes more expensive, alternatives become relatively cheaper.
$15 wage — YAY! No fast food jobs left for menial labor. The few that will work there have to have technical skills to manage their cadre of robots.
“I am sor-ry.,, We are out of chick-en Mac-Nug-gets... Would you like to or-der a sub-sti-tute?”
#15anhour.
Once again, the consumer wins (in this case with lower prices) as always with innovation in the marketplace. Means a shift in training but the economy increases and individuals’ wealth increases as it always does when the market economy is free from government interference.
The robots are cheap but they get you on the replacement spit cartridges.
What is an illegal to do?
Enjoy that $15/hour wage. Lemme see here....$15/hour x 0 hours = $0.00
Not to mention the added benefit of NOT having a scourge like Jesse Jackson spitting in customers food.
“...accountants, lawyers to journalists—that will be lost to automation by 2030...”
Lost to AI that is. What other professions lend themselves to rules-based AI? Hmm...
Pharmacists, politicians, store clerks, production plant managers...
Most jobs that exist today can be and will be replaced by robots.
1. Can you blame the employees? Talk about a boring job. The smell must get nauseating after a while.
2. I'm not surprised.
3. Of course service is terrible...indifferent, bored employees don't care. If they were paid more there would be competition for those jobs.
4. Robots might be better. But, if these places are so egregious why go there? Why put up with it all? The food isn't good for you anyway. All that grease will do you in. Crap in; crap out. There IS always exercise but that's even MORE difficult to do. So Americans who eat that crap will just have to suffer through the PAINS of bad service, incorrect orders, indifferent servers, poorer health from all that greasy food AND occasional BROKEN ROBOTS.
Pass the mustard, please.
Every time I see a demonstration demanding $15/hour minimum wage, I picture them sitting on a tree limb, with a saw, cutting the limb between themselves and the tree trunk.
Flipping burgers or taking orders at the drive-through is NOT meant to be a career occupation in which to support a family with.
Now I'm not saying that fast food should not be a career. There are managers, regional managers, and franchise owners/entrepreneurs that make very good livings in fast food. I'm talking the line workers here. If you are slinging fries all day with a family to support and a mortgage to pay, you are doing it wrong.
Paying an artificially high wage to a person that just flips burgers all day is economically unsustainable. Either food prices will have to rise or new automated technology will need to be brought in to displace these now overpaid workers for a lower OPEX.
I rarely go into fast food places but a few years back, I found myself in a McDonalds in Danbury, CT with a large, complicated order (I was getting food for a group of co-workers) and there was a self-serve kiosk that allowed you to place your order and pay for it. I found that a wonderful experience. I entered what would have been a painful order to convey at either the drive-through or counter and everything was perfect when I brought it back to the office.
Nowadays, you can place these orders on a phone app so it just keeps getting better and better.
It will be a bloodbath.
And it is coming.
“The robots are cheap but they get you on the replacement spit cartridges.”
OMG, barely missed spraying my keyboard. :0)
LMAO!
Skynet is now active, I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
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