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?
“...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.
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.
Skynet is now active, I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
$2000.00 a month rent... and $3.00 an hour... The restaurant would have to run flippy for 666 hours a month for it to work out to that.
This has to be an exaggeration or I would have been working there......$120K per year
In some instances, this would be handy and practical.
Most the time, I like seeing the people behind the counter.
Our brief conversation adds to the experience of eating out.
Eventually, some restaurants and other retail businesses may realize the value of face to face commerce vs 100% button pushing.
Maintenance is not included here, is it?
The robot might be $10,0000 but that maintenance program will be at least that and probably triple that.
That robot will also need an expensive human supervisor. Those things cannot handle issues outside of their programming. So instead of a $50,000 manager, the restaurant will need to hire a $125,000 technical manager and probably several of those.
In other words, liberal policies will drive even cheap fast food restaurants out of business.
Minimum wage isn’t the minimum I have to pay you, it is the minimum job allowed to be performed. Jobs that are worth less are illegal.
And it won’t give you Coronavirus.
Since the $1 burger is now nearly $2, with the $1 burger be $1 again? Naw, it’ll probably go to $2.50.