Posted on 12/06/2013 8:24:56 AM PST by Kaslin
After you heard President Obama's call for a hike in the minimum wage, you probably wondered the same thing I did: Was Obama sent from the future by Skynet to prepare humanity for its ultimate dominion by robots?
But just in case the question didn't occur to you, let me explain. On Tuesday, the day before Obama called for an increase in the minimum wage, the restaurant chain Applebee's announced that it will install iPad-like tablets at every table. Chili's already made this move earlier this year.
With these consoles customers will be able to order their meals and pay their checks without dealing with a waiter or waitress. Both companies insist that they won't be changing their staffing levels, but if you've read any science fiction, you know that's what the masterminds of every robot takeover say: "We're here to help. We're not a threat."
But the fact is, the tablets are a threat. In 2011, Annie Lowrey wrote about the burgeoning tablet-as-waiter business. She focused on a startup firm called E La Carte, which makes a table tablet called Presto. "Each console goes for $100 per month. If a restaurant serves meals eight hours a day, seven days a week, it works out to 42 cents per hour per table -- making the Presto cheaper than even the very cheapest waiter. Moreover, no manager needs to train it, replace it if it quits, or offer it sick days. And it doesn't forget to take off the cheese, walk off for 20 minutes, or accidentally offend with small talk, either."
Applebee's is using the Presto. Are we really supposed to believe that the chain will keep thousands of redundant human staffers on the payroll forever?
People don't go into business to create jobs; they go into business to make money. Labor is a cost. The more expensive labor is, the more attractive nonhuman replacements for labor become. The minimum wage makes labor more expensive. Obama knows this, which is why he so often demonizes ATM machine as job-killers.
Just a few days before Obama's big speech on income inequality, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos launched a media frenzy by revealing on "60 Minutes" that he's working on the idea of having a fleet of robot drones deliver products straight to your door. I can only imagine the discomfort this caused for any UPS or FedEx delivery guys watching the show. There are still a lot of bugs to be worked out, but does anyone doubt that this is coming?
You might take solace in the fact that there will still be a need for truck drivers to deliver the really big stuff and to supply the warehouses where the drones come and go like worker bees. The only hitch is that technology for driverless cars is already here, it just hasn't been deployed -- yet.
None of this is necessarily bad. Machines make us a more productive society, and a more productive society is a richer society. They also free us up for more rewarding work. As Wired's Kevin Kelly notes, "Two hundred years ago, 70 percent of American workers lived on the farm. Today automation has eliminated all but 1 percent of their jobs, replacing them (and their work animals) with machines."
While some hippies and agrarian poets may disagree, most people wouldn't say we'd be better off if 7 out of 10 people still did back-breaking labor on farms.
That doesn't mean the transition to a society fueled by robot slaves won't be painful. The Luddites destroyed cotton mills for a reason. Figuring out ways to get the young and the poor into the job market really is a vital political, economic and moral challenge. My colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, James Pethokoukis, argues that one partial solution might have to be wage subsidies that defray the costs of labor, tipping the calculus in favor of humans at least for a while.
"Of course," Pethokoukis notes, "wage subsidies are an on-budget, transparent cost -- which politicians hate -- while the costs of the minimum wage are shifted onto business and hidden. But the costs exist just the same."
The robot future is coming no matter what, and it will require some truly creative responses by policymakers. I don't know what those are, but I'm pretty sure antiquated ideas that were bad policy 100 years ago aren't going to be of much use. Maybe the answers will come when artificial intelligence finally comes online and we can replace the policymakers with machines, too.
The food could be delivered by miniature train to your booth... call it the Willie Green Express...
I have posted for a few years that "productivity" is a negative and is bullshyte in that it means larger armies of the unemployed. All I got was idiots calling me a Luddite. All it takes is the ability to see the law of supply and demand. Workers wages go down and the middle class disappears when they can be replaced via computers and robotics. There is no new world ahead where these dispossessed workers can be trained for better jobs that are up the technological ladder. This is fantasy.
Obama's solution is to give amnesty to millions of unskilled illegal immigrants. More unskilled people is the last thing America needs
LOL they actually had that here in Indy.
Railroad Pizza.
My kids loved it when they were small (20 yrs ago).
It went out of business.
There is a really serious problem here.
As robots/machines/computers take over more and more of the "less-rewarding" jobs, at some point in time the people thrown out of work will not be capable of handling the "more-rewarding" jobs for which there is still demand.
Does anybody seriously think that the average bus driver thrown out of work by technology is intellectually or emotionally capable of becoming an effective writer of apps for Android?
For 200+ years the system has functioned as JG states, with of course many rough patches. But past performance does not necessarily predict future performance.
What we're essentially talking about here is productivity, the amount of human labor required to produce goods and services. If you extend the productivity chart indefinitely, at some point infinite goods will be produced with zero human labor.
How do we organize and structure such a society? Most people seem to derive their basic sense of self-worth and purpose from their employment. What do we do when there is no economic demand for their services? Such a society is likely to be wealthy enough to provide for them materially, but what about the psychological benefits of working? What will replace it?
Might be time for a comeback
Ordering to a hologram waitress over your table and R2D2 delivering your food at a Star Wars themed restaurant with an alien band playing (hopefully not like Chuck E Cheese) might be popular
“What will replace it?”
Everyone will become a blogger.
Help with upper body workouts too.
Good movie. Dr. Forbin was a brilliant computer guy except that he left out an off switch. That would have been a short movie.
My kids always want to go to that restaurant...
ah... McDonalds quality food at Applebee’s prices...
When capital is free, it replaces labor. If one can't see the hand of the Fed here, they're blind.
I saw that movie on TV as a kid about 20 times, it was a favorite on mine back then.
Recall that War Games 1982 used a similar theme for a whole different type of movie
No Workers comp or matching Social giveaways. a 30,000 per yr employee cost me 38,000 +/-. The machine was 40,000 and eliminated the need of three of them and is a fixed cost.
Government meddlers have no idea what destruction they have wrought on US creativity and small business manufacturing.
I've been in offices where they had rolling robots to distribute interoffice mail and documents. The robots followed stripes on the floor and had sensors to avoid people and things in their path.
This is just another version of digging holes and filling them up. The object is not to create "jobs," but to create wealth. The problem is not one of finding "jobs" for people but of finding ways for them to participate in wealth creation. Subsidizing employers to hire incompetents doesn't create wealth, it destroys it.
“Most people seem to derive their basic sense of self-worth and purpose from their employment.”
I can think of many things I’d rather do than work for the sake of work.
Doesnt that just increase the ‘wage gap’ ??
Think of how that gap could shrink if companies had to replace computers with workers and paper and ink.
There would be opportunities for hand scribing after printers were banned.
I agree.
However, we’re not talking here about the right side of the IQ bell curve. Those people will in general continue to be in demand for a long time.
We’re talking about the left side. IMO another IQ point falls out of the real demand for jobs every couple of years, and the rate appears to be increasing. The changes discussed in the article in proposed minimum wage and such will only accelerate this trend, not create it.
In the long run, there will be insufficient demand for low IQ/skill people to employ them all. So what do we do with them? British public housing projects and American Indian reservations do not provide rosy prospects.
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