McD's ex CEO has bad news

[Bald1]

But yelling at a robot just won't be the same as yelling at a 16 year old kid when they put pickles on my burger when I specifically said NO PICKLES!

I order my pizza online so everything is in print, there's no language barrier, and the human variable is kept to a minimum. Sounds foolproof, right? Nope. Insidious idiots are frustrating, and will eventually fuck even the simplest tasks up.

 

[MicroBrew]

Yep eventually there wont be many jobs for people. Best jobs will probably be fixing these machines. Until they can invent machines that can fix other machines then your just done. Will all need to receive some sort of minimum pay just for doing nothing.

It's not true for Foxconn or Adidas overseas but it would be true in the U.S. You can't treat labor effects in the U.S. as identical to labor effects elsewhere. Foxconn's been cutting their human labor supply ever since the suicide rates started jumping. And lots of overseas manufacturing has returned to their native soil because the tech has finally become cheaper than thousands of cheap humans overseas plus shipping. It's still wage driven and always has been.

Here, we haven't automated certain jobs because the cost of automation isn't sufficiently superior to the cost of human labor, once you factor in the customer experience. But every fast food CEO that I've ever read on the subject has stated that those jobs don't make sense at higher wages because the technology already exists to replace the labor at a higher price point.

Check out lines at retail org's aren't a good comparison point because the cashier has no role in altering the check out process. It's simply a matter of scanning a UPC. There's no real value added since the customer selected the product without the cashier's help.

Ordering food is more complicated since the customer often requests alterations to the menu product. Some might not want ketchup, some don't want tomatoes. There's far more customization. Can computers do it? Sure but it's more expensive that scanning a bar code and calculating a total plus tax.

Pushing the wages for fast food closes the discrepancy between the tech and the humans in the U.S.

Foxconn and Adidas' situation is comparable to Mcd or Suncor because all 4 companies want to lower their bottom line, like all companies do. And automation helps them achieve this.

McD is just experimenting with registers, not too dissimilar to a person using the automated check out line at Home Depot. Automated Mcd order taking would require a bit more tech involvement than automated cash registers but not all that dissimilar. In time as the technologies comes on line enabling automated food prep and cooking, that too would see humans being replaced. The $15 minimum isn't the deciding factor pushing companies to replace humans with robots, tech advancement is. Well over a hundred years ago we went from humans manually grinding flour to utilizing water or wind powered grinding equipment to do it.

Long before computers , and back when there was little or no labour laws and before all States had stipulated a minimum wage and before a National minimum wage , automated mechanical devices replaced humans in the production of many products, from: jewlery to fasteners to watches to ammunition.

 

[ObsoleteSoul]

Sorry, but they had no foresight, and will pay because of it.

This is the way it is going, and you aren't going to be able to stop this progress. The day of having 5 kids needs to end, as we are going to be hard up on jobs for all these rugrats. But hey, let's not think of what is happening, and lets leave prudent thinking on the sidelines. Just keep imagining it will be all ok....

 

[Gutter Chris]

Probably stay in philippines and mexico . I dont know if youve noticed but they arent highschool kids and elderly and drop outs working there it is immigrants on working visas .

I have noticed that a lot of fast food workers are black or white adults. Might not be like that where you are but thats whats up in Detroit

 

[Skip Reming]

Sorry, but they had no foresight, and will pay because of it.

This is the way it is going, and you aren't going to be able to stop this progress. The day of having 5 kids needs to end, as we are going to be hard up on jobs for all these rugrats. But hey, let's not think of what is happening, and lets leave prudent thinking on the sidelines. Just keep imagining it will be all ok....

Why not just kill all the retired people and people living in a hospital and shit. They ain't doing shit.

Oh, or maybe cut down immigration to something sustainable????? This would mean NOT voting for the dems to dump mexico and syria on us.

 

[panamaican]

Foxconn and Adidas' situation is comparable to Mcd or Suncor because all 4 companies want to lower their bottom line, like all companies do. And automation helps them achieve this.

McD is just experimenting with registers, not too dissimilar to a person using the automated check out line at Home Depot. Automated Mcd order taking would require a bit more tech involvement than automated cash registers but not all that dissimilar. In time as the technologies comes on line enabling automated food prep and cooking, that too would see humans being replaced. The $15 minimum isn't the deciding factor pushing companies to replace humans with robots, tech advancement is. Well over a hundred years ago we went from humans manually grinding flour to utilizing water or wind powered grinding equipment to do it.

Long before computers , and back when there was little or no labour laws and before all States had stipulated a minimum wage and before a National minimum wage , automated mechanical devices replaced humans in the production of many products, from: jewlery to fasteners to watches to ammunition.

No one said it's the deciding factor in choosing automation. It's the deciding factor on when it occurs.

If minimum wage doesn't go to $15/hr then automation takes place in 5 years, not 1-3.

And you're somewhat misrepresenting the Foxconn and Adidias situations. Many Chinese firms are shipping their manufacturing overseas to Africa because of cheaper labor - Chinese workers are now more expensive than they used to be. Foxconn chose to speed up automation because tech solved both a labor cost issue and a public relations disaster. But it's the climbing local labor rates that drive the overall changes in Chinese manufacturing outcomes.

Adidas is more like other manufacturing companies. They went overseas because local labor was too expensive. Overseas labor was cheaper but it came with the added cost of shipping (which is just more tech but applied to logistics). The drive to change business models was still about comparative costs. Once the local technology costs became lower than the overseas but ever increasing labor costs then companies like Adidas moved back home. But again, it's the change in labor costs that dictated when tech stepped in and what type of tech.

 

[MicroBrew]

Why not just kill all the retired people and people living in a hospital and shit. They ain't doing shit.

Oh, or maybe cut down immigration to something sustainable????? This would mean NOT voting for the dems to dump mexico and syria on us.

You know the GOP also supports , and supported Mexican illegal labor . Do you really think big Agriculture, farmers, ranchers, meat packng plant owners, middle class landscaping company owners are all Democrats . Big business has been a big supporter of immigration , including illegal immigration.

Thousands of white collar jobs are given to H1B visa holding Indians,Chinese and others. Business want to hire foreigners because they will work longer hours for less money and not complain . And they can be fired anytime.

Regan started the original Amnesty program and allowed the Cuban boat lift. So how are you pinning this on the Dems soley. Both Dems and GOP support it. NeoConservatives within the GOP are very pro open borders . Sheldon Adelson , who has emerged as the most prominent GOP sugar daddy supports immigration reform.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Oh, of course. People will still crave that AWESOME service that they get at fast food restaurants.

When they get robots or just a screen, human service no matter how limited will become a novelty.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Why stop at fast food? Why would any restaurant have the need for a wait staff? With bots or automation the restaurant will have no bitchy waitresses, no missed work shifts, no accidents on the job, and customers don't have to tip bots. By going to a restaurant that has no waiters the bill is less by 15-20% that would be used as a tip. So people will also have an incentive to not deal with other people.

Then it will be just vending machines then.

 

[MusterX]

Then it will be just vending machines then.

I don't know what you mean by that. I'm talking about your staff being just as good as humans ever were if not better.

 

[punky brewster]

I have to choose between:

1. Ordering exactly what I want by simply touching a few images on a touchscreen.

or

2. Speaking to a semi-literate person with a bad attitude and poor social skills who has about a 25-30% chance of fucking up my order.

Hmmm. Tough choice.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

I don't know what you mean by that. I'm talking about your staff being just as good as humans ever were if not better.

If they going with humanoid robots that actually interact with customers, then it will just be a novelty, there will still be a niche for human serivce.

Either that it will just be vending machines. That is true automated service with no humans.

 

[MusterX]

If they going with humanoid robots that actually interact with customers, then it will just be a novelty, there will still be a niche for human serivce.

Either that it will just be vending machines. That is true automated service with no humans.

Androids will not be a novelty, they will become ubiquitous. A.I. + Robotics is where we are headed, like it or not. You keep thinking this

When really we are heading for this

They won't look like that at first but that is where we are going. Huge amounts of money and time are being spent moving us in that direction. First gen stuff will look similar to this.

They are being built and they are coming. Bill Gates, who is pretty plugged in to the tech sector, believes every home will have a robot by 2025. They will help you clean your floors, do your dishes, cook for you, and manage your home.

 

[hughesfan20]

Would those Android women give us an iPad?

Of course not, they would give us a Galaxy Tab or some other Android tablet.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Androids will not be a novelty, they will become ubiquitous. A.I. + Robotics is where we are headed, like it or not. You keep thinking this

When really we are heading for this

They won't look like that at first but that is where we are going. Huge amounts of money and time are being spent moving us in that direction. First gen stuff will look similar to this.

They are being built and they are coming. Bill Gates, who is pretty plugged in to the tech sector, believes every home will have a robot by 2025. They will help you clean your floors, do your dishes, cook for you, and manage your home.

If that happens, I believe there will still be a demand for human service establishments.