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A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

nytimes.com

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Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#41

Post by gallerdude »

ekianjo wrote: post #25
true_tuna wrote: post #5

Yes. All the jobs. Drivers, luggage handlers. The salad cook is just another in the long line of manual jobs that can be done quicker, better, cheaper by a robot. So now what? What job do we guide our children into? What jobs are left as the fall through for kids who decline formal training? I don't know, but we need to answer that question quickly.

> What jobs are left as the fall through for kids who decline formal training? Robot cleaners, maintenance, etc... I highly doubt we will have a fully automated robot loop that takes care of themselves anytime soon, so there's always going to be a need for humans in the chain.

Well yeah, but we reach a point where we don't have a job available to say, 30% of the potential workforce. I don't think robot maintenance will be the next retail or warehouse employee.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#43

Post by 0xbear »

Of course all of these robots will cost jobs. I’m reading “The Grapes of Wrath” right now, and it all happened before, except back then it was not robots, but tractors. Lots of people were flung into direst poverty imaginable, some died, some saw their kids die of malnutrition, which, IMO, is worse. It’ll be the exact same shit this time around except a lot more people will be affected, but fewer will die.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#44

Post by astrodust »

true_tuna wrote: post #5

Yes. All the jobs. Drivers, luggage handlers. The salad cook is just another in the long line of manual jobs that can be done quicker, better, cheaper by a robot. So now what? What job do we guide our children into? What jobs are left as the fall through for kids who decline formal training? I don't know, but we need to answer that question quickly.

Someone's going to have to clean all those robots, top up their various fluids, and patch their firmware until some startup bros in Silicon Valley disrupt that market too.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#45

Post by astrodust »

statictype wrote: post #29
greglindahl wrote: post #10

My local coffee place has humans who operate an espresso machine, while Starbucks has baristas who push a button, and there are vending machines that produces espresso without having an operator. None of this excites a moral panic. Kitchen labor-saving devices have been being invented for hundreds of thousands of years. What's new? Think about wheat. Wheat used to be ground in stone mills operated by oxen or wind or…

What's different is that the button was being pushed by a human. That human gets paid a salary and earns a living. And that human could presumably choose not to push the button if the expresso machine tries to become sentient (in theory).

That human can, if properly trained and motivated, recognize when the coffee being served isn't coming out right. They can interface with customers and resolve complicated human problems, de-escalating when necessary to find a good outcome.

A robot has no way of knowing if the coffee will taste good or contains rat poison. It's just going through the motions. If it serves you a dud drink you can't argue with it, you just got scammed. Post an angry Yelp review if it makes you feel better.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#46

Post by astrodust »

Judgmentality wrote: post #24

I feel like they took the salad bar and made it more complicated - the only real advantage I see is it might be more sanitary. It's certainly slower if there's a line of people waiting for their food.

How about instead of a robot to serve salads we make a robot that can probe for contamination?

E-coli, listeria, and other nasty bacteria and viruses like hepatitis are no joke, yet most places have zero tools to test for those things.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#47

Post by astrodust »

Zigurd wrote: post #23

I'd bet my lease gets reviewed by an AI before I eat a robot-cooked meal. Food is variable and dirty and the downside risk of not being clean is pretty bad, even acknowledging that robots will always wash their hands. Maintenance, risk, and general exposure to meatspace, in every sense, means that knowledge workers will probably be the first to be automated out of a job.

What if the robot runs out of disinfectant and nobody notices or cares?

Robots are only as clean as the company that owns and inspects them permits them to be.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#48

Post by greglindahl »

astrodust wrote: post #45
statictype wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's different is that the button was being pushed by a human. That human gets paid a salary and earns a living. And that human could presumably choose not to push the button if the expresso machine tries to become sentient (in theory).

That human can, if properly trained and motivated, recognize when the coffee being served isn't coming out right. They can interface with customers and resolve complicated human problems, de-escalating when necessary to find a good outcome. A robot has no way of knowing if the coffee will taste good or contains rat poison. It's just going through the motions. If it serves you a dud drink you can't argue with it, you…

That's an argument for having a higher-value problem-solving employee around, not an argument for having several lower-value button-pushing employees around.

Fewer, higher value employees has been the trend in many industries for the past few hundred thousand years.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#49

Post by r00fus »

Lazare wrote: post #19
daveguy wrote: post #17

Until self check-out becomes faster and less obnoxious than having a skilled cashier do the job faster I don't think we need to worry at a large scale. We aren't going to be talking to robot waiters any time soon. If Carl's Jr. puts a glorified soda machine as my fast food interface I'll go to McDonald's where I can give my order in 10 seconds instead of fumbling with a machine for 2 minutes.

All the local McDonald's here have installed self-ordering kiosks. They're fast and seem very popular. I personally find it significantly easier and faster than waiting in line and talking to an actual human. (And this is coming from someone who hates self-checkout lines at grocery stores.) > We aren't going to be talking to robot waiters any time soon. Robot waiters? Probably not. But using our phones to order deliv…

YMMV. I was not impressed by the machine - it presented way too many choices and didn't promote the UI to make the process easier than speaking to a human, in my view.

Maybe after about 10 times when you've "learned the menu" you might find it easier.

Re: A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?

#50

Post by alexmlamb2 »

Zigurd wrote: post #23

I'd bet my lease gets reviewed by an AI before I eat a robot-cooked meal. Food is variable and dirty and the downside risk of not being clean is pretty bad, even acknowledging that robots will always wash their hands. Maintenance, risk, and general exposure to meatspace, in every sense, means that knowledge workers will probably be the first to be automated out of a job.

I don't really agree. Ultimately making food is an extremely repetitive process (at least for fast food) and that's where AI excels.

I think that if the robot is really transparent and there's a human inspecting, then people will be willing to live with it.

Reviewing your lease could be tricky because it could involve lots of external variables, cultural differences, changes over time, interactions with the law, and so on.

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