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

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

#51

Post by JoshTriplett »

sethhochberg wrote: post #39
JoshTriplett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're romanticizing the concept of food preparation a bit much. You don't need to be able to taste, or feel hunger, to cook a good meal or choose a wine. I fully expect that a machine could not only do so, but ultimately do so more consistently than any but the most skilled of humans.

I fear such a thing would lead to Starbucksization of food and beverage production. As mentioned in plenty of other comments here, Starbucks baristas mostly just push a button to get a shot of espresso from one of their machines. They optimize for consistency and "good enough" - and indeed the machine pulls the same shot, every time, from beans which are over-roasted for consistency and good enough for mass consumpti…

A machine doesn't have to optimize only for "good enough" or "burnt"; it optimizes for whatever parameters it was given. If there's a trick to "pull a particularly great espresso shot", then you can build a machine to do that. It's not even particularly hard, compared to, say, keeping up an intelligent conversation, doing laundry, or any number of other harder-to-automate tasks.

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

#52

Post by cookingrobot »

dvdhnt wrote: post #12
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.

> The salad cook is just another in the long line of manual jobs that can be done quicker, better, cheaper by a robot. Allow me to be sentimental for a moment. I agree that some jobs, perhaps even most, can be done "better" by a robot. At least, if we're defining better as more cheaply or "to spec". However, when I go to a nice restaurant, I go because I enjoy the Chef's style, their ability to express their art thro…

People will prefer meals cooked by robots for the same reason they listen to recorded music. Everyone will have access to the best creations of the best chefs, instead of today where the closest you can get is watching them cook on tv. It will be a new media where artists can directly share their work with the world.

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

#53

Post by greglindahl »

gallerdude wrote: post #41
ekianjo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

We made the transition from subsistence agriculture to now. 90%+ of the population used to tend crops.

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

#54

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

greglindahl wrote: post #48
astrodust wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or for better sensors on the robot. There's no fundamental reason it can't tell if the drink is correct.

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

#55

Post by sethhochberg »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #51
sethhochberg wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear such a thing would lead to Starbucksization of food and beverage production. As mentioned in plenty of other comments here, Starbucks baristas mostly just push a button to get a shot of espresso from one of their machines. They optimize for consistency and "good enough" - and indeed the machine pulls the same shot, every time, from beans which are over-roasted for consistency and good enough for mass consumpti…

A machine doesn't have to optimize only for "good enough" or "burnt"; it optimizes for whatever parameters it was given. If there's a trick to "pull a particularly great espresso shot", then you can build a machine to do that. It's not even particularly hard, compared to, say, keeping up an intelligent conversation, doing laundry, or any number of other harder-to-automate tasks.

Of course - but people are going to control those machines, and the people who control the machines probably aren't going to be the people who (in another version of history where automation didn't take over) would be operating them with care out of personal passion.

In our Starbucks example - they also own Clover, the boutique automatic single-serve coffee brewer. It's a brilliant machine and makes a great cup of coffee. But it's artificially only available in certain markets, with certain collections of their own branded roasts. The macinery could be programmed to allow me to get a great cup of coffee at any Starbucks in America, but business incentives don't allow that (presumably - because Clovers are rare machines reserved for special store in major markets). Comiditization entails more than just automating the product and making things consistent and widely available. It also typically changes the incentives of the game and the people who are overseeing implementing them.

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

#56

Post by ekianjo »

greglindahl wrote: post #53
gallerdude wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We made the transition from subsistence agriculture to now. 90%+ of the population used to tend crops.

Exactly. Funny how most people seem to completely forget that little detail of recent history.

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

#57

Post by drivingmenuts »

sethhochberg wrote: post #39
JoshTriplett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're romanticizing the concept of food preparation a bit much. You don't need to be able to taste, or feel hunger, to cook a good meal or choose a wine. I fully expect that a machine could not only do so, but ultimately do so more consistently than any but the most skilled of humans.

I fear such a thing would lead to Starbucksization of food and beverage production. As mentioned in plenty of other comments here, Starbucks baristas mostly just push a button to get a shot of espresso from one of their machines. They optimize for consistency and "good enough" - and indeed the machine pulls the same shot, every time, from beans which are over-roasted for consistency and good enough for mass consumpti…

These machines aren't designed for foodies - they're designed to serve the rest of the populace that wants a decent, healthy meal at a reasonable price. That the machines try to appeal to foodies is just the side effects of marketing, in an attempt to provide some snob appeal to people who aren't true foodies.

There's always going to be a need for human food preparers, be they chef or cook, as foodies will seek unique experiences that cannot be provided in the large quantities that machines are designed to satisfy.

In short, don't worry about it.

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

#58

Post by mbaha »

ekianjo wrote: post #56
greglindahl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We made the transition from subsistence agriculture to now. 90%+ of the population used to tend crops.

Exactly. Funny how most people seem to completely forget that little detail of recent history.

That's mainly because the rate of change is far greater. Will need to get used to it though.

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

#60

Post by mbaha »

sethhochberg wrote: post #39
JoshTriplett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're romanticizing the concept of food preparation a bit much. You don't need to be able to taste, or feel hunger, to cook a good meal or choose a wine. I fully expect that a machine could not only do so, but ultimately do so more consistently than any but the most skilled of humans.

I fear such a thing would lead to Starbucksization of food and beverage production. As mentioned in plenty of other comments here, Starbucks baristas mostly just push a button to get a shot of espresso from one of their machines. They optimize for consistency and "good enough" - and indeed the machine pulls the same shot, every time, from beans which are over-roasted for consistency and good enough for mass consumpti…

I feel like you're talking about an experience that precisely emerged from the Starbucksization of food and beverage production.

Where I come from, staff in cafés would kill to make a consistent coffee every time (and they mostly do) but they're stuck with old machinery. But now that Starbucks has delivered that, customers want to go back to an authentic experience that really has never existed.

The same thing will happen to food i.e most people would love to have decent restaurant meals delivered at a really low price. The fact that some people will try to taste gourmet food prepared by real chefs is rather irrelevant to say the least...

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