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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?

#131

Post by crdoconnor »

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 new?

American elites want:

* A convenient scapegoat for outsourced manufacturing jobs which they are to blame for.

* A convenient scapegoat for jobs lost to austerity which they are to blame for.

* A perennial threat to hang over uppity worker's heads to head off threats of unionization.

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

#132

Post by shubb »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #95

This does create the illusion of just in time salads, but how is it different from prepackaged salads? I assume such a machine in large sits in every salad factory.

I wonder how many technology things are the shiny appearance of magic ontop of the old and mundane.

I guess we should look at any New Thing, and say, what existing boring thing is this really?

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

#133

Post by eru »

vortico wrote: post #88

Why is the UI on these things so atrocious? It took him a number of key presses just to select from a list of 6 and many more to finalize the purchase. Why not have a bunch of large tactile buttons at the bottom of the screen like all normal vending machines do? I don't want to wait in line for 3 minutes while some technophobe tries to figure out how to nagivate a pressure touchscreen with 12 menus deep. It's not his…

That's why I am always delighted when I see an iPad hooked up as a point-of-sales system.

Not because iPads are inherently superior to old style PoS systems (they are not, they can't provide tactile buttons) or because any one UI they offer is particularly good, but because they herald a new era of lower barriers to entry into the PoS terminals market.

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

#134

Post by crdoconnor »

zero_shift wrote: post #124
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…

> None of this excites a moral panic. It has done, in the past, and these concerns have not been without merit. The Ur-Case is that of the Luddites. When weaving machines came onto the fore in 19th century Britain, groups of saboteurs fearing for their jobs wrecked the machines with rocks and hammers. The Crown response was swift and unflinching. Machine-breaking was made a capital offence and the Luddites were put d…

"The Luddites were a group of English textile workers and weavers in the 19th century who destroyed weaving machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of machinery in a "fraudulent and deceitful manner" to get around standard labour practices.[1] Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste as machines would replace their role in the industry.[2]"

"It is a misconception that the Luddites protested against the machinery itself in an attempt to halt progress of technology."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

The modern day equivalent would be the French anti-Uber strike:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/26/10832204/french-taxi-uber...

CATO's agenda, of course, requires depicting the French taxi drivers as "luddites protesting technology" which neatly illustrates exactly why the misconception has persisted for so long:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewfeeney2/2015/06/30/uber-...

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

#135

Post by cm2187 »

A domestic robot is probably as big of a market as self driving cars. Not that this is close. But a robot that would clean, wash, iron, prepare food, do some basic plumbing and painting, replace bulbs, receive parcels, yell at the dog if it misbehaves, etc... I start to think that I will own one in my lifetime.

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

#136

Post by eru »

coldtea wrote: post #96
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…

> labor-saving devices have been being invented for hundreds of thousands of years. What's new? An extremely larger population that any other period in time (more than double what was merely 100 years ago), combined with the most extreme productivity improvements and new technologies like AI and robotics that can make most of them redundant in a few large fell swoops. Plus, the fact that for most of humanity's existe…

Mattered to whom?

People always matter at least to themselves.

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

#137

Post by misja111 »

This might cost some jobs but not very many. There have been all kinds of automated food solutions in existence for many decades. They serve a niche in the market for people that just want to grab and eat something quickly. But most people prefer the experience of having humans create and serve their food when they go to a restaurant.

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

#138

Post by megaman22 »

robert_foss wrote: post #126
ErrantX wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about if there are a group of people who cannot do mid-to-high skilled jobs (whilst potentially controversial, I think this is accurate)? If we replace all of those jobs what do they do? I have always thought there is a far-future dystopian story in that somewhere; society has evolved IT and automation to the extent that only the top 25% of individuals actually "work" and everyone else has leisure. The 25% decid…

Even if there is such a group of people, unable to learn a new trade, surely they're not the majority. So there is lots of room for improving the situation. There are lots of stories of American coal miners going into tech when the mining jobs dried up. But their process of getting there is through charitable organizations, not a proper educational program.

There are vested interests in promoting those sorts of stories, as a counterpoint to the depressing reality that far more drop out of the economy onto the disability rolls and slowly or quickly drink and drug themselves to death.

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

#139

Post by rjsw »

robert_foss wrote: post #126
ErrantX wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about if there are a group of people who cannot do mid-to-high skilled jobs (whilst potentially controversial, I think this is accurate)? If we replace all of those jobs what do they do? I have always thought there is a far-future dystopian story in that somewhere; society has evolved IT and automation to the extent that only the top 25% of individuals actually "work" and everyone else has leisure. The 25% decid…

Even if there is such a group of people, unable to learn a new trade, surely they're not the majority. So there is lots of room for improving the situation. There are lots of stories of American coal miners going into tech when the mining jobs dried up. But their process of getting there is through charitable organizations, not a proper educational program.

Coal mining was (and is) tech, so it shouldn't be a surprise that some workers can move into another area of engineering.

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

#140

Post by dagw »

misja111 wrote: post #137

This might cost some jobs but not very many. There have been all kinds of automated food solutions in existence for many decades. They serve a niche in the market for people that just want to grab and eat something quickly. But most people prefer the experience of having humans create and serve their food when they go to a restaurant.

most people prefer the experience of having humans create and serve their food when they go to a restaurant.

Serve sure, but how many people care about what goes on beyond the closed doors of the restaurant kitchen as long as food is up to standard. Would you really care if your steak was 'hand fried' by a line chef or fired by some kind of meat frying robot as long as it was of high quality done to your liking.

The 'problem' however (at least short term) is that line chefs are pretty cheap and advanced robots are pretty expensive.

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