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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?

#191

Post by songshu »

amyjess wrote: post #173
Lazare wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.) I have had fast-food workers mess up my order so many times that I'd rather just give it to a machine. There are few things mo…

I agree. It can also go the other way though. I sometimes order almond milk from Starbucks. If I give the order to a human I can make some judgement as to whether they have misunderstood and correct them, or outright ask them to confirm their understanding. If I give the order to the app then the app understands perfectly but I will have to sort out any subsequent human misunderstanding after it's been made. My local branch have got it wrong twice in 5 attempts via the app (they tend to assume I want coffee with almond milk because what crazy person just wants almond milk)

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

#192

Post by songshu »

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.

Your lease being reviewed... if you mean by some kind of robot lawyer then I doubt it. Lawyers have the best trade union and have successfully resisted the Walmartization of their trade for decades and I can't see that changing in the US at least.

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

#193

Post by jpindar »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #179
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because it's way, way cheaper and more flexible to use a touchscreen PLC, like one of these: https://www.automationdirect.com/adc/Shopping/Catalog/HMI_(H... than a huge mess of buttons and wires. Just look at that linked product! Less than $500 and you have as many buttons and labels as you can shake a stick at, and it's all behind a pretty color display. I can hardly buy 3 buttons, a vinyl overlay, and pay for…

>Less than $500 and you have as many buttons and labels as you can shake a stick at, and it's all behind a pretty color display. A raspberry pi + touchscreen is 1/5th of that. RPi is capable of running Qt5 which would be a solid UI choice. How the heck have they survived?

In addition to all the features you'd have to pay someone to add, and software you'd have to pay someone to write, what are the noise immunity, temperature, shock, vibration, and emission etc. specs for a RPi? Does it have UL, CE, etc. approvals? Does it have a warranty?

Does it still have all these things after you've modified it?

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

#194

Post by Ensorceled »

brink wrote: post #159
annabellish wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lot easier to have a thick skin when you're in a demographic nobody discriminates against.

I'm sure it is. I'm not trying to minimize discrimination.

Well, you did talk about "balance" so you are to some extent.

[Edit] Also, you called it "PC" so, yes you are minimizing it.

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

#196

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

merraksh wrote: post #114
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…

I don't want to wait in line for 3 minutes while some old guy tries to figure out Please rewrite, this is borderline discriminatory and quite offensive. Some "old guys" can be as capable to handle such UI as some "young guys". Disclaimer: half-old guy. [EDIT] thanks for replacing "old guy" with "technophobe".

Do you really want a world where people pretend not to discriminate?

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

#197

Post by [deleted] »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #30
Growlzler wrote: post #27

Robots can't taste. Something that no one really wants to take on for a number of reasons the first being that we haven't a clue how it works. Variables in a Caesar Salad occupy wide spreads. Blending taste is still an art that most Chefs have trouble achieving as will the machine intelligence that conquers taste. Wondering how machine intelligence will handle hunger pangs caused by the sudden thought of a Caesar Sal…

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.

[deleted]

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

#198

Post by MuffinFlavored »

zipwitch wrote: post #166
amelius wrote: post #116

We should stop worrying whether AI will cost jobs, but instead think about who reaps the benefits of thousands of years of technological progress, and how those benefits can be distributed more fairly.

Exactly. Comments about"costing jobs" always miss the point, partially or wholly. _Jobs are a cost._ They are what it takes to create _wealth_. At issue is how to best create and distribute wealth.

I disagree a little bit. We are all typing this from our comfy environments, able to pay for Internet, etc.

What about when jobs start to disappear and the economy as we know starts to change for the worse? Either by affecting us directly, or the markets which we are a part of, I don't think this will be a positive thing.

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

#199

Post by eloisant »

deepGem wrote: post #176
strken wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some believe that a human life has intrinsic value, even outside the value of the species as a whole and even outside the value of that human's labour.

True, but some believe that population growth has to stabilise at some point.

It is stabilizing already, natality in developing countries dropped much faster than what was expected.

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

#200

Post by KekDemaga »

allenz wrote: post #74
School-Cotton wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the maybe 10% of people who fetishize artisanry will still create demand for service jobs. But this is an edge case.

Also, maybe 10% of chefs view their work as art, rather than as a way to earn money.

That number is probably less than 1%, those stories about chefs being so inspired by ingredients and just wanting to share that vision with the world are written by marketers.
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