I look forward to an entirely robotic fast-food joint. Drive up, wave your rfid card, get a list of your last 5 menu choices, poke at one, food comes out the slot in a bag. No human involved.
Minimum-wage push could bring robots to restaurants
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Re: Minimum-wage push could bring robots to restaurants
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even accepting your argument, there still comes a point where: [wages of robot-replaceable employees] + [current wages of non-replaceable employees] > [robots] + [higher wages of non-replaceable employees] And $15/hr for robot-replaceables may well be that point.
I think the idea is that $7.25/hr is already that point. Let's say that each of these robots costs $10k per year, including R&D and maintenance. Let's also say that because of inefficiencies with having people order their own food or with assembly ultimately being done by hand, a store has to install 6 robots to replace 3 workers. 3 workers * $7.25/hr * 8hrs/day * 365days/year = $63,510 6 robots * $10k/robot = $60,00…
Even if the robot costs more today, that wouldn't change the inevitability of it happening. A $10k robot this year will be a $5k (in today's value) robot in 5 years. While wages go up, tech costs go down. No one will escape that.
Re: Minimum-wage push could bring robots to restaurants
#13Restaurant means different things to different people. To me, I do not care if a fast food establishment (McDonald's, Qdoba, Panera, etc...) replaces workers with robots. The food and experience already feels autonomous and disconnected.
I do not see robots replacing servers at non-fast food places for a long time if ever.
They bring up grocery stores but I think most employees, especially check out clerks, will be replaced by machines. As much as I love to talk to the older person about their grandkids while they, slowly, scan my items I would be OK with dumping my items onto a tray and having the machine do all the work. Almost like self checkout except for a robot replacing me.
Re: Minimum-wage push could bring robots to restaurants
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the idea is that $7.25/hr is already that point. Let's say that each of these robots costs $10k per year, including R&D and maintenance. Let's also say that because of inefficiencies with having people order their own food or with assembly ultimately being done by hand, a store has to install 6 robots to replace 3 workers. 3 workers * $7.25/hr * 8hrs/day * 365days/year = $63,510 6 robots * $10k/robot = $60,00…
A blogger created a calculator that allows you to determine (over a 5-year time frame) whether it is cheaper to buy an expensive robot and do automation or to just use manual labor and to save the excess in Treasury bonds. He found that when the minimum wage is at $7.25, it would be slightly cheaper to hire humans, and if the minimum wage is raised to $10.10, then it would be slightly cheaper to hire robots. The blog…
I'm thinking specifically in the case of McDonalds and other large chains where the costs of R&D and dedicated maintenance staff would be spread over thousands of restaurants.