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Some companies find only humans can do the job

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Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job

#81

Post by marcosdumay »

Robotbeat wrote: post #66
paulpauper wrote: post #27

Automation is capital intensive to set up, so it may take years for it to pay for itself. This delays adoption considerably for smaller businesses. Hair cutting is one of those jobs that resists automation. Same for burger flipping. It's not as if salons and restaurants can afford expensive robots to automate those tasks. Customer support automation may mean lost business due to angry customers.

It occurs to me that buying a robot arm to literally flip burgers is highly anthropomorphizing the solution space. You want a machine that gives you a burger at the end. This is a pretty easy thing to automate if you had a huge, constant demand for burgers at one single location using standard factory automation strategies. Might not be feasible at all for the typical franchises with spikey demand and relatively low…

Assembling different kinds of sandwich is the kind of problem where a robot arm may be among the best solutions. But yeah, it's bad for flipping burgers alone.

Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job

#83

Post by extra88 »

somebody78978 wrote: post #74
extra88 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oblique references to IBM and their product Watson. I assume they're afraid IBM would otherwise find their comment and sue them for libel (implausible). For those that need further explanation, HAL is the killer computer in the movie 2001, the name was picked for the movie because the letters are shifted by one from "IBM." IBM's product Watson is named after Sherlock Holmes's sidekick, Dr. Watson. Edit: the product w…

> the name was picked for the movie because the letters are shifted by one from "IBM." Actually, the IBM/HAL thing is just a coincidence, according to both Kubrick and Clarke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000#Origin_of_name

Not going to let facts get in the way of a good story. :)

Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job

#84

Post by unicornhose »

pdimitar wrote: post #41
bitwize wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still cheaper to exploit human laborers to pick those simple objects. There will be a reckoning once capitalism runs out of people to exploit.

How exactly will that happen? Most Western governments are happy to import immigrants after their own populace wakes up to their bullshit and stops tolerating it. Many immigrants don't mind working for 20% of what a local would work. I don't see us running out of Indians, Chinese and Africans in the next 200 or so years at least.

But you’ll stop being able to afford them a lot sooner

Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job

#85

Post by Robotbeat »

coredog64 wrote: post #77
Robotbeat wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It occurs to me that buying a robot arm to literally flip burgers is highly anthropomorphizing the solution space. You want a machine that gives you a burger at the end. This is a pretty easy thing to automate if you had a huge, constant demand for burgers at one single location using standard factory automation strategies. Might not be feasible at all for the typical franchises with spikey demand and relatively low…

There’s not actually a need to physically flip burgers at McD. They use a clamshell grill that cooks both sides at once. Besides, the fry robot has a better ROI given the profit margin on that item.

Makes sense. Stuff like the clamshell device is a more practical innovation than a clunky and slow anthropomorphic robot arm flipping a burger.

We don’t fly aircraft like ornithopters, but with ducted fans and propellers.

Re: Some companies find only humans can do the job

#86

Post by pdimitar »

unicornhose wrote: post #84
pdimitar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly will that happen? Most Western governments are happy to import immigrants after their own populace wakes up to their bullshit and stops tolerating it. Many immigrants don't mind working for 20% of what a local would work. I don't see us running out of Indians, Chinese and Africans in the next 200 or so years at least.

But you’ll stop being able to afford them a lot sooner

That's very true but the politicians keep pretending that this fact doesn't exist.
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