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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?

#91

Post by [deleted] »

yann63 wrote: post #65
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.

Is it the question we should ask? I'd prefer to ask another question: is it time to change our society, to go away from paid jobs? A job is one of the things that currently defines us, one of the first questions you ask someone you just met is often to know what job they are in. If all jobs were automated, we could have more interesting occupations: taking care of our childrens, elders, neighbors, growing our garden,…

[deleted]

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

#92

Post by dalbasal »

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…

I think most of that has excited moral (I would call it political) panic at one point or another. But, there isn't anything special about these salad machines, I agree.

The underlying narrative is a fear of automating lots of other things. The new wave of automation is still uncertain, we don't know how to identify nevermind personify the symbols and culprits of it. Automated kitchen robots are a nice stand-in for automation generally. Like the robots in the jetsons.

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

#93

Post by gknoy »

r00fus wrote: post #49
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…

YMMV. I was not impressed by the machine - it presented way too many choices and didn't promote the UI to make the process easier than speaking to a human, in my view. Maybe after about 10 times when you've "learned the menu" you might find it easier.

I'd LOVE an automated kiosk (or even person) that let me specify some numeric encoding of my entire order.

I always order the same thing at In-n-Out, for example, and would love to say, "Give me a 557-343-901-043" -- or better yet, scan a QR code that had what I want to order. And they have just about the simplest menu ever! (one reason I love them) If I could do that at other fast food restaurants, or Starbucks, where you might want to order the same Very Specific thing, without having to go through the tedium of explaining it or entering it into a kiosk / web form every time, I bet it would be a huge thing.

I will be surprised if Starbucks doesn't let you do this already, or isn't working on it.

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

#94

Post by jacobolus »

greglindahl wrote: post #35
dannyw wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you cite a source for grinding wheat leaving sufficient stone burr particles resulting in enamel damage? I could not find a source via Google.

Dental health and disease in ancient Egypt http://www.nature.com/bdj/journal/v206/n8/full/sj.bdj.2009.3... I got there by googling [wheat enamel damage -gluten stone], there's lots more than just this one article

Getting the vast majority of your food from a single starchy source is also not great for dental (or general) health, even without the sand chewing part.

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

#96

Post by coldtea »

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 existence, the masses mattered mostly if they were useful to some end, not for their intristic value as human beings.

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

#97

Post by trevyn »

_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.

Repeatable, reliable, easy customization options. This is a bigger thing for prompting return visits than it might seem at first glance — this is why people develop an affinity for, e.g. Starbucks; they develop a personalized product that they think of as part of their identity.

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

#98

Post by sleepychu »

_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.

Configurability? I want that sald with this topping

Freshness? If the buisiness is preparing the vegetables in the kitchen before providing them to the machine then the salads might taste fresher than factory packaged salads >1 day old.

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

#99

Post by robert_foss »

christopheml wrote: post #87
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? Well, if we keep replacing low-skill jobs by high-skills ones, we may have a little problem: are humans going to keep up with the training? Is the workforce going to adapt fast enough? When job replacement happens over several generations, it's a pretty easy problem to solve. When it gets faster, turns out some human abilities are not scaling very well.

A solution is providing the option of mid-life education.

Of course this comes more easily to places with free education.

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