In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

forget about the former title of coffee shop barista, our cotton and tobacco trade is about to go into overdrive!

"If it takes $2,000 to install what is basically an iPad and stand for customers to order from at McDonald’s or Chipotle, a restaurateur is looking at less than a month before recouping their entire investment if they eliminate just one cashier position."

Obviously it takes a little bit more than that. You need to develop the software that runs on the kiosk. You also need a back-end system so the kitchen knows what to prepare. So the investment is a bit higher than that. But you will recoup it very quickly on McDonalds scale. And they will be able to provide better and faster service.

Indeed, Singapore where the new kiosks are almost ubiquitous, it's not uncommon for a cashier to have nobody waiting for them, but people still use the kiosks. 100% of the time when there is at least one person in line, I'll use the Kiosk - as all the orders are funneled into the same process queue. I particularly like the Kiosk because you can hyper customize every element of your order without confusion.

With that said - these Gen 1 Kiosks are kind of kludgy, not super responsive - and have a lot of room for improvement. Once they improve the performance, I don't ever see ordering from a human.

(It's already been many months since I've used a cashier to check out with at a local market - everything through the Kiosk)

(Note: Singapore has no minimum wage and lots of intergenerational living, so there is a lot of inexpensive labor available from Seniors that work at McDonalds - this type of technology will have a big impact on them)

As is only appropriate, given the word's etymology.

> ro·bot (n.) 1923, from English translation of 1920 play "R.U.R." ("Rossum's Universal Robots"), by Karel Capek (1890-1938), from Czech robotnik "forced worker," from robota "forced labor, compulsory service, drudgery," from robotiti "to work, drudge," from an Old Czech source akin to Old Church Slavonic rabota "servitude," from rabu "slave," from Old Slavic orbu-, from PIE orbh- "pass from one status to another" (see orphan).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=robot

All that's old is new again.

> And they will be able to provide better and faster service.

On the contrary, my local grocery store took out their self-serve checkout kiosks and replaced them with human checkers. Turns out there was some skill involved after all.