McDonald's Opens First Largely Automated Location

[Secret Chief]

Better than raising the min wage would
be minimum government provided income
for all (IMO).

Hang on there sonny, we're going to be in agreement here. Rescind! Rescind!

 

[Secret Chief]

Imagine 8 billion people mostly without remunerative work. Think of the box sets we can binge on.

 

[Secret Chief]

Probably at some point. Why would they spend money on human labor when they can have it done by machine? I still think they're pushing it a bit, at least in overestimating the capabilities of AI, as I find out any time I have to call some company with automated voice system. But I expect it will get better in time.

Who knows? This could be the beginning of the end, as Skynet starts first by taking over McDonald's. When it starts building an army of Terminators, they'll all look like Ronald McDonald.

Well human replacement swept through the car industry a long time ago.

 

[Revoltingest]

Hang on there sonny, we're going to be in agreement here. Rescind! Rescind!

So you're sharing my brain, eh.
Was it good for you?

 

[esmith]

In my opinion hopefullly it foretells the need for a universal basic income once we are in a post human work society.

who is going to pay for your "universal basic income"

 

[Stevicus]

who is going to pay for your "universal basic income"

Who is going to pay for anything once all jobs are replaced by machines?

 

[Revoltingest]

who is going to pay for your "universal basic income"

Taxpayers.
We're already paying for welfare, WIC,
Social Security, etc, gubmint housing, etc.
UBI could eliminate many programs, & all
the associated spendy bureaucracy.

UBI is more libertarian because it would
eliminate much of government micro-managing
of people's lives, eg, Section 8 housing, which
requires landlords to surveil & report on tenant
activities, such as over-nite guests.

Liberals should hate the UBI because it would
mean smaller more efficient government. And
it would get the poor out from under government's
control. But I hope to trick liberals into going
along with this old libertarian idea (proposed many
decades ago).

 

[esmith]

I've predicted this for some time now. And it will not only be in low education, low skill jobs. AI will make even jobs obsolete that required a degree or years of experience until now.
And unlike the last industrial revolutions, there are no higher qualified jobs people can migrate to. The only solution is an UBI of some sort, financed by the work of the machines.

How far into the future do you think a AI could do the job of a plumber, machanic, electrician, construction worker, you know those jobs that a lot of today's youth look down their noses at?

 

[Secret Chief]

So you're sharing my brain, eh.
Was it good for you?

Apart from the funny smell.

 

[Revoltingest]

Apart from the funny smell.

It's a SE MI thing.
Toum - Middle Eastern Garlic Sauce

 

[Sand Dancer]

Can it really be called a job?

A job for me is someplace that a person could stay with all the way to to retirement.

Almost everyone who works there seem miserable and depressed.

Job vs career. Hopefully more people will take advantage of college or vocational training while still in high school.

 

[Secret Chief]

Taxpayers.
We're already paying for welfare, WIC,
Social Security, etc, gubmint housing, etc.
UBI could eliminate many programs, & all
the associated spendy bureaucracy.

UBI is more libertarian because it would
eliminate much of government micro-managing
of people's lives, eg, Section 8 housing, which
requires landlords to surveil & report on tenant
activities, such as over-nite guests.

Liberals should hate the UBI because it would
mean smaller more efficient government. And
it would get the poor out from under government's
control. But I hope to trick liberals into going
along with this old libertarian idea (proposed many
decades ago).

You've certainly tricked me

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Taxpayers.
We're already paying for welfare, WIC,
Social Security, etc, gubmint housing, etc.
UBI could eliminate many programs, & all
the associated spendy bureaucracy.

UBI is more libertarian because it would
eliminate much of government micro-managing
of people's lives, eg, Section 8 housing, which
requires landlords to surveil & report on tenant
activities, such as over-nite guests.

Liberals should hate the UBI because it would
mean smaller more efficient government. And
it would get the poor out from under government's
control. But I hope to trick liberals into going
along with this old libertarian idea (proposed many
decades ago).

Although I'd like to see both Universal Basic Income and large government, if given the choice between the two, I'd actually choose Universal Basic Income.

 

[metis]

I don't go to McDonalds, but I will never go to any restaurant that is fully automated.

 

[Secret Chief]

Job vs career. Hopefully more people will take advantage of college or vocational training while still in high school.

At the grand old age of 62 I find this distinction for most people to be irrelevant and meaningless. (Says someone whose working life included a job that required a higher education qualification). Most people don't do one sort of work for the whole of their working lives. The idea promoted to young people of "aiming for a career" rather than "settling for a dead end job" is mostly dismissed or forgotten about or leads to bitterness in the long run.
"I worked hard at school, went to college and then uni and where did it get me?"
"I messed around at school, got no qualifications, learnt on the job with my dad's mate and now I live in a big house with a posh car."

 

[Secret Chief]

I don't go to McDonalds, but I will never go to any restaurant that is fully automated.

The trouble is, the choice may end up disappearing. Here in the UK, the number of staffed tills in shops is plummeting, compared to serve-yourself tills which are rocketing. Currently you often end up choosing between the one "human till" with a queue of shoppers or quickly going through one of the numerous automated tills. This big switch has come about in just the last couple of years. What when the last human till disappears?

 

[Father Heathen]

For better or worse, automation is an inevitability.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Automation will keep spreading. Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on a lawyer when a chat AI can do it all for you. I'm sure the eloi will not care what happens to the morlocks.

Until the morlocks eat them

 

[RestlessSoul]

Imagine 8 billion people mostly without remunerative work. Think of the box sets we can binge on.

I've been hearing about all this increased leisure time technology will provide, since my childhood in the 1960s, so how come I still can't afford to retire?

 

[Father Heathen]

Taxpayers.
We're already paying for welfare, WIC,
Social Security, etc, gubmint housing, etc.
UBI could eliminate many programs, & all
the associated spendy bureaucracy.

UBI is more libertarian because it would
eliminate much of government micro-managing
of people's lives, eg, Section 8 housing, which
requires landlords to surveil & report on tenant
activities, such as over-nite guests.

Liberals should hate the UBI because it would
mean smaller more efficient government. And
it would get the poor out from under government's
control. But I hope to trick liberals into going
along with this old libertarian idea (proposed many
decades ago).

I'm sold.