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Startup claims it's created a robot that entirely replaces fast-food kitchen staff

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shira

shira

Member
5ce79_Chinese-Robot-Noodle-525x351.jpg

Wow, the noodle robot is based on windshield wiper tech.

Cool that robots can cook and garnish burgers now
 
J

joelseph

Member
AstroNut325 said:
No sympathy from me towards the people who lose their jobs. I mean... the business is just looking to save some money but replacing robots. Just like people who buy online to save money rather than buying from local stores (big box or otherwise).
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Do you work for Best Buy? Damn that is some cold blooded shit.
 
A

AstroNut325

Member
joelseph said:
Do you work for Best Buy? Damn that is some cold blooded shit.
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Nope. Not even close to retail. But it's asinine to expect business to maintain human workers when non-human ones are available. Businesses like to save money whenever/wherever possible. Same with people. Unless that culture changes...
 
I

itxaka

Defeatist
Its creators believe their patty-flipping Alpha robot could save the fast-food industry
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And who is gonna save all the jobs lost?

Mind you that IIRC this kind of job are either:
1. Students earniing some money to live/party/whatever
2. Peple with no studies that can only access this kind of job


Can someone tell me what those workers are supposed to do? They can't recycle themselves into another position due having no studies so...more unemployment?
 
J

J-Rod

Member
Sounds great. No one laments over the loss of needing people to deliver blocks of ice to an ice box, or telephone switchboard operators, or picking and deseeding cotton, or the million other unskilled jobs replaced by technology.
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
Kinitari said:
And I think it's fascinating

This is the startup's website

I saw the link on this blog I frequent (the author wrote Lights in the Tunnel, a book I plug often in threads).

And thought it would be interesting to read about - generally the premise is, this startup claims that their robot is faster, more sanitary and effecient than 2-3 human staffers, and is cheap enough that it can make restaurants money back within a year - some interesting quotes from the blog:


What does GAF think? Is this company going to be successful? Are there going to be other companies that come in and try to do the same? What sort of economical effect will it have, 'obliterating' kitchen staff in fast food restaurants?
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Sounds good from a consumer perspective.
I shudder at the atrocities that fast-food staff continuously commit.

The less human hands that touch fast food, the better.
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
itxaka said:
And who is gonna save all the jobs lost?

Mind you that IIRC this kind of job are either:
1. Students earniing some money to live/party/whatever
2. Peple with no studies that can only access this kind of job


Can someone tell me what those workers are supposed to do? They can't recycle themselves into another position due having no studies so...more unemployment?
Click to expand...

That's why technological progress of this nature must be paired with an increased socialized society. Otherwise, all the savings just go into the pockets of the fat-cat tzars.
 
T

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
*is a capitalist industrious job-creator*

*replaces staff with robots to save money*

*complains about people that have no jobs*
 
P

params7

Banned
This is the way forward no doubt but we are not ready for this technology yet. This is going to do mare harm than good with the people that will be unemployed.
 
T

Tzeentch

Member
-- The explosion of robotics happened over 20 years ago, and people are shocked that they can actually see the shockwaves now? If you're working in a semiskilled job that you can train a high schooler to perform by rote, you're gonna' have a bad time.
 
K

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
Tzeentch said:
-- The explosion of robotics happened over 20 years ago, and people are shocked that they can actually see the shockwaves now? If you're working in a semiskilled job that you can train a high schooler to perform by rote, you're gonna' have a bad time.
Click to expand...

I've talked to a couple of engineers in the last little while, one who specifically is working in the field of automation - some of the stuff they said is really interesting, and if I were to highlight the most interesting thing they said to me it would be basically, that robots are getting cheaper and cheaper, to the point that it's going to be silly to not have robots working in manual labour for your company pretty soon.
 
C

Conciliator

Banned
I'm going to start up a fast food chain around this tech called 'HUMAN FOODSTUFF DISPENSARY'.

PLEASE VISIT YOUR LOCAL HUMAN FOODSTUFF DISPENSARY FOR TECHNICALLY EDIBLE COOKED COWFLESH.

For some reason the robot talks and runs the ad department
 
K

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
Fong Ghoul said:
AHHHH holy shit I lost it at the end of the second one. Whew. Needed that.

Haven't like, a million people tried to do the exact same thing? Of all the potentially automated processes, is this one even particularly challenging?

Also, does the robot clean itself?
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Well, robotics have had some really significant recent boons - and are now becoming 'practical' for a lot of things they weren't practical for a few years ago. Basically, they're cheaper. Which is all the difference.

Anticitizen One said:
Americans should be getting an educate and looking at jobs that require higher skills and more challenging not aiming for the burger flipping jobs
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No country is going to have all it's citizens educated enough so that they could all be skilled labourers, nor would there be enough work if all working age citizens -were- skilled labourers.
 
A

Aguirre

Member
i for one approve of this. it would enable me now to eat all food from restaurants without the nagging thought in the back of my mind: did the chef spit into this?
 
B

Brawndo Addict

Banned
The endgame has always been robot labor, and the fact governments spend no time or energy trying to figure out to how to deal with the inevitable repercussions is profoundly disturbing. The majority of jobs are poverty wage level affairs that will eventually be replaced by robots. The societal and economic damage is not something you can just "quickly adjust" to. But just like peak oil and alternative energy, I guess we prefer to just bury our heads in the sand until it's too late to do anything.

On a related note, I always found it intriguing that this is one of the issues which drove Ted Kaczynski to murder. Did he go crazy and this was just one of the ideas his deluded mind latched onto as an excuse to kill? Or did he go crazy because he couldn't convince anyone to take this deeply personal belief of his seriously? Or maybe, as he argues himself, he's not actually crazy, he just believes the ends justify the means and if killing people gets society to deal with the problem than so be it.
 
L

Log4Girlz

Member
Brawndo Addict said:
The endgame has always been robot labor, and the fact governments spend no time or energy trying to figure out to how to deal with the inevitable repercussions is profoundly disturbing. The majority of jobs are poverty wage level affairs that will eventually be replaced by robots. The societal and economic damage is not something you can just "quickly adjust" to. But just like peak oil and alternative energy, I guess we prefer to just bury our heads in the sand until it's too late to do anything.

On a related note, I always found it intriguing that this is one of the issues which drove Ted Kaczynski to murder. Did he go crazy and this was just one of the ideas his deluded mind latched onto as an excuse to kill? Or did he go crazy because he couldn't convince anyone to take this deeply personal belief of his seriously? Or maybe, as he argues himself, he's not actually crazy, he just believes the ends justify the means and if killing people gets society to deal with the problem than so be it.
Click to expand...

I think the first area where robots start replacing humans is in the military. Imagine a battle field of bionic commandos.
 
S

sikkinixx

Member
What a world we live in. It's no wonder there are so many redundant, fake jobs in the corporate world, where else can people go...
 
T

Tzeentch

Member
Brawndo Addict said:
On a related note, I always found it intriguing that this is one of the issues which drove Ted Kaczynski to murder. Did he go crazy and this was just one of the ideas his deluded mind latched onto as an excuse to kill? Or did he go crazy because he couldn't convince anyone to take this deeply personal belief of his seriously? Or maybe, as he argues himself, he's not actually crazy, he just believes the ends justify the means and if killing people gets society to deal with the problem than so be it.
Click to expand...
-- What's hilarious is that you can take entire sections of Kaczynski's manifesto and read them with a totally straight face now. Eerily prescient in parts.
 
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