8 ms·

My local McDonalds now has giant screens for you to place your order. Most of the time I'm in there they now have counter staff with very little to do. If the

My local McDonalds now has giant screens for you to place your order. Most of the time I'm in there they now have counter staff with very little to do. If they can work out a way to automate the making of the burger, or even the transport from the chef to the customer, they'll be able to cut their staff even more.

switch007 11y ago
I hate them. They are unresponsive and slower. I walk past them, go up to the counter, and get a nice greeting and a smile from a human being. Ditto for supermarkets: those machines are even more annoying. I always try to go to a lane with a real person (granted, they're not always smiling and sometimes acknowledge you less than a computer)
- Roboprog 11y ago
  Depends. If I have one item, in a sealed package w/ legible barcode in my hand, the self serve lane is fine. If I have produce, or a large basket of stuff likely to contain a "processing error" in it somewhere, no way. Go for a real clerk.
- obsurveyor 11y ago
  Self checkout is wildly faster for me, even with computers that feel like they're running on hardware from 15 years ago. I can have my basket organized in the same order I'm going to bag it, scan it in, bag it efficiently, pay and leave. The worst part about self checkout are the other people who don't know how to use it, have huge carts(especially at a tiny checkout kiosk that should really have a max item limit) or are just slow. In the case of lines at self checkout, I'll go to an empty lane if the whole store isn't just packed.
  - mgkimsal 11y ago
    self checkout lanes need a "beginner" side and "express" side. :/
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
This will be huge. Imagine a cinder block building half-buried in the ground with a loading dock and a drive-up. You wave your chipped credit card, the screen shows your last 5 orders or a Menu button. Make your selection and drive up to the pneumatic delivery chute. Plop! your bagged meal arrives seconds later. Economically, it means we'll finally have to face the fact that, to run our country, we don't actually need everybody to work any more. Have to figure that one out (or at least, come to the consensus that a basic income is a good thing).
- Roboprog 11y ago
  If we could somehow gather up the taxes to pay for basic income, maybe we could hire people to work on all of the things in "the commons" that obviously need fixing or enhancing, instead. I consider myself to the left of today's Democratic party (then again, I think Richard Nixon was more liberal than 21st century Democrats), but basic income sounds like a real moral hazard to me, and traditional Keynesian economics would likely deal with most of the unemployment problem, perhaps in conjunction with rolling back some "free trade" back-stabbing (alas, that crap was bi-partisan). Easy access to "welfare" in the 60s and 70s is what got us the back-lash of Reagan and friends.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Welfare is not the problem its made out to be. But to work on the 'moral hazard': perhaps the basic income can be earned simply by social activity like elder visits, park monitoring, mentoring, public health seminars. Encourage improvements in quality of life.
    - zyxley 11y ago
      Making it 'earned' is missing a major point of basic income: that just giving the money away can ultimately be much cheaper and more efficient than verifying if people 'deserve' it.
      - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
kshatrea 11y ago
http://momentummachines.com/ http://momentummachines.com/ This company has been marketing one of its products as an automated burger maker. Not sure if they have McD's as a customer. They claim 360 burgers/hr[0] [0]http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robot-2014-8?IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robo...
cableshaft 11y ago
Knew those were imminent; a recruiter contacted me a year and a half ago for a job working on those systems for McDonalds, so I knew it was only a matter of time before they started showing up. You in the Chicago area, by any chance? That's where their R&D building is located. Although I believe she said they were going to do some testing on the west coast, also.

switch007 11y ago

I hate them. They are unresponsive and slower. I walk past them, go up to the counter, and get a nice greeting and a smile from a human being. Ditto for supermarkets: those machines are even more annoying. I always try to go to a lane with a real person (granted, they're not always smiling and sometimes acknowledge you less than a computer)

Roboprog 11y ago
Depends. If I have one item, in a sealed package w/ legible barcode in my hand, the self serve lane is fine. If I have produce, or a large basket of stuff likely to contain a "processing error" in it somewhere, no way. Go for a real clerk.
obsurveyor 11y ago
Self checkout is wildly faster for me, even with computers that feel like they're running on hardware from 15 years ago. I can have my basket organized in the same order I'm going to bag it, scan it in, bag it efficiently, pay and leave. The worst part about self checkout are the other people who don't know how to use it, have huge carts(especially at a tiny checkout kiosk that should really have a max item limit) or are just slow. In the case of lines at self checkout, I'll go to an empty lane if the whole store isn't just packed.
- mgkimsal 11y ago
  self checkout lanes need a "beginner" side and "express" side. :/

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

This will be huge. Imagine a cinder block building half-buried in the ground with a loading dock and a drive-up. You wave your chipped credit card, the screen shows your last 5 orders or a Menu button. Make your selection and drive up to the pneumatic delivery chute. Plop! your bagged meal arrives seconds later. Economically, it means we'll finally have to face the fact that, to run our country, we don't actually need everybody to work any more. Have to figure that one out (or at least, come to the consensus that a basic income is a good thing).

Roboprog 11y ago
If we could somehow gather up the taxes to pay for basic income, maybe we could hire people to work on all of the things in "the commons" that obviously need fixing or enhancing, instead. I consider myself to the left of today's Democratic party (then again, I think Richard Nixon was more liberal than 21st century Democrats), but basic income sounds like a real moral hazard to me, and traditional Keynesian economics would likely deal with most of the unemployment problem, perhaps in conjunction with rolling back some "free trade" back-stabbing (alas, that crap was bi-partisan). Easy access to "welfare" in the 60s and 70s is what got us the back-lash of Reagan and friends.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Welfare is not the problem its made out to be. But to work on the 'moral hazard': perhaps the basic income can be earned simply by social activity like elder visits, park monitoring, mentoring, public health seminars. Encourage improvements in quality of life.
  - zyxley 11y ago
    Making it 'earned' is missing a major point of basic income: that just giving the money away can ultimately be much cheaper and more efficient than verifying if people 'deserve' it.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago

kshatrea 11y ago

http://momentummachines.com/ http://momentummachines.com/ This company has been marketing one of its products as an automated burger maker. Not sure if they have McD's as a customer. They claim 360 burgers/hr[0] [0]http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robot-2014-8?IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robo...

cableshaft 11y ago

Knew those were imminent; a recruiter contacted me a year and a half ago for a job working on those systems for McDonalds, so I knew it was only a matter of time before they started showing up. You in the Chicago area, by any chance? That's where their R&D building is located. Although I believe she said they were going to do some testing on the west coast, also.