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It's silly to think this is due to a $15 an hour minimum wage. This was coming as soon as the cost of installing the thing was cheap enough to make back the dif

by ctrl-j 10y ago

It's silly to think this is due to a $15 an hour minimum wage. This was coming as soon as the cost of installing the thing was cheap enough to make back the difference. Automation is coming for all jobs that do not require critical and/or dynamic thinking. A higher minimum wage may have accelerated the process, but this would have happened regardless.

mattnewton 10y ago
It's debatable; cheap labour could in theory have indefinitely postponed this. But I think it is not a loss that less people take orders for burgers. What is a loss though is there are less easy ways for people to participate in society economically.
- rukittenme 10y ago
  Slavery could not have postponed this. Automation is inevitable. We would still have things like the tractor and the combine even if slavery were still permitted.
  - acjohnson55 10y ago
    Interestingly, technology, in the form of the cotton gin, actually made slavery in America more viable. So the relationship between automation and labor demand isn't necessarily trivial. But I would agree that it seems like in today's society, automation will indeed substantially decrease the demand for labor.
    - mattnewton 10y ago
      Right, if labor is cheap automation will take the form of augmenting it instead of supplanting it; think call centers instead of kiosks.
pwagland 10y ago
Indeed. We have had these things in Europe for a long time already. They tend to be really convenient when you are in a foreign country, since you don't need to be able to speak to them, you just press the buttons, and get what you want, without fear of the order getting "lost in translation". And given that they are in use in thousands of restaurants in Europe, then you know that the price per machine is only going down, not up. Which means that at some point they will _always_ end up price competitive with humans, unless the humans also keep on accepting wage cuts to stay "competitive". Forcing people into sub-poverty incomes is not a viable long term solution to this problem of low paid labour.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  One of the reasons you see these in Europe is because of high employment costs (and I don't mean minimum wage alone, that one isn't particularly high in Europe). These things are pretty common in the UK, but on the other hand in Asia I haven't seen those yet, Hong Kong, China, Philippines don't have them despite having on average huge McDonald's stores with considerably more staff and customers than the average Western European one. It's also worth noting that you can pretty much follow the employment costs in Europe to see where are these things deployed and at any country that is below a certain threshold you won't really see those. Service automation is a simple calculation of TCO of the automation vs wages, as long as the wages are even marginally lower than the cost of automation there is no point. I would say tho that while I visit McDonalds maybe 3-4 times a year (I love their fries, even tho you can't get mayo in the UK anymore... because "health and safety") I much rather use the ATM than talk to the person at the counter. They can't hear/understand half of the things you say, and vice versa, orders are often taken wrong, and you some how always get stuck behind a group of 5 people that can't make up their mind. So all in all they might also get a better customer satisfaction from automated service than from human employees.
  - rahimnathwani 10y ago
    McDonald's in China (at least in some branches in Shanghai) has automated kiosks for ordering. They're similar to the ones they've had in the UK for a while now, except that they have a way to scan a QR code from your phone's screen (commonly used for WeChat and Alipay payments via QR code).
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
Gas stations, if you're up for eating gas station food, have had that kind of computer ordering for many years now.
geezerjay 10y ago
> A higher minimum wage may have accelerated the process, but this would have happened regardless. That's precisely the point: a higher minimum wage does accelerate the problem. Deciding whether a restaurant hires a servant or purchases a vending machine is a decision made purely on cost. If a politician decides to increase the cost of investing in a specific option (hiring a servant) to the point that the alternative option becomes the best option available to the business, that politician needs to be held accountable for his actions.
- ctrl-j 10y ago
  > ... that politician needs to be held accountable for his actions. You do realize in this case the politician's action is saying "if you're going to make money off of somebody's labor, you need to pay them enough to take care of their own family.", right? I still disagree with the premise of the article, but it sounds like you do subscribe to the belief that fair pay is killing jobs. In that case, I just have to disagree. If automation kills jobs because we don't allow businesses to make billions while their employees collect food stamps, I think I'm OK with that. The next few years will be rough for many. Jobs are likely to be automated away en-masse, and unemployment will spike. Then maybe enough people will be upset about the situation that we'll see the rise of social programs to help people. Keeping the lower class working multiple jobs to feed and clothe their children isn't a solution.

by ctrl-j 10y ago

mattnewton 10y ago

It's debatable; cheap labour could in theory have indefinitely postponed this. But I think it is not a loss that less people take orders for burgers. What is a loss though is there are less easy ways for people to participate in society economically.

rukittenme 10y ago
Slavery could not have postponed this. Automation is inevitable. We would still have things like the tractor and the combine even if slavery were still permitted.
- acjohnson55 10y ago
  Interestingly, technology, in the form of the cotton gin, actually made slavery in America more viable. So the relationship between automation and labor demand isn't necessarily trivial. But I would agree that it seems like in today's society, automation will indeed substantially decrease the demand for labor.
  - mattnewton 10y ago
    Right, if labor is cheap automation will take the form of augmenting it instead of supplanting it; think call centers instead of kiosks.

pwagland 10y ago

Indeed. We have had these things in Europe for a long time already. They tend to be really convenient when you are in a foreign country, since you don't need to be able to speak to them, you just press the buttons, and get what you want, without fear of the order getting "lost in translation". And given that they are in use in thousands of restaurants in Europe, then you know that the price per machine is only going down, not up. Which means that at some point they will _always_ end up price competitive with humans, unless the humans also keep on accepting wage cuts to stay "competitive". Forcing people into sub-poverty incomes is not a viable long term solution to this problem of low paid labour.

dogma1138 10y ago
One of the reasons you see these in Europe is because of high employment costs (and I don't mean minimum wage alone, that one isn't particularly high in Europe). These things are pretty common in the UK, but on the other hand in Asia I haven't seen those yet, Hong Kong, China, Philippines don't have them despite having on average huge McDonald's stores with considerably more staff and customers than the average Western European one. It's also worth noting that you can pretty much follow the employment costs in Europe to see where are these things deployed and at any country that is below a certain threshold you won't really see those. Service automation is a simple calculation of TCO of the automation vs wages, as long as the wages are even marginally lower than the cost of automation there is no point. I would say tho that while I visit McDonalds maybe 3-4 times a year (I love their fries, even tho you can't get mayo in the UK anymore... because "health and safety") I much rather use the ATM than talk to the person at the counter. They can't hear/understand half of the things you say, and vice versa, orders are often taken wrong, and you some how always get stuck behind a group of 5 people that can't make up their mind. So all in all they might also get a better customer satisfaction from automated service than from human employees.
- rahimnathwani 10y ago
  McDonald's in China (at least in some branches in Shanghai) has automated kiosks for ordering. They're similar to the ones they've had in the UK for a while now, except that they have a way to scan a QR code from your phone's screen (commonly used for WeChat and Alipay payments via QR code).

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

Gas stations, if you're up for eating gas station food, have had that kind of computer ordering for many years now.

geezerjay 10y ago

> A higher minimum wage may have accelerated the process, but this would have happened regardless. That's precisely the point: a higher minimum wage does accelerate the problem. Deciding whether a restaurant hires a servant or purchases a vending machine is a decision made purely on cost. If a politician decides to increase the cost of investing in a specific option (hiring a servant) to the point that the alternative option becomes the best option available to the business, that politician needs to be held accountable for his actions.

ctrl-j 10y ago
> ... that politician needs to be held accountable for his actions. You do realize in this case the politician's action is saying "if you're going to make money off of somebody's labor, you need to pay them enough to take care of their own family.", right? I still disagree with the premise of the article, but it sounds like you do subscribe to the belief that fair pay is killing jobs. In that case, I just have to disagree. If automation kills jobs because we don't allow businesses to make billions while their employees collect food stamps, I think I'm OK with that. The next few years will be rough for many. Jobs are likely to be automated away en-masse, and unemployment will spike. Then maybe enough people will be upset about the situation that we'll see the rise of social programs to help people. Keeping the lower class working multiple jobs to feed and clothe their children isn't a solution.