4 ms·

Robots making food will lower the cost of food, giving more people access to better nutrition. This will also free up labor and capital to do other things. Mac

Robots making food will lower the cost of food, giving more people access to better nutrition. This will also free up labor and capital to do other things. Machines helped make farming more productive so humans no longer have to live on farms, and dedicate their lives to the next meal on their table. If we were worried about jobs back then, we would've outlawed tractors and other machines. If we really want to create jobs, we would go back to manual labor to make produce our food.

linkmotif 9y ago
> This will also free up labor and capital to do other things. Yes we definitely need more people on disability watching Maury
falcolas 9y ago
That "freed up [food service] labor" was already at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to skill and pay. Where else would that "free" labor be readily applicable that they don't fall into reliance on social safety nets?
busterarm 9y ago
I'm skeptical. This is painfully slow and handles 1 person at a time. Any midtown/downtown NY salad bar can turnover 10 peoples' salads in the time this machine took to make 1. There's no way this machine's operating cost is better than that. Sure, you could scale up these machines, but then the human-staffed salad bars are winning on floor space (and rent). It looks like you could only fit 2-3 of these machines in the footprint of the average NY salad spot. The only place this might win is where salad consumption is infrequent, in which case for food safety reasons, you probably don't want to be eating the salad there anyway.
VeejayRampay 9y ago
I don't think it will not lower the cost of food. In my opinion, the savings won't go towards pricing, they will go towards the owners' bank accounts (or shareholders). See Foxconn and the whole fleet of robots in their factories.
Sohcahtoa82 9y ago
> This will also free up labor ... What a silly statement. There's already an excess of available labor. > ...and capital to do other things. What a nice, sugar-coated way of saying "This will make the rich get richer." Of course, I probably sound like I'm against automation and I'm trying to save jobs, and I'm really not. But let's not pretend that lowering business costs helps anybody but the shareholders, and that creating unemployment is a GOOD thing.

linkmotif 9y ago

> This will also free up labor and capital to do other things. Yes we definitely need more people on disability watching Maury

falcolas 9y ago

That "freed up [food service] labor" was already at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to skill and pay. Where else would that "free" labor be readily applicable that they don't fall into reliance on social safety nets?

busterarm 9y ago

I'm skeptical. This is painfully slow and handles 1 person at a time. Any midtown/downtown NY salad bar can turnover 10 peoples' salads in the time this machine took to make 1. There's no way this machine's operating cost is better than that. Sure, you could scale up these machines, but then the human-staffed salad bars are winning on floor space (and rent). It looks like you could only fit 2-3 of these machines in the footprint of the average NY salad spot. The only place this might win is where salad consumption is infrequent, in which case for food safety reasons, you probably don't want to be eating the salad there anyway.

VeejayRampay 9y ago

I don't think it will not lower the cost of food. In my opinion, the savings won't go towards pricing, they will go towards the owners' bank accounts (or shareholders). See Foxconn and the whole fleet of robots in their factories.

Sohcahtoa82 9y ago

> This will also free up labor ... What a silly statement. There's already an excess of available labor. > ...and capital to do other things. What a nice, sugar-coated way of saying "This will make the rich get richer." Of course, I probably sound like I'm against automation and I'm trying to save jobs, and I'm really not. But let's not pretend that lowering business costs helps anybody but the shareholders, and that creating unemployment is a GOOD thing.