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I'm a little disheartened that nearly everyone so far has immediately jumped to finding flaws in this stories and ones like it. I get it, there is a long histo
by CamelCaseName 8y ago
I'm a little disheartened that nearly everyone so far has immediately jumped to finding flaws in this stories and ones like it.
I get it, there is a long history of such robots failing economically.
However, automating food assembly could free a huge number of people from menial restaurant work.
Perhaps we would see an explosion of food culture and personalization that simply doesn't exist when you have several fast food chains operating tens of thousands of stores worldwide and the cost of opening up a unique restaurant is greater than many people's lifetime earnings.
I hope this problem is solved one day in my lifetime, and that we all benefit from lower food assembly costs and increased dietary options.
- ranci 8y ago"Free" them? They need that work in order to survive, mostly. They were "free" before having that menial job and that freedom didn't seem to help turn them into software engineers or nurses before...
- _0nac 8y agoWhich is why we should immediately un-mechanize mines and bring back hurriers and trappers! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrying https://thoroglove.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/trappers-hurriers-and-hewers-working-in-a-coal-mine/ https://thoroglove.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/trappers-hurrier... Simply put: if a job is so repetitive that it can be automated out of existence, it's in the interest of humanity overall that it should be.
- ranci 8y ago> Simply put: if a job is so repetitive that it can be automated out of existence, it's in the interest of humanity overall that it should be. Quite a different way of framing it than your original comment. Here you tout how it's good for "humanity" in general. Before you were touting how this is good for the people being put out of work.
- jpatokal 8y agoUm, the original comment wasn't mine.
- econochoice 8y agoSeems like it's in the interests of the owners to automate, not in the interests of those who work jobs that will be automated.
- edanm 8y agoNo, it seems like it's in everyone's interest. Or would you really prefer to live in the conditions people lived in 200 years ago?
- econochoice 8y agoTo be honest, everyone would have been better off if coal extraction remained a manual process.
- nsxwolf 8y agoI made fast food for years before I became a software engineer.
- ranci 8y agothanks for your survivorship bias
- dwd 8y agoWe may find ourselves wondering where experienced people are going to come from in future when the jobs that previously gave them the ability to independently support themselves while studying disappear.
- megaman22 8y agoIt's a common problem. I know of a lot of situations where businesses are fucked when boomer millwrights and mechanics retire, because they never bothered to keep an apprentice around. So much institutional knowledge going out the door, with no replacement
- tjoff 8y agoThat's a US problem though, lots of countries provide free education.
- nsxwolf 8y agoIs it really your understanding that fast food workers never or rarely go on to do anything else?
- odbol 8y agoFlipping burgers every day for the rest of your life is a sad waste of human potential. We as a society can do better. This robot is one step, other steps are involved like Universal Basic Income or actually paying content creators.
- krzat 8y agoPerhaps if enough people become unemployed, they could force some changes in society. Right now they are busy flipping burgers and cleaning toilets.