It wouldn't surprise me in the least that the big fast food companies haven't had plans in the works for a really long time. I think they must know to some ext

It wouldn't surprise me in the least that the big fast food companies haven't had plans in the works for a really long time. I think they must know to some extent that human workers will become, perhaps already are, much less economical than robotics. At the same time, automation at that scale and complexity hasn't been battle tested, and public perception may be tainted by replacing people with robots, hence if they are smart then they should be taking their time implementing and deploying automation. In fact it's already happening at a very small scale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPTcIutsoTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPTcIutsoTg I find it hard to imagine that more advanced systems haven't already been in the works for a very long time. If all fast food workers around the world rebelled, I imagine we wouldn't even see Flippy the Robot at first; we'd see all the McDonald's buildings gutted and replaced with complete automation systems that work off of conveyor belts.