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For any NTers that either know about robots, know about preparing fast food, or both, why isnt McDonalds fully automated yet? Do you really need people to cook up some fries, hamburger and Mcflurry?,
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Originally Posted by ThunderChunk69
I want this to happen so we dont have to pay tips for something monkeys can do
no, but Im not OPOriginally Posted by jackiechizzan
you tip your local wendy's waiter?Originally Posted by ThunderChunk69
I want this to happen so we dont have to pay tips for something monkeys can do
iPhone has apps where you can order Chipotle, pizza hut, and others with your iPhoneOriginally Posted by ThunderChunk69
no, but Im not OPOriginally Posted by jackiechizzan
you tip your local wendy's waiter?Originally Posted by ThunderChunk69
I want this to happen so we dont have to pay tips for something monkeys can do
I want computers/machines to replace waiters at MOST restaurants
we can play scrabble with seperate iphones, maybe we can place orders with phones in the future![]()
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_BushnellOriginally Posted by OGMIKEY
If Uwink is one of the closest thin too it, bypasses waiters completely.
Originally Posted by ThunderChunk69
I want this to happen so we dont have to pay tips for something monkeys can do
The problem with America in a nutshell.Originally Posted by Rexanglorum
The technology already exists to almost completely automate the production of fast food but the costs of those robots are more than the costs of having unskilled labor.
As technology gets cheaper and/or if there is a huge increase in the minimum wage. Imagine $15-30 per hour (adjusted for inflation) as the new minimum wage, you would start to see much more automation very quickly as the minimum wage turned into law.
BTW, I totally agree about the comment about tip jars at cash registries. Tipping is a very inefficient custom in this society (not to mention that it has potentially odius undertones about classism and the belief that someone has to feign fawning in order to get paid and that "the help" have to act presentable to pl;ease their betters). It does not "insure promptness" unless you are a repeat, if not regular customer. It needlessly creates tension between waiter and patrons; because, if the patron got bad service and did not tip at least 10% or so, the waiter feels like he has the right to tamper with the patron's food. If the patron is not planning to eat at the resturant ever again, he could capriciously stiff a waiter who dedicated a lot of time and energy to providing excellent service to that patron's table. The tips cannot be used very well to do what prices are usually good at doing, signaling the value that someone places on something.
At least in restuarants, tipping is an established custom and in a busy place the waiter's revenues from tips will balance out and he or she can have some degree of predictability in his or her income, the same is true for businesses like barber shops, salons and taxi cabs (even though that business model is set up for many non repeat customers who would be able to stiff cab drivers). What is really bad is the proliferation of tip jars, everywhere that money changes hands. Even at gas stations (not full service or the quasi full service stations in New Jersey or Oregon) but self serve stations there are tip jars that are outside, not ecven at the register. I know that people who make low or minimum wage and who see people rolling through with luxury cars, feel like they deserve a bigger share of the pie and that point could be debated ad infinitum but it comes off as a sense of entitlement when it is done at "self service station," the thrifty person who saved for the first 30 years of his working life to finally buy a nice car is more likely to cling to his Petite Bourgeois/Neo-Victorian view that the poor are entirely to blame for their poverty.
For the sake of all parties in involved, get the tip jars out of the fast food chains, the fast casual restaurants, self serve gas stations and coffee houses. It creates awkwardness, potential for conflict and it reinforces stereotypes and social mores about class, wealth, poverty and host of other issues that should not be rehashed every time you want to buy a pack of gum at the corner store.