Could Fast Food Restaurants Be Fully Automated?

[dwyanewadeog]

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?,

 

[georgehimself]

Whyyouwannaputpeopleouttajobs?

 

[illshill]

ithinkwewouldneedhumansforqualitycontrol

 

[the notorious bum]

Icanseeitbeingdoneinthenearfuturemakingfoodthereistooeasy

 

[thunderchunk69]

I want this to happen so we dont have to pay tips for something monkeys can do

 

[mpdaking]

ay making things automated by machines puts ppl out of work


and this eliminates extra/free hookups

 

[dwyanewadeog]

hm.



wouldn't there be no need for quality control since the machines do the same thing every single time with little margin for error

 

[georgehimself]

Whatifthelettucegoesbad? Howwilltherobotknow? Whatifthereisanearthquake?

 

[dwyanewadeog]

the lettuce wont go bad. mcdonald's promise

 

[thunderchunk69]

naw, I still want cooks,
but I wouldnt mind giving orders by machine and delivery if possible


half the time busboys are bringing out my food, waiter refilled my drink once and wrote down what I orated... seems really useless to me

 

[jackiechizzan]

Originally Posted by ThunderChunk69

I want this to happen so we dont have to pay tips for something monkeys can do

you tip your local wendy's waiter?

 

[thunderchunk69]

Originally Posted by jackiechizzan

Originally Posted by ThunderChunk69

I want this to happen so we dont have to pay tips for something monkeys can do

you tip your local wendy's waiter?

no, but Im not OP
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

 

[ogmikey]

If Uwink is one of the closest thin too it, bypasses waiters completely.

 

[pip777]

Originally Posted by ThunderChunk69

Originally Posted by jackiechizzan

Originally Posted by ThunderChunk69

I want this to happen so we dont have to pay tips for something monkeys can do

you tip your local wendy's waiter?

no, but Im not OP
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

iPhone has apps where you can order Chipotle, pizza hut, and others with your iPhone

 

[thunderchunk69]

Originally Posted by OGMIKEY

If Uwink is one of the closest thin too it, bypasses waiters completely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Bushnell
wow, never heard of this place, from the creator of Atari and Chuck E Cheese (which I already knew of him)

 

[frink85]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

http://bamnfood.com/

 

[acidicality]

THEY TOOK ER JIBBBBS

 

[Deleted member 38182]

Originally Posted by ThunderChunk69

I want this to happen so we dont have to pay tips for something monkeys can do

Who tips for fast food......

 

[kuhui]

Originally Posted by frink85

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

http://bamnfood.com/

that automat in st marks looks interesting imma hafta check it out this week lol
automats always remind me of that movie dark city 

 

[Jordan8]

They should so my gotdamn fries I get from the hood McDonalds taste as good as the suburban McDonalds

 

[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. 

 

[swizzc]

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. 

The problem with America in a nutshell.

 

[crod6926]

If the machines made my burgers perfectly aligned and not lopsided i would choose machines

 

[rexanglorum]

I don't know if it is problem either way. There is no right answer to what number exactly is a fair distribution of wealth. Most people would find the top heavy income distribution of Medieval Europe or that of modern day China to be bad, especially if that distribution is the result of force and government edicts and not market forces. On the other hand, even the idea of having everyone paid exactly the same for every job is seen as unfair by most Americans and problematic by even the most radically egalitarian Americans.

What I would see is problem is the culture of corporate entitlement and the fact that government has been complicit in indulging the whims of the super rich and well connected in manner whose visibility has never been greater. The urgency and the amount of money that changed hands in the most famous bailout of 2008 is merely the highlight of a culture that has been in the making for the last 20-25 years (contrary to the image that is presented Ronald Reagan was, by far, the least in favor of crony capitalism than any president in the last 25 years and was perhaps the most opposed to crony capitalism since the Coolidge Administration. People like  Herbert Hoover, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson all did a lot to exand the cozy relationship between big business and big government. That is when you look at the facts and not the labels given to them by journalists or by themselves) and that has been expanded regardless of what political party has controlled Congress or the White House.

The problem lies in the fact that if the richest people in the country get billions in aid from the government, that government has to at least throw the masses some tax dollars (it would be political suicide to support bailouts and then to publically demand that everyone else has to be frugal, austere and willing to be subject to market forces) and there is not enough money to go around if every is claiming more than they contribute, yet when the richest people in the country do not have to be subject to budgets, market discipline and are not expected to tighten their belt in anyway, each and every other person would be foolish to consider the bigger picture and the most prudent course of action is demand as much of everyone else's money as possible right now no matter if that mentality, when practiced by every person, will lead to disaster.

 

[rexanglorum]

boo-urns yuku