The Future Of Fast Food: Robots All The Way Down

in life •  8 years ago 

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Hi guys.

In a previous post I talked about how the push for a minimum wage of $15/hour for fast food workers forces companies to modernize and replace workers with robots:

In which I had this exchange with @timcrypto

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This will be a reality within the next 5 years

Frankly, the 5 year timeline is very conservative: I think it will happen within the next 2 years.

When you take a moment to consider all of the advantages of a fully automatic, flying distribution system for fast food, the first company to do this will rake in billions in revenue and every other fast food service will quickly adapt.

Efficiency

Humans make errors.

Employees can do bad jobs. They can come in late or call in sick. They can give you lip or slack off. They can spit in your food out of spite. They get your order wrong.

In the system I foresee, each major city region will have a distribution center staffed with burger making robots which will make your order perfectly, send it to a drone delivery system, and dropped off at your destination of choice.

Companies will no longer have to staff dozens of employees per location -- probably just a handful per distribution center -- which will save on so much overhead that machine and software maintenance will be a welcome expense by comparison.

The product will be much more consistent and reliable, with virtually no bottleneck of human error.

Speed

Machines will be able to make your order and fly it by drone to any location within a matter of minutes.

The amount of time you would normally wait for an order to fulfill at the diner would be the amount of time it will take this system to not only make your order but deliver it to you.

Convenience

Ordering via app makes it so you don't even need to come in to a location or call -- the kiosk will be in the palm of your hands.

You can order from home and have a cute little drone drop off your food within minutes. Or you could place an order to arrive at a specific time, on a specific day, for convenient planning.

Improved communities

I can imagine a scenario where these services will not operate in bad neighborhoods.

You don't want to fly drones in a place where people are going to shoot them down or steal them or the food.

So communities will have to improve themselves in order to get this kind of service, and I think that might become apparent as the technology evolves.

Even with the risk of theft or property damage, this service would be much cheaper than the current system.

What do you think?

Does this sound like the future, or am I crazy?

Tell me in the comments below what you think. Would you sooner order fast food from a robot/drone system or from a minimum wage worker?

Let me know :D

Follow me @shayne

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I'm hungry, wish I could order this way now...

Hungry again..got the munchies..

Will these robots/machines have to pay taxes? Seems unfair.

Bill Gates suggested that. He is out of he's mind though.

All taxes are unfair..

Why would you want to compete for tasks a machine could do anyways? Fill your time with something meaningful instead :)

Taxation is theft

Automation will cause a massive disruption in every field. 99% of people probably does not realise the gravity of this threat.

First it will take the simple jobs, transportation, manufacturing etc. Then as time goes on AI and better software will take over a lot of the "brainwork" aswel.

So far we have been living in a world where humans are essential for I/O when working with tech. Now that everything will be digital, we're no longer essential.

Hopefully all this will result great human capital being unlocked, imagine how much time is wasted doing simple menial tasks.

Exciting times.

Correct!

I think you're right.. the status quo that most of us have been used to for years is about to be disrupted. We are in the transitional phase now where AIs are becoming more mainstream and soon will take over more tasks than we all realize. Things will probably get worse for us first before the new reality kicks in!

You are crazy..but that is a good thing ;) I think we will start to see Starship delivery bots first. The drone system hasn't been perfected so it may come later.
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Surely it is a very effective way to consume fasterFast Food and destroy the people's health even faster.

nice job man

I agree.
Makes you wonder about the motives of those who oppose it?

good post

Yep, you are definitely crazy. :-p

And this would definitely be the future if we were to continue on this path.
The path being a mixture of:

  • People wanting fast food
  • crony-capitalism wage slavery
  • Restaurant workers who are so poorly trained (or just stupid) that it is easier, faster, and better to place the order yourself.
  • People in a rush mentality
  • People who still believe that "fast food" is food that provides nutrition to the body.
  • It is better to have mediocre that you know than good/bad that you do not know.

All of these put together would inevitably end up with robots doing everything in a McDs. Humans will be merely for decoration / ornamental purposes, like taking the food from the robot-cook to the customer.

However, I do not believe in the future of this paradigm.
Every single one of my bullet points is under serious attack.
The cracks are already starting to form.

I believe that McDs will do the whole robot thing, just as humanity moves to an Air-lunch-n-conversation model. And McDs will abandoned.

Yes the future will be nothing of what we expect. Things are going to change drastically. Time to set yourself up for this big shift in the world. Thanks for this great read!

hi believe the delivery is the first job to be automatised...

Minimum wage is problematic. Capitalism is all about paying on a declining or ascending scale based on your performance, your sales, and everything. You should get paid for the work you do. I do not want robots to replace me either. If I do better work, I want more money, like maybe $50.00 USD/hour. If I do bad work, like maybe really bad work, then maybe $03.00 USD/hour. You do better, then you get more. If you think it is not fair, quit and find a new job. But don't force the government to make up some dumb law to do something like that.

We already have this around europe, many fast food places only have 1-2 workers in them now, you have to order at the machines and then take your ticket to the counter to receive your order, this was bound to happen, machines cost less and the companies want to profit more

I think it's more than possible this will happen the relatively near future but something that companies will have be think about very carefully indeed.

There are many advantages as you say, consistency, quality, speed cost of production etc etc. However, all this 'stuff' is fine until it goes wrong. Whoever becomes the first will no doubt become a stronger target for malicious activity against them; this no doubt will leads to some interesting discussions about insurance and liability.

In addition to this there will be the reduction in labour as already mentioned. Reduction in labour means reduced taxes and reduced taxes means impacting the economy both locally, nationally and internationally. I imagine this will lead to stealth taxes for those who use these technologies to make up for any form of shortfall.

Hmmmm, I don't really know what to think about this....?

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I like it! Time to disrupt things....plus I'm at home a lot anyway. My boys will need to find another way to make $9/hr. (Guess we don't live in an area where they can make $15 working at fast food. ) :}

Yes. I would order food from robots. I do not care about how I get the food. I do whatever is faster or more fun or more convenient or cheaper or whatever I feel like doing. I love money. I will spend my money however and whenever and wherever I feel like with anybody and from anybody including robots. I do not want to be replaced by robots. So, it is my job to make money. But it is not my job to help you keep your job. Maybe, robots will steal your job. Too bad for you. Good luck with that.

I know of some people that this would really benefit to. @longfield98