$15.00 Dollars for flipping burgers? Nope.

Add in kiosks for ordering and in a few years a human employee will be the exception at the fast food joint.

Hooray! FUCK THE SYSTEM!

I mean, who's gonna pay for the produced goods when 80 percent are out of work but YAY! BIG MONEY ÜBER ALLES!

People are still going to have jobs. Those jobs are just going to change.

And universal income.

This is reality even if people weren't demanding $15 an hour for flipping burgers.

I even tell people at my job who think our jobs are safe because we work in a jail that we could easily be replaced by robots one day. A robot properly programmed could keep an eye on inmates better than any human officer could. The humans would be called in only when there is a problem. That means less officers needed.

Hell if we got robots like we saw in I, Robot or even Star Wars we could have the robots practically do everything. Even the inmate trustees jobs would be in jeopardy!

That's why with all Trump's talk of keeping manufacturing jobs here, I'm investing in Epson.

That's the question. I think the robotic revolution that's rolling hits exactly the kind of people who just can't do anything else. While the change from, say, farmer to menial factory worker was rather horizontal, burger flipper to app programmer is not. Those aren't career choices. You work at McDonald's because you can't do/get anything else.

I'm also getting those eeeevil 15 dollars for flipping burgers. Why the fuckity fuck shouldn't they demand it? That's actually a good thing. They want their share of the billions and billions corporations are raking in. Also, wages paid usually go back into the system. Corporate megaprofits, not so much. Money spent or money rotting away in tax shelters? What do you think is better for the economy?

I'm firmly against universal income though we probably won't have another choice in the long term. Right now, UI means an inflation spiral which makes the late 20s look like child's play. In 20 or 30 years when every menial job is taken by a robot? Well what else we're gonna do. Wait for machines to make money useless maybe.

Robots/AI are going to affect more than the kind of people who can't do anything else.

AI programs are starting to be used in law firms to go through contracts and look up old cases.

AI is being developed now in the medical fields to help doctors but eventually it will get so good it might replace doctors in certain areas. There are robots out there right now doing surgery on testing animals.

Pilots? Don't need them.

Ship crews? Don't need them.

Sure all this stuff is decades away as everything is in its infancy right now but we can see it on the horizon.

No ones job is going to be left untouched by AI/Robots.

Flipping burgers is not worth $15.00 an hour.

If it is than I'm worth a lot more than I'm making. You are worth more than you're making. Everyone is worth more.

At what point do you stop? Are you going to tell people in retail that they aren't worth $15 an hour? So you've got to raise their pay as well.

Flipping burgers is an entry level job. It was never meant to support a person or a family.

And it's far more complicated than corporations raking in billions of dollars. Most of these fast food places are franchises owned by a small corporation. They aren't raking in billions.

McDonald's makes it's money from the supplies it sells to the franchisees and the fees to use the McDonald's name.

Inflation spiral?

That's what you'd get if you started raising wages to $15.00 an hour and than others start demanding more.

Just because automatic systems CAN replace workers does not mean they WILL replace workers.

Case in point, something I'm familiar with due to my dad's primary business raising poultry.

Catching chickens. For decades the primary means of emptying out a poultry barn of 16,000 chickens or 14,000 turkeys has been a crew of about a dozen Mexican or African American workers who grab the chickens and pack them into coops for transport.

The technology has existed (relatively low cost technology) to replace 75% of the manpower used for this. But most major poultry processors haven't bothered.

Well, the government doesn't create jobs.

And robots become a lot more economical when min wages force an owner to pay more than a person's hour of labor is worth.

Sweeping up shit will never be worth 15 an a hour in our current economy, and teens are already crowded out of jobs in the high min wage markets (never mind places like france where over 40% of youth can't find jobs).

Soon the only sweeping will be done by overpaid gubmint jobs and community service punishees.

This isn't something that's "decades away." Self-driving vehicles are almost here now, and once they are you can expect transport sector jobs to basically evaporate in a very short time. No more truck drivers, train operators, pilots, or ship helmsmen (tho I expect that to be one of the last to be converted, just because of the complexity of operating an ocean-going vessel). Kaboom, just like that. Expert systems are also very close to replacing things like paralegals, receptionists, office managers, and many similar service jobs. It's going to get ugly.

May be about time to get that unabomber shack in Idaho put together and just ride out the chaos.

Automation does make operations more capital intensive so companies usually don't want to do it as long as labor costs are low. That said, the higher labor costs become the more attractive automation becomes. It should also be pointed out that small businesses typically don't start out with huge capital reserves so the more capital intensive you make a business the fewer small businesses will be able to successfully start up. Family owned restaurants really do get squeezed hard by higher labor costs not least because if you raise wages by $1 then other employment related expenses typically go up by a matching amount or more.

So a $1 increase to the minimum wage normally results in a $2.00-$2.50 increase in cost for the employer. Do that to much in a low margin business and they go under. Callahan's was a brew pub and restaurant located in Mira Mesa (a neighborhood in San Diego) for 35 years and most of the employees had veen there for at least 20 years but they had to close their doors last week for good. The reason? Four minimum wage hikes in five years with two more already on the books to take effect soon. I am sure rent increases also didn't help but it just became to much for the owner and now a lot of people are out of jobs they had for decades. The two main bar tenders (who are a married couple) said they are moving to North Carolina and plan on opening their own brew pub there due to lower costs.

Ironically, large corporations are the best able to deal with increased capital intensity requirements so the folks pushing higher minimum wages are usually the ones who want local small businesses instead of chains but their policies will result in more chains and fewer mom and pops.

Yeah! Those goddamn motorized carriages. I'm waiting to get my job back as a horse and buggy driver.

Or you could look for employment in a position that is very unlikely to be replaced by automation for various reasons.

Teaching for example. Sure there are probably computer programs and distant learning systems that can (and sometimes do) a fair job of education.

But no one seriously suggests replacing people with robots in the education system.

A student can't cry on the shoulder of a computer program if they're upset about being bullied or being pressured into having sex. A computer program won't teach an undersized student how to defend themselves. A computer program can't settle down an over bearing parent and tell them their expectations are not realistic

A robot won't inspire a team trailing by four touchdowns with a rallying halftime speach.

likewise I don't see much more in the way of automation for various medical fields. Especially nursing and regular day to day care.

Or law enforcement. Anyone seriously expect that regular cops are going to be replaced by drones?

It's not so much that as it devalues every other job that, up until now, has been above minimum wage. Even for the ones that are above $15/hour would be devalued because now they would be that much less above minimum wage than they were. In my state that would be a high-skill job, and with this much of a raise in minimum raise, it's placed on the same level as an entry-level, no skill, no prior experience job.

When I say decades I mean 20-30 years.

It's not going to happen any faster than that because you still need to get the systems working properly. We are in the infancy of this new age.

I've got to read the unabombers manifesto. I've read that if you strip out his mental illness that a lot of his manifesto makes sense and was a predictor of the future in terms of technology.

When else would one create jobs?

"I feel like wasting a whole bunch of money, so I think I'll create some non-profitable jobs today" said no one ever. Well, maybe someone in the government...

And yet that is a positive result from going into business. It's almost like there's some kind of, I dunno, invisible hand...

All things being equal (a loaded point, I know), who's fault is that?

The state's job is to create a climate whereby everyone receives a fair shot at education and skill development. (Again, I appreciate that most countries fail miserably in that regard as well.)

But at some point you have to take responsibility for your destiny. No one else will.

The space opera I'm reading (blush) visits Earth in the 22nd or 23rd century and the Martian marine sergeant is surprised to see young college age kids working in a coffee bar. The barista explains, "Yeah, we have to get 3 years' work-credit to qualify for college. They don't want people going to school that don't have any desire to, you know, work. Those that don't get by on 'basic.' But if you want money not just 'basic' you have to go to college and get a real job."

Sounds intriguing. What's the name of it if you don't mind me asking. ?

The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey. Book 2 Caliban's War. I see it's also been made into a syfy series (season 1 on Amazon prime). I'll have to pop down to media central to see if we like it. More space battles, gunfights, and good old fashioned monster wrestling than you can shake a stick at.

edit: It didn't meet with universal approval from WF fans. link

Uhh those robots definitely cost more than just $15 per hour. Like millions of dollars just for R&D plus maintenance costs that will easily equal or exceed wages that an employee might earn. Early adopters will definitely be paying more than $15 per hour for these things, but certainly they will be come less expensive with time.

Economy of scale will bring that cost down quick fast and in a hurry, just like it did for the robots working assembly lines in car factories.

One of the indicators of a forthcoming disruptive technology: experts agree the technology would revolutionize an industry, but is too expensive at present.

Technology gets cheap fast.

You know they have robots who can put those shacks together, right?

Except for Tasvir. He's untouchable

Once the robots can flip burgers it will be a small leap to have them hunt and kill homeless people. Then the rich will amass large armies of robots and have wars with themselves. Then one day the robots will kill the rich off and then eventually have wars against each other until one day the robots battery packs corrode away and the animals will regain the world.

exactly how Nostradamus described it!

A word to the wise: Don't demean, diminish, disrespect, or disregard the employee who handles your food.

Unless it's a robot. Fuck that thing