this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 147 points 1 month ago (2 children)

More propaganda to make people hate increasing minimum wage.

Even if minimum wage never increased, they'd still try and put these robots in. These two things are unrelated!

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I can confirm this. I've got family in the restaurant industry and we've been keeping an eye on advances in restaurant related robotry for ages. We knew this was coming looong ago. Like, a decade ago. It just wasn't quite there yet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Robotry isn't a word, but I think if it were it would be a way to refer to people who hated robots. Kind of like ribbitry is for people who hate frogs.

Edit: oed and mw must have a cage match to decide this one.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)

McDonald's invested in robotics every year they didn't increase minimum wage. Clearly they must not know shit about maintaining businesses. Automatic soda machines, burger cookers, bun warmers...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

30+ years ago McDonald's put in the automated fry hopper machines. This has nothing to do with minimum wage.

I'm also in favor of automating fast food, the fewer people handling my food the better. Let them hire maintenance workers instead of cooks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

You say that as if machines don't get dirty and still require a good amount of hygiene/cleaning to keep up

Don't get me wrong though because I am also in favor of automation only because I believe it will make some parts of work more bearable, minus the job displacement problem caused by our current economic model...

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Taco Bell tried to do this in the 90s.

This article is light on the details of the failures, but basically the little bits of lettuce, tomato and cheese would slip out of the various holders and get smashed into the moving pieces and jam everything up while starting to rot. It was broken more often than not, and even when it wasn't it was a pain in the ass to keep sanitary. Far more trouble than it was ever worth.

Building these machines and operating them won't be the hard part. Keeping them working will be more expensive than paying people to make food for a halfway decent wage. The necessary logistics system just to supply replacement parts for the machines will probably break the bank, and never mind all the technicians they'll need to make repairs.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Something something McDonalds milkshake machines.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

The difference os that yhe milkshake machines are an actual gift because Taylor gets paid to repair the things. Some exec at McDonald's is getting massive kickbacks to force everyone to use shitty machines that need to be professionally maintained.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Automation has evolved a huge amount since the 90s, probably more than the mobile.phone has. This sort of device has been common in food factories for quite a while now and is inevitably moving into first high-volume then after refinement canteen kitchens before slowly making its way into the home.

It's a great thing if it does, the food industry is hugely wasteful especially when trying to lower overheads which also lowers quality and healthiness of diets. Multistage processing allows near to raw ingredients to be sourced locally and used as needed thus avoiding the need for chemical preservatives, pre-proceasing and all the transport logistics, added risk, and etc. Cheap food places could go back to the days of getting fresh produce delivered rather than bags of presliced and shaped meal components from a factory - that'd be huge amounts of plastic and oil use removed from our global consumption.

Of course this installed device is probably just fairly basic pick and place using preshaped meal components but it's a step in the evolution of small-scale industrial kitchens which will eventually benefit us all.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Automation has evolved a huge amount since the 90s

This is true, and we have smaller, lighter and more accurate motors, and fancy tools like machine vision with object identification, and substantially better electronics.

I don't think it matters. Nothing has changed in food ingredients - they're squishy, slippery, soft and irregular. If you put just a little too much pressure on a cooked grain of rice it will turn into a two-inch-long smear of starch that other things will stick to, and then you've got a little pile of gunk inside your machine. The more complex these machines are the more impossible it will be to keep them clean on the inside.

I remember when this burger making robot was getting a lot of attention (apparently they were "the definition of disruption"). Their restaurant location in Daly City (Creator Burger) closed during the pandemic but then reopened with a simpler version:

Gone from this version of Creator’s robot, however, are the automated toppings like lettuce, tomato and cheese, which humans will now apply to the burger themselves.

Give you one guess why.

The company is now dead, their domain is abandoned and the restaurant location is permanently closed, although apparently they managed to sell one to a Sam's Club in Arkansas last year. Wonder how that's going for them now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

It might be a great thing if it wasn't displacing so many workers.

Unless and until some sort of UBI system exists, I cannot applaud businesses increasingly putting people out of work, especially while continually increasing their profits.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I quit going after their CFO was bitching about quiet quitting keeping him up at night.

QDoba is better anyways, they're just not in nearly as many locations (around me anyways).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Pancheros is my favorite. They press tortillas fresh when you order and I love it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Nice! I'll keep an eye out for one!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

QDoba is better anyways, they're just not in nearly as many locations

Only seen them in shopping mall food courts.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

interesting! I've never seen one in a mall in my area, just stand alone (same with Chipotle actually)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I wish I liked QDoba, Chipotle is still better to me even after all their changes which I am not crazy about either. Luckily we have a local chain that beats the pants off them both called Illegal Pete’s

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I thought Qdoba went out of business ages ago.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Nope are you getting it confused with quiznos?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Maybe they're just not common in the places I frequent. Can't remember the last time I've seen one, but that doesn't mean they're not around somewhere.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I saw a Quiznos yesterday. I too thought it had gone out of business

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

How many decades before the purchase, installation and testing costs of these robots are recouped vs. that $20/hour wage?

Because I'm thinking it may not be all that cost-effective to just say "fuck you" to a minimum wage.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I honestly think it's more the principle of the matter... they'd rather invest in robots to do this than consider paying those they view beneath them anything remotely resembling a living wage.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Is there any chipotle that exists where a better-tasting taco truck isn’t within walking distance?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

I was promised taco trucks on every street corner if Biden won. Of all the Trump lies, this one is by far the most disappointing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

All of Ohio

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

We have bodegas and trucks, for a very reasonable price, although the trucks cost less, I suppose because of less overhead. If anyone's never had homemade tortillas, I recommend them. In the bodegas, they usually have a machine, similar to the wringer on the antique wringer washers so they're thin and more uniform, but hand made masa tortillas are divine, especially topped with avocado and queso fresco.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's less a function of not having decent Mexican food and more a function of both food trucks and the concept of "walking distance" not really being things in most of the metro area.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I guess we could send in the national guard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Near me there is a chipotle, a taco bell, and a nice taco truck that is open late, all within just a couple blocks of each other.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Push it more and more towards universal basic income, with Chipotle's help.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Chipotle has fallen off a cliff. It was decent 10 years ago, now it's trash. They treat their workers like shit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Mmm mmm... Don't you love the taste of supply chain optimization?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Chipotle is dead to me. Suprema Market in Atascadero is easily the best burrito I can get my hands on.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Have you tried an al pastor burrito from Los Robles Cafe in Paso? Thanks for the rec of Suprema Market

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

No, but I will today

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

That's okay, I already don't eat there.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Companies should be outright banned from dodging ways to pay wages like this

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No, they should be required to pay taxes equivelant to what they subtracted when they removed a tax-paying worker. All of those taxes should go towards UBI.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I think we really need some kind of automation tax, whether or not it’s specifically this take. But between robotics and AI, the only sustainable solution is taxing these kinds of things to fund UBI or some similar payments scheme for the displaced workers. Otherwise, we’ll end up with a few wealthy capitalists and mass unemployment. So it sure sounds to me like they need to choose between the tax option, and a significantly more dangerous option.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Chill. You can't force businesses to hire people any more than you can force someone to work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Don’t worry, the robots will be subscription by year’s end.