Jack In The Box CEO: We May Replace Workers With Robots Because Of $15 Minimum Wage Campaign

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Eric Lieberman, Tech and Law Reporter - The Daily Caller


https://i.imgur.com/WyAvzab.jpg

The CEO of the popular fast-food chain Jack in the Box said Tuesday that the rising minimum wage in states, like California and New York, understandably triggers a serious consideration to employ robots instead of human workers.

“As we see the rising costs of labor, it just makes sense,” said Leonard Comma, who is also the chairman, according to Business Insider.

While the upfront cost may be ostensibly steep, it presumably saves lots of money in the long-run, maybe even sooner, since inflated wages and benefits only necessary for humans probably exceeds any potential technical maintenance. A test run also increased the average pay for the human workers that remained and still necessary, says Comma, according to BI.

“With government driving up the cost of labor, it’s driving down the number of jobs,” Andy Puzder, then-CEO of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, told BI in 2016.

Jack in the Box is apparently considering the prospect, but if it does ultimately adopt the technology, it would be one of several restaurants to use advanced kiosks that take orders and payments, and thus often replace the need for real-life employees.

McDonald’s launched a machine last year in a select Boston location that dispensed the fast-food chain’s trademark sandwich, the Big Mac.

Wendy’s has also done the same, announcing in 2016 that it will be offering self-ordering kiosks for franchisees at more than 6,000 restaurants. Wendy’s President Todd Penegor said at the time that certain branches of his restaurant were raising prices to counteract forced wage hikes.

Minimum wage increases are occurring in more than a dozen states, according to Business Insider, indicating — if others agree with Comma, Penegor’s, and McDonald’s apparent thought process — that more kiosks and thus less jobs will ultimately emerge.

[Hal-9000]

Yeah but robots can't spit on your burger like real people!! :x


[-(

[Muddy]

Still have to have humans prepare and hand out the food.. Seems like a waste to me. Initial investments are not cheap, especially when the guy gathering and handing out the food is already there.. (and making $15)

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Still have to have humans prepare and hand out the food.. Seems like a waste to me. Initial investments are not cheap, especially when the guy gathering and handing out the food is already there.. (and making $15)

You force companies to over pay for unskilled work, they will be replaced by robots....plain and simple. Robots aren't late, aren't whiny bitches, dont need breaks or healthcare. Keep pushing this $15 and you will only see less unskilled jobs

[Hal-9000]

Still have to have humans prepare and hand out the food.. Seems like a waste to me. Initial investments are not cheap, especially when the guy gathering and handing out the food is already there.. (and making $15)

You don't think they can automate the cooking process? :-k

With enough cash I believe they could eliminate every human in a fast food place and have just one overseer guy...in case the robots rebel and start killing and shit

[Muddy]

You force companies to over pay for unskilled work, they will be replaced by robots....plain and simple. Robots aren't late, aren't whiny bitches, dont need breaks or healthcare. Keep pushing this $15 and you will only see less unskilled jobs

blah blah blah, broken record.. Once again. They still have humans there doing work, they still are paying the $15.00.. The have not saved anything.


You don't think they can automate the cooking process? :-k

With enough cash I believe they could eliminate every human in a fast food place and have just one overseer guy...in case the robots rebel and start killing and shit

Being in the automation business I would say at this point the ROI is not there.

Annnnd... Do you want to eat a burger shit out by a vending machine? not me, brother.. :lol:

[Hal-9000]

blah blah blah, broken record.. Once again. They still have humans there doing work, they still are paying the $15.00.. The have not saved anything.



Being in the automation business I would say at this point the ROI is not there.

Annnnd... Do you want to eat a burger shit out by a vending machine? not me, brother.. :lol:

What's ROI?

An automated burger may be 100 times safer than a human burger, just because....well humans! :lol:

:-k

[Muddy]

Return on investment

[Hal-9000]

Yes thinking about it I would much rather have a machine cook me my burger than some person who hates their job..or hates customers..or has made 19035287 burgers and just snapped :lol:

[Muddy]

To each their own! :)

[PorkChopSandwiches]

blah blah blah, broken record.. Once again. They still have humans there doing work, they still are paying the $15.00.. The have not saved anything.



Being in the automation business I would say at this point the ROI is not there.

Annnnd... Do you want to eat a burger shit out by a vending machine? not me, brother.. :lol:

Just because some asshole throws a burger on a pre timed grill doesn't make it any better then a machine doing it. But, I guess you know better then these companies about how much money they are saving by automating out jobs. I'm not saying they will have 0 people, but clearly they are being replaced.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Vanessa Bates Ramirez - SingularityHub


https://i.imgur.com/CXjidrU.jpg

Would your burger taste as delicious if it was made by a robot?

You’ll soon be able to find out at CaliBurger restaurants in the US and worldwide.

Cali Group partnered with Miso Robotics to develop Flippy the burger robot, which made its debut this week at the Pasadena, California CaliBurger.

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/206666438" width="720" height="405" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>

Miso and Cali Group aren’t calling Flippy a mere robot, though; it’s a robotic kitchen assistant. And it’s not the first of its kind. San Francisco-based Momentum Machines has also been working on a burger bot for a few years.

Flippy brings some fresh tech to the table (no pun intended). Whereas in the past a typical assembly line robot (say at a car factory) needed everything lined up perfectly in front of them—precisely and consistently positioned—to do their work, robots like Flippy are using the latest round of machine learning software to locate and identify what’s in front of them and learn from experience.

That is, Flippy’s flexibility is a great example of robots becoming more flexible, in general.

Miso’s CEO compared Flippy to a self-driving car because of the way both use feedback loops to reach higher levels of performance.

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/207293141" width="720" height="405" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>

Flippy doesn’t look much like how you may imagine a robot either. Its body is a small cart on wheels, and it has no legs and just one arm. The arm’s six axes give it a wide range of motion and allow it to perform multiple functions (as opposed to simply moving up and down or back and forth).

There’s an assortment of detachable tools the bot can use to help it cook, including tongs, scrapers, and spatulas, and a pneumatic pump lets it swap one tool for another, rather than a human having to change it out.

Combined with its AI software, these tools will allow Flippy to eventually expand its chefdom beyond just burgers—it could learn to make items like chicken or fish.

Some of Flippy’s key tasks include pulling raw patties from a stack and placing them on the grill, tracking each burger’s cook time and temperature, and transferring cooked burgers to a plate.

Flippy can’t single-handedly take a burger from raw to ready, though. Rather than adding extra ingredients itself, the bot alerts human cooks when it’s time to put cheese on a grilling patty. People also need to add sauce and toppings once the patty is cooked, as well as wrap the burgers that are ready to eat. Reportedly, Momentum Machines is working to include some of these additional burger assembly steps into its system.

Sensors on the grill-facing side of the bot take in thermal and 3D data, and multiple cameras help Flippy ‘see’ its surroundings. The bot knows how many burgers it should be cooking at any given time thanks to a system that digitally sends tickets back to the kitchen from the restaurant’s counter.

Two of the bot’s most appealing features for restaurateurs are its compactness and adaptability—it can be installed in front of or next to any standard grill or fryer, which means restaurants can start using Flippy without having to expand or reconfigure their kitchens.

CaliBurger has committed to using Flippy in at least 50 of its restaurants worldwide over the next two years.

What does this mean for the chain’s current line cooks, and for the future of low-skilled jobs in the restaurant industry?

Miso’s CEO acknowledged that his company’s product may put thousands of people out of work, but he also said, “Tasting food and creating recipes will always be the purview of a chef. And restaurants are gathering places where we go to interact with each other. Humans will always play a very critical role in the hospitality side of the business given the social aspects of food. We just don’t know what the new roles will be yet in the industry.”

Cali Group’s chairman envisions Flippy working next to human employees, not replacing them completely. But he also noted that the bot is part of a “broader vision for creating a unified operating system that will control all aspects of a restaurant, from in-store interactive gaming entertainment to automated ordering and cooking processes, ‘intelligent’ food delivery and real-time detection of operating errors and pathogens.”

As more restaurant operations become automated, demand for low-skilled jobs like line cooks will decline, but there may be a jump in demand for high-skilled workers like engineers. Even if the number of total jobs stays more or less stable, though, it will be difficult to bridge the resulting skills gap. One possible solution is for the same companies whose technology is eliminating jobs to invest resources in retraining displaced workers to fill newly created jobs that may require different skills.

Meanwhile, robot-made burgers may bring benefits both to consumers and to the restaurant industry; money saved on wages can be applied to sourcing better-quality ingredients, for example, and having machines take over a kitchen’s most hazardous tasks will improve overall safety and efficiency.

[Muddy]

Just because some asshole throws a burger on a pre timed grill doesn't make it any better then a machine doing it. But, I guess you know better then these companies about how much money they are saving by automating out jobs. I'm not saying they will have 0 people, but clearly they are being replaced.

We sell that fuckin stupid robot Lance just posted.. (well not the burger flipper, thats just a base model outfitted to do that specific task) Theres a TON of ROI to recoup on something like this and the technology is not infallible. And did you know that these robotics aren't set it and forget it? They have service that occurs on a rather frequent basis.. Who do you think does that service?.. Not that cheapo $15 an hour guy.. Then guess what? a specific life span!! Aaannd time to open your fat little wallet again and go through another upgrade/ change out. The guys doing all this make a helluva lot more than $15.00 an hour too.. :mrgreen:

[Teh One Who Knocks]

We sell that fuckin stupid robot Lance just posted.. Theres a TON of ROI to recoup on something like this and the technology is not infallible. And did you know that these robotics aren't set it and forget it? They have service that occurs on a rather frequent basis.. Who do you think does that service?.. Not that cheapo $15 an hour guy.. Then guess what? a specific life span!! Aaannd time to open your fat little wallet again and go through another upgrade/ change out. The guys doing all this make a helluva lot more than $15.00 an hour too.. :mrgreen:

Yes, because there will be absolutely ZERO advancements in the robotics/AI involved in the robots :rolleyes: What do you care about these dumbasses that are going to be replaced? Were you planning on trying to get a $15/hour job flipping burgers this year or something? :lol:

[Muddy]

Yes, because there will be absolutely ZERO advancements in the robotics/AI involved in the robots :rolleyes: :

What does this even mean?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

What does this even mean?

All you keep going on about is ROI blah blah blah blah...do you think that these robots are going to become faster, more efficient, and CHEAPER as they keep being developed? If people kept your way of thinking, cars would still be assembled by hand now.

[Muddy]

What do you care about these dumbasses that are going to be replaced? *ridiculousness insult removed*

As I've stated in the past. Any moneys the employer doesn't pay their employees are moneys that the government will pay out to these individuals in tax cuts, welfares, and subsidies.

If you want to have 25 employees, then pay for 25 employees.. Don't make me do it with my taxes. If you cant afford to pay your employees then you should maybe rethink your business plan. They are called government subsidies. The government is subsidizing the lack of compensation these places are shirking their employees out of.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

As I've stated in the past. Any moneys the employer doesn't pay their employees are moneys that the government will pay out to these individuals in tax cuts, welfares, and subsidies.

*source needed

[Muddy]

If people kept your way of thinking, cars would still be assembled by hand now.

Maybe this is why pickup trucks are 40-50 thousand dollars now!!! :lol:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

We sell that fuckin stupid robot Lance just posted.. (well not the burger flipper, thats just a base model outfitted to do that specific task) Theres a TON of ROI to recoup on something like this and the technology is not infallible. And did you know that these robotics aren't set it and forget it? They have service that occurs on a rather frequent basis.. Who do you think does that service?.. Not that cheapo $15 an hour guy.. Then guess what? a specific life span!! Aaannd time to open your fat little wallet again and go through another upgrade/ change out. The guys doing all this make a helluva lot more than $15.00 an hour too.. :mrgreen:

Yeah, but that's the same as robots in an auto factory. CLearly it works and is cost saving even with the repairs and upgrades, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Just like in the other thread they are dropping waitresses and replacing them with 1 or 2 servers and having you order at the table on an ipad and 2 people handle what used to be 6-8. So you just lost 4-6 jobs to give 2 people $15 an hour.

[Muddy]

*source needed

You know damn well if a persons income is low they qualify for financial assistance.. Whether that be reduced taxes, food stamps, ebt cards, and medicare...

Who pays for that?

[Muddy]

Yeah, but that's the same as robots in an auto factory. CLearly it works and is cost saving even with the repairs and upgrades, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Just like in the other thread they are dropping waitresses and replacing them with 1 or 2 servers and having you order at the table on an ipad and 2 people handle what used to be 6-8. So you just lost 4-6 jobs to give 2 people $15 an hour.

You tell me when you put taps on your walls and fire your wait staff big fella.. :lol:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

You tell me when you put taps on your walls and fire your wait staff big fella.. :lol:

Ill tell you right now, we wouldn't be in business through last year if we had to pay $15 at the brewery for some girl to pull a beer out of a tap.

[Muddy]

Ill tell you right now, we wouldn't be in business through last year if we had to pay $15 at the brewery for some girl to pull a beer out of a tap.

An extra $50 a day would put you out of business?

[Muddy]

For real guys.. Every ones prices are rising.. Except the bottom, their pay is not rising... Everything you pay out has doubled.. Someones collecting this money... They are not trickling any of it back down.. Even the last 10 years cost of living has doubled.. Everything is rising except the pay.. It is not right...

[PorkChopSandwiches]

When an employee gets paid, the hourly isn't the only cost to a business. There is unemployment, taxes and things that increase as wages increase. My point is the margins are thin as it is, I mean I can increase the cost of a pint from $5-6 to $7-8 but I would imagine I would lose business

[Muddy]

When an employee gets paid, the hourly isn't the only cost to a business. There is unemployment, taxes and things that increase as wages increase. My point is the margins are thin as it is, I mean I can increase the cost of a pint from $5-6 to $7-8 but I would imagine I would lose business

I get it in your case, on your scale, at your startup level.. But these fuckin mega corps that raise their prices yearly and are not in a business deficit I don't get it.

[deebakes]

where's my beer porky? :?

[PorkChopSandwiches]

At the brewery, when you stopping by?

https://i.imgur.com/7WAqly4.jpg

[Hal-9000]

I get it in your case, on your scale, at your startup level.. But these fuckin mega corps that raise their prices yearly and are not in a business deficit I don't get it.

Yes the price of established goods and services never go down. As soon as automation becomes cost effective, I believe we'll see a lot of industries attempt some forms of piece-meal replacement.

Those ol robots at the GM plant that put in a door screw are too attractive not to have other industries start eliminating human roles where they can. I think the fast food world is just the start of a larger change over.

[Muddy]

I think the fast food world is just the start of a larger change over.

I cant see this as good for humans with the sheer numbers of population we need to employ and feed. The only people I see benefiting are the 1%.. They are going to increase and horde profits while the people starve in the streets.

[Hal-9000]

I cant see this as good for humans with the sheer numbers of population we need to employ and feed. The only people I see benefiting are the 1%.. They are going to increase and horde profits while the people starve in the streets.

Yeah I may be simplifying but it's a simple equation. Will the robot's cost outweigh human drawbacks like productivity levels, missing time, mistakes?

[Muddy]

Yeah I may be simplifying but it's a simple equation. Will the robot's cost outweigh human drawbacks like productivity levels, missing time, mistakes, world hunger?

Added one.. :lol:

[Hal-9000]

:lol:

I'm tellin ya man....I keep banging the drum about my fear of AI. There will be a moment when technology leaps (think of PC processors in the last decade) and mankind will figure a way to integrate machines into more aspects of our lives than we can imagine.

[Muddy]

:lol:

I'm tellin ya man....I keep banging the drum about my fear of AI. There will be a moment when technology leaps (think of PC processors in the last decade) and mankind will figure a way to integrate machines into more aspects of our lives than we can imagine.

Black mirror

[Teh One Who Knocks]

I cant see this as good for humans with the sheer numbers of population we need to employ and feed. The only people I see benefiting are the 1%.. They are going to increase and horde profits while the people starve in the streets.

Settle down there Barack....

[Muddy]

Settle down there Barack....

Go eat your mechanical hamburger.. :hand:

[deebakes]

At the brewery, when you stopping by?



i'll be in san diego towards the end of april, is that going to be close? :?

[Godfather]

I'll wade into this thread, admittedly too late. I really do wonder if minimum wage has much to do with this... how much do these machines cost? $25,000? $50,000? Does it matter? Compared to the 1-2 the employee it replaces, I'm not sure that with this technology now being where it is that even $5 as the minimum wage would 'protected' front line unskilled CSR jobs for much longer. It just makes fiscal sense to install them, and for public companies not much else matters.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

i'll be in san diego towards the end of april, is that going to be close? :?

Yeah probably under an hour drive

[deebakes]

:woot: i'll let you know :tup:

[The Monk]

Seems that they are putting their tax cut to good use... :?:

[DemonGeminiX]

They were planning to do this before any tax cut was ever announced. It's a response to states raising minimum wage to $15/hr.

[The Monk]

They were planning to do this before any tax cut was ever announced. It's a response to states raising minimum wage to $15/hr.


Maybe they could use their tax cuts to keep people employed...



Australia = $694.90 pw or $18.29 /hour - minimum wage.

One todays exchange that is USD $549.42 or $14.46 /hour.....


On figures we look better until an exchange rate comes into play and then it's a bummer....

[DemonGeminiX]

How much do you get to keep? Isn't your tax rate like 50%?

[DemonGeminiX]

Oh and by the way, whatever companies do with their tax cuts is up to them. Our government doesn't force companies to do right by their employees. Free choice is ideal. So this isn't our tax system or our government's fault, it's the company being shitheads as a response to the states governments being shitheads.

[Godfather]

It is the companies being shitheads. What do we do about that though, if on one hand we want a free market, and on the other want socially responsible companies?

Free choice/democracy/capitalism is the best system we know. It's worked great for my family, my dad's parents were born in tents and now all their kids are doing great.

The problem vaguely put, is that we seem to have entered some sort of late-stage capitalism where the hill to climb seems steeper than ever. Seattle has the highest number of billionaires & millionaires, but also the highest number of people who died without shelter in 2017. What is that? CEO salaries are up over 900% on average (http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/)since the 70's while their employee's have only seen roughly 10%.

I know there's a counterargument, it's not the libertarian style of thinking, but when the free market means employees at Walmart are on welfare and costing the government billions, while the Walton Family is probably worth $150 billion, perhaps some sort of intervention is needed.

I don't think the answer is minimum wage, robots are going to take those jobs soon anyways. I don't have a solution I'm just pointing out an obvious problem :lol:

[Hikari Kisugi]

I think in the US the answer is minimum wage.
15 dollars an hour seems excessive, but a proper living wage would be a good idea.
Disband your tipping culture, where money is throw hand over fist in an expected manner for people doing what would otherwise in any other nation be their actual job.

Why should a business not charge the actual value of its product, rather than charge a lower amount and expect you to tip the staff to make up the difference.
The old notion that it 'promotes good service' is a load of bollocks, you don't have the best service in the world, you have adequate and similar service to everywhere else, as you employ humans, like everywhere else, some are good some are shit.

Fix wages, charge appropriate amounts, get rid of tipping.

-edit
as for the OP
The low wage low skill jobs that people won't do and can be replaced by automated process, do so.
Why are you employing a person in the first place if an automated process can do it for a cheaper amount of money?
That what this CEO is suggesting, so why is that not their business model already?
They don't employ staff out of the goodness of their hearts.

[SpurNine]

I Like the idea of an automatic burger cooker. I am going to get to work designing one to sell to fast food restraints.

[DemonGeminiX]

The problem is that the people screaming for $15/hour as minimum wage at burger flipping jobs... they're flat out wrong. Those jobs were never meant to be permanent. They're never supposed to pay a living wage. They were supposed to be a beginning stepping stone to something better. They were supposed to give a worker initial experience and then that worker moves on to something better. I don't know when people started looking at these jobs as something that they should base their life off of, but they're wrong about it.

[Muddy]

The problem is that the people screaming for $15/hour as minimum wage at burger flipping jobs... they're flat out wrong. Those jobs were never meant to be permanent. They're never supposed to pay a living wage. They were supposed to be a beginning stepping stone to something better. They were supposed to give a worker initial experience and then that worker moves on to something better. I don't know when people started looking at these jobs as something that they should base their life off of, but they're wrong about it.

They have not kept in step with inflation though.. The price of the burgers they sell go's up, but what they company pays out doesn't...

[PorkChopSandwiches]

The problem is that the people screaming for $15/hour as minimum wage at burger flipping jobs... they're flat out wrong. Those jobs were never meant to be permanent. They're never supposed to pay a living wage. They were supposed to be a beginning stepping stone to something better. They were supposed to give a worker initial experience and then that worker moves on to something better. I don't know when people started looking at these jobs as something that they should base their life off of, but they're wrong about it.

exactly