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




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!!

[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?

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?

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..

[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..

What's ROI?

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

[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

[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..

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




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.



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.



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..

[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..

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

[Muddy]

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

What does this even mean?