along with McD's CEO when there is no longer any customers to buy the shit they sell. No jobs no burgers sold. Or anything else.

European McDonalds also has ordering kiosks where walk in customers use a touch screen to order.

Fast food automation has been making steady progress, more and more aspects of fast food can be automated all the time.

in Florida had ordering kiosks 25 years ago.

But its not the same thing at all...

that perhaps a very charming restaurant would be possible without humans. The lack of the special qualities people add would have to be made up for some other way, though. The cache of knowing before you entered that this was a fine place for enjoyment and dining would help -- i.e., reputation, trendiness, build-up.

My first thought for a Carl's Jr., of course, was yuck!, btw. But, when the loss for some fast-food places would be of indifferent and sullen faces that result from underpaying and undervaluing employees -- would customers really mind?

is that jobs are going away rapidly and that our society better change and lose some of its extreme inequality or we're going to encounter serious problems when we hit the sliightly more vertical part of the curve very soon.. (technological growth rate is exponential...)


exponential as in exponential function

foreseeably for decades, just as we have the enormous global warming disaster. It's a few years now since a friend in computers told me advances in just the past 7 years meant they would literally be starting to do almost everything we are now. Awe at what he was witnessing was his normal state in those days. In any case, both are forcing huge change, even if we are only starting to act long after we should have. We can blame conservatives for resisting change for its own sake and liberals who can meet change bravely for not voting and taking charge.

I really, really don't think that change is gonna be mass poverty or die-off of "extra" people, though, not in representative democracies like ours. With greatly expanded production requiring less human input per product, it will force adoption of new ideas of what it is to be a working person, to have a career or careers, to earn a living. More ease, more time to fill meaningfully.

Global warming and sustainability issues will also force adoption of new ideas of what it is to be a consumer. And both will force changes in thinking on how people should live their typically long lives.

We are spending our entire lives in "interesting times," like the supposed Chinese curse, but I'm optimistic. We really need to change in so many ways, and have so many technology-driven opportunities, that it's hard to imagine that most of the coming era's won't be improvements.

with all our faults and distractions, almost never run into each other while speeding down freeways. That is actually quite rare. We like to live. When we become aware that it's not guaranteed, we pay attention.

And nothing ever just continues to get worse. Change begets change. Big change begets big change. Big problems ultimately beget big solutions. New ways beget new problems, etc. And so it goes.

And the kind of rigid ideology-first people last thinking we see in our 'leadership' today.

at this era as when hard-core conservatives used the explosion of national wealth funneled into their control and new advertising and communication techniques to gain exceptional influence over our national thinking, in the process taking over the GOP.

But they never took over the left the way they did the right, and they haven't taken over the nation and are not going to. Because more people are realizing what they really need to be watching out for. People like the Kochs have been plotting and acting in secret for 40 years, not at all coincidentally at the same time as our creation of a fabulously wealthy uber-class, but we're finally on to them now and we don't like it.

As for extremists, I so agree. This forum has many sobering examples of what extremist thinking is, with its supreme disregard for the individual, and how extremism plays out. The largest danger I see to our nation's continuing its advance to a better, happier, more sustainable society than any we have had so far comes, of course, from extremism in an age of weapons of mass destruction.

And democracies sometimes do vote their own destruction. But chances are very good that the vast ultra-right conspiracy to take over our nation by infiltrating universities, churches, state and local governments, the GOP, and SCOTUS has already imploded.

Scalia dropped dead while meeting secretly with dozens of people whose names are still unknown, a nice piece of luck for us. But that Trump is leading the GOP's march to the bottom, not one of the chosen tools, isn't luck at all -- it's rebellion on the right as a result of many mistakes made by the conspirators.

We still need to take down the uber class, but it's well within our power, even though it will take a while. Our parents did it, after all. Look how Obama rolled back 30 years of tax cuts for the uber-wealthy, even with Congress fighting him all the way. They really hated that, but they couldn't stop him. Just a start, but a start!

A lot of millennials don't want to be waited on by a person. I was floored by a comment on Grub Hub (which I don't use) by a young woman who raved enthusiastically that she could get dinner without ever having to see a person.

I remembered it because it was so shocking to me.

I'm in my 50s and feel the same way.

This is a losing fight. Automating repetitive manual labor is already well underway. There is no reason a person has to flip burgers or take orders for $8 an hour. That's a crap job. It's cheaper and more efficient for the entire economy to automate it.


Of course the other side is providing opportunity to more people to do creative work. But trying to stop automation is like insisting tractors aren't better than mule teams.

I worked at McDonald's as a teen and I liked it. It was a fun job. The problem is that people are now depending on it as a full time job instead of something to do for spending money or saving towards follege or whatever.

But preferring to order food without ever seeing a human is weird.

I will miss speaking to the distorted drive thru kiosk and having someone silently take my money and someone else roughly shove a bag of fossilized factory farmed food out another window. You're lucky if you hear a thanks or have a nice day.

Going to McDonald's is such an enriching experience of human contact now. I'll miss it.

No I won't .... I wouldn't eat there if they paid me.

I like to get up and move around. It sounds as of a lot of people here would prefer automation. Which, sadly, reinforces my point.

And prepare for it by getting a good education, dont leave college and study what you enjoy and think you could literally become the best in the world at. Because that will eventually be what it takes to get a job in it. Sooner than people think as some unknown number of the low level jobs are about to be inshored. (my guess is eventually around 30 million-50 million, that may take a few years.)

"The US has collected around $375 million by way of visa application fees in the past five years. Effectively, higher visa fees have increased the cost of doing business for Indian service providers in the US. Photo: Raj K. Raj/Hindustan Times
The US has collected around $375 million by way of visa application fees in the past five years. Effectively, higher visa fees have increased the cost of doing business for Indian service providers in the US. Photo: Raj K. Raj/Hindustan Times

Geneva: The US has escalated the battle over the short-term service providers with India at the World Trade Organization (WTO) by blocking New Delhi’s proposal for a comprehensive discussion on growing regulatory barriers in the movement of natural persons under Mode 4 of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

Mode 4 deals with the movement of short-term service providers by a WTO member in another member-country on a non-immigration framework.

But access for Mode 4 trade is undermined by regulatory measures such as “increased application fees for entry by certain categories of foreign professionals, increased salary thresholds for foreign professionals, or implementation of visa categories in a manner that renders effective market access meaningless and non-portability of social security benefits”.

On Friday, the US opposed India’s proposal “Mode 4: Assessment of Barriers” on the ground that New Delhi is already pursuing a trade dispute on the same issue against Washington. It also blocked India’s request for a revised assessment by the WTO Secretariat on the continued barriers in the movement of natural persons under Mode 4 since 2009.

At a meeting of WTO’s Council for Trade in Services (CTS), India introduced its seven-page restricted proposal on Mode 4 which called for redressing the regulatory barriers to existing commitments made by members.

Many developing countries strongly supported India’s proposal saying that it is important to address the regulatory and other barriers imposed by industrialized countries in an area of services trade that is most beneficial for their services providers.

Major industrialized countries who secured substantial market access in developing countries for their capital-intensive services such as financial services, telecom services, distribution services and courier services among others have slapped increasingly complex barriers to Mode 4 entry, according to a WTO Secretaraiat background paper of 2009.

Citing the findings of the WTO paper, India said “the degree of Mode 4 access that has been committed in current GATS schedules of WTO Members [commitments] is rather shallow.” Much of the commitments made by members in Mode 4 cover “inter corporate transferees” which is largely confined to executives, mangers and specialists.

India stated several obstacles to Mode 4 trade ranging from the need to set up commercial establishment in the host country, numerical quotas, economic needs tests, eligibility criteria for visas and work permits (the worldwide costs of processing visa/work permit applications represent 0.3% of global GDP, according to a report cited in the WTO study), nationality and residence requirements, and non-portability of social security benefits.

In its proposal circulated on March 15, and reviewed by Mint, India cited the regulatory requirements that impede Mode 4 access in the US, Canada, and the UK. “Measures in the US that have imposed specific barriers include measures imposing increased fees on certain applicants for L-1 and H-1B categories of non-immigration visas,” India maintained.

While the HI-B visa category corresponds to the US’s commitments in GATS schedule with respect to natural persons engaged in “speciality occupations”, the L-1 visa category corresponds to intra-corporate transferees. The US has collected around $375 million by way of application fees in the past five years because of the higher visa fees levied by American authorities. Effectively, the higher visa fees have increased the cost of doing business for Indian service providers in the US.

Further, the Indian non-immigrant service suppliers, who typically stay for a period of three to seven years, are forced to pay approximately $1.6 billion towards the US Social Security System. The cumulative contributions made by the Indian service suppliers in the past six years in the US ranges between $8-12 billion for social security.

However, when such people return to India after performing their services, they do not obtain any benefits in respect of their social security contributions, India lamented. “In nutshell, a service supplier on a non-immigrant visa loses all his social security contributions since there is no mechanism for refund, or of portability of such benefits to the home country,” New Delhi maintained.

India urged WTO members to finalize a multilateral solution at the GATS level for exempting categories of natural persons committed under a WTO Member’s commitments from such payments. WTO members who collected social security funds from the non-immigrant services providers must “allow for refund of any such payments at the end of the stay by any such person in the host Member”, India maintained.

In response to the US’s opposition to start a discussion on Mode 4, India argued that is proposal covers many new issues which are not part of the dispute. India also demanded that the WTO Secretariat update the 2009 paper by informing members about the nature of new obstacles and regulatory impediments.

The US and Canada blocked the Indian move, saying that they remain opposed to any new revised paper on Mode 4.

South Africa expressed dismay over the opposition from the US and Canada to India’s request, saying that one developed country is blocking a revised paper on Mode 4 while it forced the WTO Secretariat circulated to issue a paper on the offers made by WTO members at a signalling conference in 2008.

India’s proposal has come at a time when the political opposition for the Mode 4 trade is increasing rapidly within the US, said a participant familiar with the discussion.

Besides, the US is also concerned about India’s Mode 4 dispute on the ground that it could open a Pandora’s box on the barriers imposed by industrialized nations on the movement of short-term skilled personnel while they force the developing countries to open private banking, telecom, and health service so to ensure their participation."

Many CEOs are a waste of money and time, and often produce questionable results. It's all a numbers game, computers are far smarter, quicker and far less money than a CEO.

CEOs will always be involved with their businesses.

Over 18,000 CEOs base themselves out of one small three story building in the Cayman Islands, with a small parking lot that's almost empty most of the time.

And you could still see the people in the kitchen thru the little serving windows. This post just reminded me of it for some reason. (Ah, their pumpkin pie...)

I know it was popular with my parents.

And if you remember them, it's a great memory to have! There was a two-story Automat a block up from Times Square that was open all night, where you'd encounter a great cross section of humanity.

H&H was great. My mother took me to the one you're talking about several times when I was a kid. They had a chicken pot-pie that was phenomenal. Fully automated food purveyors (really can't call them "restaurants&quot have been on the back-burner for some time.

And if you're going to spread diseases, the machines won't suffer from feelings of guilt.

A win-win for modern capitalism.

My wife remembers lunching there on a trip up to Philly from DC when she was in high school.

So hates people

If he thinks that is a great idea, he must be a Republican.

n/t.

human beings doing the work than machines. I think in the future business that advertise human only work practices will gather a huge following while machine companies will be shunned due to their lack of "humanity".

People wont want to shop at online stores because of the lack of a personal touch.

Seriously. People said that. Now entire segments of the economy are almost completely online.

Over time there will come a holistic movement that will be a serious alternative to tech immersion. We are already seeing online detox programs popping up i n yoga studios where I live. Lots of people are realizing there is more to life than a presence on the web.

I don't shop online, I don't get the appeal. In particular, I don't shop at Amazon. I hate what they did to bookstores. And I saw a photo a few weeks ago of a recycling center in San Francisco that was so overwhelmed with Amazon Prime boxes it would make your ears curl.

for people who lived in rural areas with no access to Department Stores and their Hardware stores were too small to carry much. You could get anything from that Sears Catalog. My grandparents used to order everything from Sears Catalog. At one time way back in my Grandparents time they sold the Craftsman Homes (so popular now) all over America that would ship. I think you had to have a crew to put them up but the materials would ship.

I only buy bread made from hand-sowed and picked grains, and walk 10 miles and back to work each way.

How do we decide which work should get done with more human labor? Do you do your taxes with a pencil and scrap paper or a calculator? Was your car welded by robots? Likely.

Modern society is not possible without the efficiencies of increasing automation.

"Hospitality?"

part time. He asked once why we bought a newspaper, and another time questioned why we wanted to go into the bank lobby and not just use the ATM. I finally said to him, 'because I want to save your job'. He was a cashier at Citibank at the time, and bought all the hype about going paperless and peopleless. Since then I doubt he's matured given the pace of things and the atmosphere.

And, the dinner is filled with Cloned/Plastic tasting food that you could have purchased in the Freezer Aisle of your local Grocery Store (or their new "Take Out Section&quot processed by low wage Immigrants at your local Sysco Food Processing Plant located in "Discreet Locations" throughout the USA.

Problem solved.

Not that I ever eat at a Carl's Junior but I do eat at Hardee's back East when I am there sometimes. However, automate and I never will.

I can't be the only one who immediately thought of that scene.

I guess the robots are going to make those "from scratch" biscuits.

Oh well. They serve heart attack food there anyway.

I hope his restaurants never see another human.

they're "from scratch" now because some minimum wage kid pours them from a plastic jug into a self-timed oven?

Machines will screw up fewer orders, thus waste less food. Machines weld better than humans, which is why your car is more reliable than 20 years ago. They count better. They don't get tired.

It's a hamburger not a work of art. The proceeds that produced it up the moment of service is heavily automated, as is your journey to get a burger if you aren't walking.

In New York, this used to be called the Automat. The first one opened in Times Square in 1912.

Like customers.

Boycott.

regularly and I find the interaction with servers to be very positive.