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from the who-is-going-to-ask-if-I-want-fries? dept.
72 years after [Clarence Saunders] attempted to patent his idea, advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are making the dream of a worker-free store a reality. And American cashiers may soon be checking out.
A recent analysis by Cornerstone Capital Group suggests that 7.5m retail jobs – the most common type of job in the country – are at "high risk of computerization", with the 3.5m cashiers likely to be particularly hard hit.
Another report, by McKinsey, suggests that a new generation of high-tech grocery stores that automatically charge customers for the goods they take – no check-out required – and use robots for inventory and stocking could reduce the number of labor hours needed by nearly two-thirds. It all translates into millions of Americans' jobs under threat.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:41PM (18 children)
We just have to retrain those 7.5m workers, at their expense, as automated checkout repair technicians. Then they can earn a decent living wage instead of whining about a government $15 minimum wage. What's that you say? We don't need 7.5m robocashier techs? Well I guess they can go find other jobs in... What? All the jobs were outsourced or replaced by robots? Shit. Let them starve to death I suppose.
(Score: 3, Informative) by EvilSS on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:49PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:44PM
Should have voted for Ross Perot
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:56PM (1 child)
Those who don't understand the above are probably horses ;).
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:59PM
Surplus horses --> reduced price of glue.
Surplus cashiers --> reduced price of soylent ??
(Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:53PM (10 children)
They could be truck drivers.
Oh wait...
Seriously though, something will need to change. Maybe a 20 hour work week? We will need to somehow figure out a way for society to gain value from automation instead of just the business owner. Perhaps robots need to be 'paid' some amount. That money would then go to welfare programs (universal basic income).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:59PM (2 children)
Don't pay robots. Tax them.
Taxes will be complicated. So Robots will seek help of professional bean countants.
That tax revenue would then to go welfare programs for wealthy children unable to find people who will voluntarily date them.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:03PM
Taxes will be complicated.
You know who excels at solving complicated problems which involve numbers? Computers.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bobs on Thursday August 17 2017, @07:44PM
FYI: Taxing robots will be problematic.
The definition of "robot" is flexible.
Is it one robot per job? No, it works multiple shifts. So 3 jobs for a robot cashier.
But what if 1 robot has 2 sensors, and so covers 2 checkout lines? Or if '1 robot' handles 30 checkout lines?
Or if you have an entire Amazon warehouse with 300 people that is replaced by '1 robot' that happens to have many manipulators?
I don't think it will work to have a "flat tax" per robot - you will probably have to get to a tax on the percentage of the value.
And how do you draw the line between "robot" and computer so you tax one but not the other?
Seems like the lines get fuzzy fast, particularly when you have people paid to look for loopholes and ways around paying the taxes.
It is going to be tricky, and a moving target to get it to be effective and to stay effective over time.
How would you do it?
(Score: 4, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:39PM (2 children)
I can also see other major issues appearing:
anti-immigration (they took his jerb!)
Luddites (robots took his jerb!)
"class warfare" (they have a jerb and he don't!)
The old horse buggy/whip/horseshoe maker analogy doesn't apply anymore as they had a near 1:1 replacements. buggy driver-> truck driver, buggy maker -> truck body builder, whip maker -> upholstery maker (this might be a stretch), blacksmith -> truck mechanic. Now we have: job X -> robot. You can't turn a cashier into a robot mechanic because they don't need a 1:1 technician to robot replacement. They are screwed.
Those unemployable people will quickly turn on anything or anyone who they perceive as the reason for their poverty. Immigrants will fill an already saturated job market increasing competition. People with jobs will be resented by the jobless. Engineers who work with automation technologies might even become targets of violence from neo-luddites (unabombers).
A plan has to be worked on now as we are on the cusp of widespread automation and job elimination within the next two decades.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Snow on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:14PM (1 child)
It a good thing we have Trump at the helm. He'll make some great deal to fix this mess.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:19PM
The best deal.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:38PM (3 children)
Don't be crazy. I'm not going to work 20 hour weeks just because society has fucked itself up. At the very least, I can get two or three 20 hour per week jobs (though obviously, I'd rather just have one). The problem here is that society needs to get out of the way of employing people rather than taxing robots or mandating 20 hour work weeks that no one will obey in order to make a decent living.
In my view, taxes on robots is already a second order failure mode to a first order failure mode of interfering enough with employment that there's a huge incentive for most employers to automate or export jobs as much as possible.
I think first, we should try not to make the problem worse with terrible labor regulation. Then past that, realize that a bunch of unemployed workers is useless while more employers is extremely valuable and figure out how to get more of the latter.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:02PM (2 children)
Sure, Hallow, the problem with the economy is *too much regulation protecting workers.* Not fractional-reserve banking or shady loans programs or skeezy multinational corporate contracts or money laundering. Nope, it's those fucking OSHA laws that are causing problems.
Ye gods. Do you even HAVE a job?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 18 2017, @05:12AM (1 child)
Economies can have more than one problem. None of the items you listed can explain, for example, the slowness of job growth in the aftermath of the 2008 recession as compared to past recessions. Excessive burdens on job creators can explain that tardiness.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @04:23PM
"Job creators," wow. You parrot the Narrative like you wrote it. Creating jobs? Where, China? Viet Nam? The Philippines? Robot factories? Ye gods.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:06PM
What we really need are consumer robots. I imagine an iphone buying itself a new skin using ether it mined, but I am just a stupid meatball.
A per humans, who cares? Perhaps one can enjoy a new gladiator exercise say the US vs. Russia nuclear war.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday August 18 2017, @03:14AM (1 child)
We've had automated (no human operator) checkouts here (not the US) for... I dunno, between ten and twenty years. It hasn't led to mass unemployment, hardships, food riots, and an armageddon-type war or whatever it is the OP is predicting. You just end up with a reassignment of jobs, or people shifting to new jobs that didn't exist before. Whatever the case, the overall effect seems to be zero.
Makes for good headlines I guess...
(Score: 1) by Sabriel on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:32AM
"(not the US)" "between ten and twenty years" "new jobs that didn't exist"
It's not actually one straw that breaks the camel's back, it's the adding of it to the rest...