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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @06:12PM
Ah but why would you have to buy raw materials if you could get the finished goods aka food you want delivered to you, or if you could go to a restaurant. I know many restaurants are expensive but think about why walmart is cheaper and restaurants aren't. What if walmart went a step further and cooked the produce? They can charge more but they might still be more efficient than their customers at doing the job.
It's not like many people are that good at shopping for groceries, cooking, keeping track of groceries, leftovers, etc. If you don't have a kitchen and don't need a big enough fridge to store the larger amount of groceries, you can save a fair bit of rental in some cities.
You may be able to cook better than some random burger flipper, but in the future a robot might be able to cook better than you.
That said, there might eventually be "3D printer" equivalents for producing cooked food. Might not involve meat.
Of course this makes civilization a lot more specialized, interdependent and very fragile... But it's already so fragile and interdependent anyway ;).