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Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
The kitchen assistant, known as 'Flippy', was designed by a startup called Miso Robotics which specializes in "technology that assists and empowers chefs to make food consistently and perfectly, at prices everyone can afford."
[...] Flippy uses feedback-loops that reinforce its good behavior so it gets better with each flip of the burger. Unlike an assembly line robot that needs to have everything positioned in an exact ordered pattern, Flippy's machine learning algorithms allow it to pick uncooked burgers from a stack or flip those already on the grill. Hardware like cameras helps Flippy see and navigate its surroundings while sensors inform the robot when a burger is ready or still raw. Meanwhile, an integrated system that sends orders from the counter back to the kitchen informs Flippy just how many raw burgers it should be prepping.
Source: http://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/burger-robot-flipping-meat-0432432/
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:46PM (5 children)
Maybe it's a natural consequence of the poor quality of employees.
Back in the late 1970's when I was in high school, I swept the floor, collected and burned trash, cleaned restrooms, reloaded pop machine, etc at a factory that made dual chamber smoke detectors -- before these things became consumer items. I did a good job and took pride in my work.
In about 1980-ish in college, there were a couple of summers when I worked at one of those interstate novelty shop, restaurant, filling station highway robbery places. When I left, I had become friends, and a favorite of the owners and they expressed their disappointment at whoever would ultimately replace me.
I've written code for decades now, and still take pride in my work, as I did when I was the low man on the totem pole.
Since the early 1990's, it seems to me like minimum wage workers have no interest in the business they are employed by, or the job they do. They just want to get paid. Or maybe I've just had a poor sampling.
My point: I'm not a bit surprised McDonalds would want to replace the low paying, low quality jobs with robots. Whether it's good or bad, whether I like it or not; irrelevant, but it doesn't surprise me why they would look forward to automation.
Raise your hand if you've had customer service people who looked at you like something they would scrape off their shoe, and had no particular interest in serving you.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @06:09PM
I think the low quality of service is more tied to the shitty wages. Crappy jobs are OK when you're actually gaining something from it, but the minimum wage is so low that people rightfully feel offended at being paid shit. The US is/was the economic powerhouse, yet millions of citizens are stuck working shit jobs for shit pay.
It is not useful to compare to developing economies to try and tell people to suck it up. Inequality brings about unhappiness. People know they are getting shafted, and frequently that goes along with shitty scheduling and managers who aren't very pleasant to work with.
TL:DR systemic issue with society, possibly some amount of "too good for such work" after being sold the American Lie (Dream)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 14 2017, @06:27PM (1 child)
What happened between then and now that explains this difference? Are we going through a bad batch of people? It strikes me that poor quality employees is in part a significant consequence of society's efforts to keep people out of the work force. For example, I see some people who've manage to go through college without holding down a job. They're not going to be ready for the real world when they haven't had a job before.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Friday September 15 2017, @12:38AM
Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Thursday September 14 2017, @06:29PM (1 child)
As the AC above me said, shitty wages are part of it. Real income has gone backwards, and the increasing GINI coefficient makes it even worse for those on minimum wage.
But another really big part is the change in attitude of employers. I've been in employment long enough to have watched the change. Most managers no longer have a staff they encourage, they have a bunch of disposable cogs that they treat like shit. There is now, in most low level jobs, zero chance to climb the ladder. Doesn't matter how hard you work, take courses, anything you do. I don't know why but companies now seem to have a real aversion to promoting from within. No surprise that pride in your work has turned into an attitude of screw the boss and the company, they're doing everything they can to screw you.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PocketSizeSUn on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:43PM
Yes this is a lot closer to what happened.
The social contract of mobility within the workplace has evaporated ... somewhere in the late 80s.
There was time when you started at the bottom, worked hard, got recognized rewarded and worked for the same company until you retired.
Now that kind of loyalty is not reciprocated and in fact management is generally hostile to all employees below the C-level. Everyone is replaceable.
If you become irreplaceable the company panics and hires dozens of cogs until you are replaceable and promptly removed.
Another strategy is to simply move the entire company somewhere cheaper, coaxing a few 'key' people to move ... hires dozens of cogs until key people are replaceable, rinse, repeat.
Given the broken contract finding people that do work hard and go the extra mile implies that such people do so for other less clear reasons. For myself it is pride in my work, regardless of my client / employers expectations. I suspect that is more a production of the time in which I grew up and I still want to believe that social contract exists (even though I have more than enough experiences showing me that it does not).