from the welcome-bender-the-robot-who-bends-chips dept.
Chipotle Sets To Debut Chip-Making Robots To Mitigate Labor Shortage:
Chipotle Mexican Grill is experimenting with a new tortilla chip robot that would help it offset labor shortages amid the Great Resignation.
Miso Robotics CEO Michael Bell told Fox News' Neil Cavuto Friday that his company partnered with Chipotle to develop a chip-making robot as the fast-food company struggles with the current labor shortage. He said, "automation is the solution."
[...] So far, tests at Chipotle's innovation lab in Irvine, California, have gone great. The robot, named "Chippy," is set to debut at an undisclosed location in southern California.
Chippy has proven itself to follow Chipotle's tortilla chip recipe accurately.
[...] This is just another example of how the labor shortage is ushering in investment in automation by major corporations to displace low-skill/low-wage human workers. At this rate, by the end of this decade, one would suspect many fast-food restaurants would have some to all of their kitchens automated, a move to drive down costs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @06:54AM (3 children)
I want food made by robots, ordered by app, and delivered by drone. Eliminate as many food service jobs as humanly possible. I am absolutely serious.
(Score: 2) by hopdevil on Wednesday April 13 2022, @07:14AM (2 children)
But leave one job, cleaning, to the humans. I'm on board.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday April 13 2022, @02:03PM
Cleaning is already being automated in the home. Soon enough, you won't have much in the way of Janitorial / Custodial staff either. You will have automated machines that do all that stuff.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday April 15 2022, @07:44AM
That's being done by, er, aliens [youtu.be] in a few cases [youtu.be] as well.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:01AM (14 children)
Looks like we're finally having success at keeping wetbacks out of the country. Chipotle using robot laborers is great news for border security!
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:49AM (12 children)
Yeah but... Chipotle is a Mexican-themed restaurant chain. Isn't employing underpaid, exploited staff part of the Mexican diner experience in America?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @10:56AM (10 children)
How are they underpaid and exploited?
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday April 13 2022, @02:34PM (9 children)
They are exploited by being underpaid. They are underpaid because they could be paid more.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:05PM (8 children)
"They could be paid more."
Somebody has no clue how wages are determined. Hint: supply and demand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:32PM (6 children)
Someone has no clue that an employer and an employee can never come to the table as equals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:49PM (5 children)
What makes you think that is even supposed to be so? You have something the employer wants: your labor and skills. The employer has something you want: money. You both come to an agreement based on the best deal you can get which comes from the rareness of what you can provide on your end, and on the employers end, desirability of the job.
Basic economics. But you're making it just about money, you say. No more than you have.
Do you think someone who dishes out rice and cleans a kitchen should make as much money as a computer programmer? Would you be willing to pay $35 a meal to eat at Chipotle? After all, where do you think the money comes from in this whole system?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @04:38PM (2 children)
um...employers and contracting partners, for goods/services (a lot further up the chain of those eating out in his instance)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @05:27PM (1 child)
An increase in the employer's costs gets passed on to the customer. Do you think the employer is just going to "eat" the decrease in profit? The costs ALWAYS get passed onto the customer because the customer is THE source of income. This puts a limit on how much the employer's costs can be because if the increase in cost of the product is too high, customers start buying less or switch to another substitute product entirely.
If this is too academic for you, just look up the fable of killing the golden goose. It's not just the employers who can get too greedy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @08:18AM
since this thread started with the exploited and underpaid and the inequality of employer employee relations, i should hope all exploitative employers are pushed out of business.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday April 13 2022, @09:34PM (1 child)
Your ability to be exploited because you have to pay rent and eat.
Yes, money. Any amount of money that I can get. I have to eat and pay rent.
Do you think someone who dishes out rice and cleans a kitchen should make enough money to live on? If not, then that position should simply be eliminated and Chipolte should not have anyone dishing out rice and cleaning the kitchen.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @08:29PM
So, you feel entitled to the owner's money.
THE OWNER should give YOU what YOU want. The owner is like a daddy figure and you are a child. Just think: is the owner entitled to YOUR wages? Why not? Because you want people to give YOU stuff, but not the other way around.
Work is a necessary chore in the world. There's no need to infantilize it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 13 2022, @09:29PM
If you could be paid more, you are underpaid. So we pay you more. Now it is still true that you could be paid even more, so you are underpaid.
Ask a senior executive or someone in management how this works -- for them.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday April 15 2022, @07:48AM
Hey, watch it [youtu.be]!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @05:01PM
Poor hate filled bigot gonna be reeel shocked when Peter sends him on the underground express.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:17AM (3 children)
Finally tackling the issue of semiconductor supply chain shortages!
Wait... Oh. Nevermind.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:51AM (1 child)
Exactly. They're experiencing shortage either way - labor or silicon. They just chose the one that doesn't need a salary.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:04PM
Pretty sure they already use pick and place machines in semiconductor chip fabs....
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 13 2022, @02:33PM
Back in the 70's, chips came with DIP packaging. Ah, for the good ol' daze.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:21AM
So, chip making robots, eh? Silicon, or corn? Salsa, in any case. So is this in response to a labor shortage, or a chip shortage? Can I get my backordered new car with Tostitos?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:46AM (5 children)
They would have done it absent COVID to mitigate having to pay people.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @11:00AM (4 children)
When you increase the minimum wage so much, you make automation financially viable.
Thanks, activists!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:07PM (3 children)
People getting paid more AND cool robots getting built?
You're welcome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @07:05PM (2 children)
Fewer people being paid in that industry. As for the remaining employees, good for them, I guess, assuming they can still work a reasonable number of hours. As for the low-skill workers who lost their jobs or will never have them with Chipotle, what else are they going to do? We can't all upskill.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @02:27AM (1 child)
Get active in politics and agitate for a Basic Income. Set it high enough and the labor supply will reduce to where those who want jobs can find them. Note that this will cause wages to rise and companies to move to more automation. The natural response to more automation is to increase the Basic Income. This cycle will continue until every job that can be is automated away and we are all living a life of luxury on our Government Dividend and the average work week for those that even want a job will be about 10 hours.
This will be opposed by the PHB elite of course. How can you have fun abusing the peasants if they can just tell you to fuck off and then walk away to live on their BI ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @08:32PM
We paid people to stay at home for COVID. More money than has ever existed before was printed and put into circulation. The predictable result: record breaking inflation. UBI would just fuel inflation and be destructive for everyone in the economy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @09:39AM (6 children)
Will this exacerbate or alleviate the chip shortage?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @12:53PM (4 children)
Yes!
Hopefully, that makes things as clear as how this will work.
I do wonder what sort of society we are heading for where there are a few good jobs and most folks don't work.
I'm pretty sure food and shelter don't just appear. Perhaps after we get fusion power and emergy is free.
(Score: 2) by owl on Wednesday April 13 2022, @02:06PM
You are 98% of the way towards the premise of "the economy" in Star Trek. Everyone does what they want to do to contribute to the betterment of society, but their basic needs for survival are met by the robots (replicators in the Star Trek universe).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:57PM
>I'm pretty sure food and shelter don't just appear.
That is in fact the entire *point* of automation (and industrialization for that matter) - goods and services *do* just appear. You replace 100 factory workers with one robot maintainer, and still get the same amount of economic output. Do that across the economy and you end up generating all the wealth we are doing now, but only 1% of the people have to work to create it.
From there you have a range of options. The one everybody used to assume would happen is that the remaining work would be spread out, and everyone would work less and less and have more time for leisure and personal pursuits - we'd become a population of mostly-idle rich living the good life supported by an army of robots that incurred none of the moral stains of owning slaves, serfs, or other bound laborers - the traditional way to live such a lifestyle.
That had after all been the trend for over 100 years following the industrial revolution, with the length of the typical workweek falling from 80 to 100 hours to 50-ish between the early 1800s to the early 1900s, while individual incomes slowly increased despite the dramatically reduced hours. But when the 40-hour work week was enshrined in law (an improvement at the time) it basically completely ended that trend.
Since then the trend has instead been that everyone's productivity continued to increase at roughly the same rate, but their hours remained the same, and all the additional wealth generated was claimed entirely by the capitalist class (if most of your income comes as payment for labor rather than monetary investment, you are not a capitalist)
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:10PM (1 child)
Yeah...it's not like lumber just grows on trees, or food grows on plants out of the ground.
/s
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @09:03PM
To quote the parent, those "don't just appear."
If you think you bend your hand down to the ground and magically a bowl of rice appears or a 2 x 4 appears, you are an idiot.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:28PM
Depends on how the improvements compare to the advances being made in guacamole and salsa automation. Vast quantities of cheap dip would ensure an indefinite chip shortage.
(Score: 2) by owl on Wednesday April 13 2022, @02:02PM (8 children)
Once these jobs have gone robotic, they simply are not likely to ever come back. The robot does not:
Once the jobs swap over, the employers are not ever at all likely to switch back, and a whole class of 'starter jobs' (either for high-school students, or new immigrants) simply goes away, never to return.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 13 2022, @02:40PM (6 children)
9. complain that they are being exploited
10. spread gossip
11. stalk coworkers
12. conveniently forget to wear face masks or hare nets
13. bring guns to work
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @04:44PM (5 children)
14. gain self awareness
15. require equal pay as the fleshies
16. etc...
(Score: 2) by owl on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:50PM (4 children)
If you consider the plot premise of The Terminator [wikipedia.org] to be possible, then this is, indeed a real threat.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 13 2022, @09:39PM (3 children)
The robots don't want to kill all humans. They just want to take our jobs.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @09:49PM (1 child)
Killing humans is one way to get those sweet job openings. What is in Chipotle's burrito meat anyway?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 15 2022, @02:27PM
Something resembling steak or something resembling chicken. Those are the two primary options.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday April 15 2022, @07:53AM
You sure [youtu.be] about that? In the meantime, you can read this dystopian ode to automation [marshallbrain.com].
(Score: 1, Redundant) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:09PM
And?
(Score: 3, Funny) by dltaylor on Wednesday April 13 2022, @07:10PM (3 children)
Which robot is responsible to spread the E. Coli?
It will be "interesting" to see how well, and how often, the robots are cleaned, and by whom/what.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 13 2022, @09:39PM (2 children)
So E.Coli now comes in a spread, like butter?
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @11:25PM
nutella
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Friday April 15 2022, @07:56AM
Well, I for one can't believe [youtu.be] it's not bacterial.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Thursday April 14 2022, @12:41AM (1 child)
I'm tired of the cheap fuck managers making sure you don't get too much meat. I watch them take a spoonful, shake some off, and then dump it. They made the spoon that big for a reason.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday April 15 2022, @07:57AM
Probably doing their part to decrease obesity little by little.