Shut up and take my money!!!

Great use of robots - totally ok with this

This is... The entire point of the industrial revolution.

Good for them.

How do they make them faster, are they colluding with the deep fryers?

Unlike the underpaid staff, this robot doesn't have nine other duties it's managing. So it's timing is always spot on.

K didn't we figure this out with the potato chip factory? This is just the evolution of that.

So Bon Qui Qui is on the scrap heap?

Exactly. Specialization actually improves productivity.

I'm currently the only one on my shift that can do X inside of the timeframe because I was trained and did 1000s of hours of that job. Now theure doing everybody can do everything bullshit and nobody bit me can still do that one item.

I get to do that every time they put me back in that department.

A system that was invented in the late 60s most likely.

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Sure, why not, fuck human jobs! I, for one, support our new AI overlords!

Maybe we could come up with a better economic system or something.

Or we could bring all technological progress to a screeching halt because it's easier to be a machine smashing luddite than to work towards meaningful social progress.

Honestly, we've just witnessed companies getting rid of people anyway regardless if we have machines to replace them (at the expense of customers and their workers).

 

Tesco literally hemorrhages money because they use sh_tty financial software (my SO works in assisting multiple companies with their accounting software, and Tesco's notorious in his workplace because they refuse to pay for new updates and constantly have a new accountant every 6 months), plus they have problematic self-checkout machines which can be manipulated if you take the price tag off (I've literally seen kids rip the barcode off a magazine, put it on the scales, and then add it onto their purchase as an 'onion'. And the harried human worker doesn't notice because he/she often has to help 2-3 customers at the same time while collecting baskets and calling out to people if they're paying cash or debit card. Tesco doesn't give a sh_t because they'd rather lose money than pay for salaries to create an efficient and fast customer service--and I'm sure there's PLENTY of companies/restaurants exactly like this.

 

Like I absolutely get your point (hell, I absolutely support your opinion) but literally everybody is running their business to the ground without the use of robots (and trust me, being worked to the breaking point really does make its workers apathetic (and then you have to make sure that you don't accidentally burn/injure yourself as you're told to rush around because there's only three people working in the entire store/restaurant/plant/etc).

 

Like, I'm sure that even my job would be replaced (I was supposed to be a regular admin. Now I'm replacing financial administrators and am doing the work of three people without even a pay rise). But I know that i'd be worked to the very bone until they fire me for a robot (and when the robot f_cks up, the university won't care as long as the backlog of tasks 'eventually' get picked up in a month or so. I'm in a university building that had two elevators breakdown, and our management hasn't fixed it in a month--they just tell the disabled students to 'study' in the lower ground floors and completely ignored our students' comments on having to attend classes on the upper floors).

We'd definitely need someone to step in and put a stop on the reckless financial practices of companies. Because the majority of the people who control our commerce, job market and rest of society are used to running their businesses like slumlords.

The thing is though, 'social progress' took a long time to actually happen when factories were created.

All the victorian problems regarding overcrowding, malnutrition, and disease actually happened from the event when factories were created up to the end of the 19th century (and the majority of the victims weren't stubborn luddites (which went away quickly because you can't rebel when you're starving), but the factory workers who did everything they were 'supposed to'). And at LEAST the factory owners were subject to local laws then (and aren't like the sweatshop factories owned by international companies like Unilever, Boy, and Hugo Boss where if something happens--they can just shrug and walk away without paying a single fine.

The very reason why social (<---key word here) progress even happened was BECAUSE our US and UK government hit back on those factory & mine owners like a ton of bricks. We didn't ask companies nicely to stop hiring 9 year olds. Instead we banned them outright. We didn't ask companies nicely to stop using company scrip instead of a salary, we had to outright ban it and threaten to put them out of business. And sadly we live in a world now where no one wants to go hard against companies because they'd rather take the money and do nothing.

Why the fuck are we retrofitting robot hands to cook fries is this like some 50s futurism fetish?

Damn, criticizing social problems automation WILL create is somehow anti progress?

I would even criticize the fucking comical robot hand to be retrofitted to a french fry station instead of coming up with a more efficient and better solution to fry that shit.

This is how it begins.

There's gotta be a way simpler robotic system than a robotic arm. But step in the right direction I suppose.

They have the technology. They can make them better, faster, stronger. ;)

Isn't it like killing mosquito with a cannon, AI operated, camera guided but still a cannon? Or is it the first step in making more general cooking robot?

Yo, retail prices literally went up in tandem with self checkout. So none of the benefits and all of the problems are happening at this current moment.

I'd guess it's cheaper (combo of time and money) to do a robotic arm instead of trying to retrofit a whole fast food kitchen to adapt to robots instead of humans.

I'm personally more a fan of the robot cat waiter. It can carry three full serving trays full of food and tells you which tray your food is on. It still needs to have a human supervise the guests to make sure they take the right food, but... let's them get big table orders without risk of dropping them.

Robots are making French fries faster, better than humans

Do they also make them harder and stronger?

But seriously the question here is if they can robots to do the job for lass than humans.

If the robots are cheap enough to buy and own, you have sovled the problem of "Nobody wants to work anymore (for what we are paying)".

If the robots are more expensive to buy and maintain than a minimum wage human, you will have to pay people more.

Considering how often machines break down in your average fast food franchise restaurant (especially thinks like ice cream machines) and that some other industrial robots can be quite expensive, It might take some time before they become a common sight.

Work it harder, make it better
Do it faster, makes us stronger
More than ever, hour after hour
Work is never over

Because it is an iteration of the Flippy bot which is a generalized fast food cooking robot. This version Flippy 2.0 has been upgraded to be specialized in just french fries.

While they call this version 2.0 it really looks like a downgrade of the failed promise of the Flippy 1.0 version. Flippy 1.0 was supposed to do all this and replace all fast food cooks, but the environment it works in causes the hardware all kinds of problems. Fast food places are very dirty and all that grease causes failures in the hardware of Flippy 1.0.

Stop blaming machines for capitalism being garbage.

Classic MadTV reference.

I'm blaming capitalism for being garbage.

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That is a very simplistic understanding of the labor history of the US and UK. Social progress wasn't made "because our governments hit the factory and mine owners like a ton of bricks". Those governments have historically been on the side of the companies, usually just acting straight-up as tools and weapons for the capitalists. It wasn't until the working class in those countries became highly organized and militant, and threatened revolutionary action against both the government and the capitalists (backed up by the successful example of the Russian revolution) that critical segments of the political and economic leadership decided it was better to make concessions than to risk being overthrown.

Which robot gets the fries out of the freezer and puts them in the basket? Which robot puts the fries in the freezer? Which robot orders the fries from the distribution center? Which robot drove the truck to bring the fries to put in the freezer to put in the basket? Which robot put the fries in the truck? Which robot put gas in the truck? Which... this article is stupid.

Harder and stronger too

We were told robots would only be able to do low level work.

If they can dip potato pieces into hot fat and take them back out, what job ion America is safe.

Not in Belgium they aren’t. It’ll be an uprising.

im fine with this until they make better poutine

Working a deep fryer should be done by a robot.

The problem with this is trying to adapt old ideas to new concepts.

We don't travel 1000x faster over the ocean today because we built faster boats. We travel faster today because we invented aeroplanes.

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If they can do it, then fucking do it. I swear they make these articles every couple of years as a threat to workers.

Wtf is up with the posts here. How is any of that "nottheonion"...

You know what? You're right--it really is very simplistic.

We have tried the 'soft touch' with past factories and mines (especially by trying to impose factory inspectors--which the UK had deliberately screwed up with their 1833 Factory Act where they only hired four factory inspectors to inspect the entire country's factories). But sadly it wasn't just us campaigning and protesting--it was also the government (moral) panic of realising that children were becoming completely ignorant of religion because of lack of schooling (and apparently also women becoming 'loose' from working in mines and factories). But it truly did take a long time for this to even happen, which is definitely why I personally don't feel confident that replacing jobs with robots would create any social progress. Because weaving machines sure as hell didn't.

Also, it won't get carpel tunnel from having to do the same repetitive task over and over again. Or have to poop.

So people can say it’s because of rising minimum wage.

Of course it does. Why the hell would we expect a human to make fries faster than a machine can?

We're at the point where the tech that goes into that is cheaper, more consistent, and reliable than hiring a person to do it, even if you account for maintenance. And it's not just here. The machines are coming for all of our jobs and instead of being like the Jetsons with 3-day 2-hour work weeks, it's allowing companies to lord it over us as a threat to keep wages down, hours up, overtime unpaid and their profits up.

There’s a place in KC that delivers food to your table via miniature train. It’s nothing but a novelty, because service is slooooooow.

Granted, a train track presents a specific problem in only being able to serve one table at a time.

Junk food. Let the robots eat it too.

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The arm idea is most likely the easiest way to get it into existing establishments broad scale without having to redesign the kitchens (specifically the fryer bins) around a conveyor/basket setup individually. And fry stations are already dangerous, so the arm's making that better rather than worse. Grease burns hurt. Ask me how I know.

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Dope! I'm down for robo-fries.

Get this robot to In-N-Out ASAP!

>For true stories that are so mind-blowingly ridiculous that you could have sworn they were from The Onion.

I'd say it fits.

As someone in the automation world (just. It deep fryers), I concur that this is overly complicated for no reason.

I have also worked in many fast food restaurants and the fryer is always in the worst place, even if this robot were meant to “fit into already existing kitchens” it would block off the entire kitchen and be a total hazard.

You would resident the kitchen no matter what, it might save on costs of a new fryer, but that’s about it.

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Mcdonalds ice creals machine should not be used in this comparison. They are designed to fail, and make the one company allowed to produce them more money. The machines they make for other franchises work because there they have competitors.