The Boy Who Cried Robot: A World Without Work

[celedhring]

I get called to my landline and to my cell. No respite.

I have never purchased anything because, even if I were interested in what they were selling, I'd rather research the stuff before actually committing on the spot.

[Brazen]

My mobile automatically identifies numbers as "possible spam". Very handy.

[CountDeMoney]

Rat bastards are spoofing the local area codes now, giving you the impression it could be your friendly neighborhood dental office or something.

[garbon]

Oh I mean, I screen all of my calls. All of them.

[viper37]

Human - robot interface

[viper37]

AI achieves sentience, starts hunting players

Ok, not exactly, but very close

Remember that moment in the movie Terminator when Skynet's AI turned on humanity? Well, we're getting a taste of it now. Apparently a bug in the game Elite Dangerous has caused its AI to not only develop its own weapons, but also start hunting down the players.

[...]

"It appears that the unusual weapons attacks were caused by some form of networking issue which allowed the NPC AI to merge weapon stats and abilities," posted Frontier community manager Zac Antonaci. "Meaning that all new and never before seen (sometimes devastating) weapons were created, such as a rail gun with the fire rate of a pulse laser.

[alfred russel]

It's impossible to have evidence for a belief that eventually job growth won't be able to keep up with automation.  Humanity has never gone through a period of an accelerating technological innovation.  We've been in the middle of one for the last few centuries, but we haven't yet seen what the end game is.  Therefore, if you demand evidence, you're already stacking the deck.  With some phenomena it's just impossible to have data.

The end game seems likely to be environmental and/or nuclear holocaust.

[Valmy]

The end game seems likely to be environmental and/or nuclear holocaust.

We can check the first one. It is just a matter of redirecting engineering priorities.

The second....maybe

[jimmy olsen]

Millennials are the worst! 

http://www.salon.com/2016/08/30/millennials-aversion-to-dealing-with-people-a-greater-threat-to-fast-food-workers-than-any-minimum-wage-hike/

Millennials' aversion to "dealing with people" a greater threat to fast-food workers than any minimum wage hike

Results of a recent survey will likely encourage chains to automate as much as the process as is possible
Scott Eric Kaufman 

According to a survery by Frisch's Restaurants Inc. — the Cincinnati-based company that operates Big Boy Restaurants — the greatest threat to the future employment of fast-food workers won't be a minimum wage hike, but the simple fact that millennials "don't feel like dealing with people."


In the survey, nearly 31 percent of millennials said that the reason they use the drive-thru isn't speed or convenience, but because doing so requires the least amount of actual human interaction. Such a tendency will, no doubt, encourage companies to further automate the fast-food purchasing process. In many airports, for example, orders are already placed in kiosks, paid by credit card in the kiosk, and picked up at the counter.

For the moment, the food is delivered by a human being — but it's not difficult to imagine a time in which the same job couldn't be performed by a none-too-high-tech robot of some sort. If nothing else, surveys such as this one will encourage companies to find ways to phase out employees.

Which is exactly what Andy Puzder, CEO of Hardee's and Carl's Jr., told Business Insider. "Millennials like not seeing people," he said.

"I've been inside restaurants where we've installed ordering kiosks ... and I've actually seen young people waiting in line to use the kiosk where there's a person standing behind the counter, waiting on nobody."

Pudzer added that his goal is open fully automated restaurants that require no human employees.

[HVC]

Wait, aren't you a millennial?  to be fair have you ever had to deal with people? They're the worst.

[jimmy olsen]

Wait, aren't you a millennial? 

Yes!   

[Monoriu]

Yeah, it is my dream to go to a restaurant without human interaction.  So far there has been very little progress though.  The most I have seen is that some mainland Chinese restaurants have experimented with giving customers ipads to order food.  It works for me, but lots of people dislike going through menus themselves.  My parents-in-law never touch restaurant menus.  Most restaurants already have terminals that allow waiting staff to input orders.  They just have to make the system available to customers.

The other part that can be automated is billing.  I think there should be a small terminal on each table for ordering food, printing the bill and making credit card payments. 

The parts that are far more difficult to automate are bringing food to the table and clearing the dishes.  I have read reports that some mainland restaurants have experimented with using robots, but they only really travel along fixed tracks.  It is more a gimmick than something that works. 

And of course, the actual cooking.  I think generally, machines and AI are better at information processing than complex mechanical movements, so I don't think cooking can be automated on a large scale for now.   

[Archy]

Went to 2 fast food joints with a digital menu pole and a counter to pick it up.
To be honest I also prefer the digital menu it give me times to peruse the menu and order on my leisure and gives a better view of every item on the menu than everything above, I learned that McD over here carries curry sauce. and most of the time there's less people than at the regular lines.

[garbon]

What anti-social nerds. Time for a cull.

[Berkut]

What anti-social nerds. Time for a cull.

That is so my son.

He is anti-social to a fault, it is starting to really worry me.