Flipping 10 pancakes at once.
13 Likes
I wonder if this is what the original Luddites saw in their nightmares.
17 Likes
Or this…
We spent the past five years researching what makes meat unique: the sizzle, the smell, the juicy first bite. Then we set out to find precisely the right ingredients from the plant kingdom to recreate the experience meat lovers crave.
9 Likes
The problem is - so many technologies that already get rid of jobs have been implemented, and many of them are software. (During the last economic downturn, many HR jobs went away - replaced with online software services, for example.) So where does the line get drawn? Is email something that needs to be taxed? It takes away mail carrying jobs, after all. Etc. Better to just have higher business/income taxes in general.
But you can regulate the hell out of it, if you’re so inclined. Witness, for example, the approach towards automation of European countries like Germany, where automation that eliminates jobs is heavily regulated, versus that of the US, where anything goes. People secure in their jobs will themselves actually suggest ways in which automation can make their work more efficient, for example.
2 Likes
(Warning, nudity alert.)
8 Likes
Only available in 4 restaurants in NYC, 2 in San Francisco, and 1 in LA.
If their burger is the same quality as their webpage, it’s not worth me hauling ass to any of those places to try this burger.
1 Like
1 Like
I’m glad it’s not a Pusher Robot!
http://www.somethingawful.com/icq-pranks/icq-transcript-space/1/
2 Likes
Kenji seems very positive but still somewhat unconvinced:
2 Likes
I’m waiting for 3D printed burgers made from artificial meat.
6 Likes
Ersatz foods are always an uphill battle, IMO. Better to offer things for what they are, rather than comparisons to what they are not.
3 Likes
And on the sexbot front there is Suckey and Lickey… ~ponders~… All in all not a bad development.
1 Like
True.
I have been a vegetarian for maybe a year total in life, and I am appalled at how poorly most Americans cook vegetables. Everything’s either way overcooked, or there’s some random raw vegetables they didn’t know what to do with. It’s ether steamed goop or a tiny little iceberg lettuce salad… or a turkey bacon club.* I’m genuinely delighted whenever I find a vegetarian restaurant that cooks good food, especially if that food doesn’t pretend to be meat.**
*turkey isn’t meat, and you can pick the bacon off… or at least that’s how it was explained to me.
**but not always. There have been obvious exceptions to this rule.
7 Likes
Pretty much your last sentence. But since so many have already been implemented, how about we just implement a very very teensy weensy tax on every stock trade to help set up a basic income for everyone. Sure, that’s not perfect, but at least the cost falls upon those who make the most money from the efficiency gains of these robots.
There’s some hypothetical utopian future where everyone just gets basic essentials covered (food, housing, education, transportation, healthcare), and then society goes on to truly realize that capitalist dream of doing whatever work they want for whatever they think they can charge for it.
I’m a fan of giving shitty jobs to robots, but I’m also a fan of making sure that my fellow human beings don’t have to fear the loss of basic necessities, so my best idea is to combine them!
10 Likes
Until the robots start cooking crystal meth, there will still jobs of uneducated folks.
4 Likes
They have flying pizza but they’re still using punch cards?
8 Likes
Not entirely agree with that ---- we are using cheap computers, cheap internet, cheap everything because there is a continuous struggle to be efficient and improve processes. If it is possible to replace a human being with a robot, just do it. We will have to figure out how to reorganize society around this. It will also mean that burgers can get even cheaper. Without discussing nutritional merits: that’s a good thing.
Why should we send people down mine shafts? Why should you have someone flipping burgers? I believe in the net gain.
4 Likes
I remember in the movie Rollerball which I saw as a teenager in the 70s the computer technology in one of the scenes is “Liquidics” you see some kind of tank with bubbles running through it… And it uses a punched card reader.
4 Likes
