Automation: What do you think?

pangbang · 22-06-2017 10:27PM #1

Automation seems to be never mentioned in Ireland, and very rarely in mainstream media in any country. It seems like one of the 4 horses of the apocalypse galloping for us, yet nobodys really interested. Very strange.

Caught a headline on an article recently, stating that mcdonalds will be basically replacing 2'500 cashiers with technology by the end of the year. Just the tip of the mountainous iceberg heading for H.M.S Society. Heres an excerpt from the article:

McDonald's hits all-time high as Wall Street cheers replacement of cashiers with kiosks

Cowen says McDonald's will upgrade 2,500 restaurants to its "Experience of the Future" technology by year-end, which includes digital ordering kiosks.
The firm raises its rating on McDonald's to outperform from market perform and price target for the shares to $180 from $142.
Same store sales estimate for 2018 raised to 3 percent from 2 percent.

And how did investors react to the news? McDonalds shares rose.

To those feeling smug about not having to rely on retail jobs, you are

Next, and/or

Going to have to support the increasing numbers of unemployed, and/or

Going to fund the failing health systems that will be crushed beneath weight, and/or

lots more goodies!

So, two questions.

What do you think of automation in general, is it a doomsday clock or will it give you free time to masturbate while alternately fending for your life against the desperate hordes?

And secondly, do you think that the above problems of tax-take, infrastructural funding and so on will be answered by governments with.....more automation? ( Short-term thinking is rife, I think so)

eeguy · 22-06-2017 10:34PM

Its going to be the dominant issue over the next 10 years. Automation is currently an arms race and every big tech and engineer company is involved.

You'll see dozens of established jobs and professions start to disappear. Professional drivers, clerical workers, accountants, builders, the list goes on. Basically if your job can be broken down into a set of procedures or routines then its for the chopping block.

Nearly everyone else will be impacted in some way shape or form, through augmented reality, automated manufacturing, robotic navigation and so on.

farmerwifelet · 22-06-2017 10:39PM

meh - they automated the ordering service in the mcdonalds on the kylemore road in dublin - it's a disaster. The machines don't take cards and everybody ends up in a big group at the serving counter waiting for their order number - its like a food argos. It takes longer to get the food which is weird and people are visibly more stressed. the thing is a certain amount of automation is good but after that you still need real people to do some of the work.

I have little faith in stocks and shares its like a giant lotto - it is funny how people put money into things that go up and down like a whore's knickers. The stock market is a false economy it has nearly no correlation to real life.

captbarnacles · 22-06-2017 10:40PM

Working conditions will deteriorate rapidly with increased working times and less pay to try and keep profitability on par with automation. European workers will refuse and companies will relocate manufacturing to Indian sweatshops etc or anywhere there is less workers rights.

The Legend Of Kira · 22-06-2017 10:42PM

A Mcdonalds on Georges street/Waterford was closed for around a month while it was being done up, since it has reopened its done up inside with new chairs/tables etc + with a [font=Open Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Kiosk , they have changed the service where you can order your food at the Kiosk print off your receipt with order number or order your food at the left hand side of the counter from a cashier & be given a [/font]printed off receipt with order number & wait at right hand side of the counter for your order number to be called, kinda similar service to argos after paying you wait for your order number to be called, besides Kiosks in places there is also self services drink taps at some bars in some countries too also, I think in the longer term automation is a bad idea as its gonna cost a lot of jobs for people.

pangbang · 22-06-2017 10:42PM

eeguy wrote: »

Its going to be the dominant issue over the next 10 years. Automation is currently an arms race and every big tech and engineer company is involved.

You'll see dozens of established jobs and professions start to disappear. Professional drivers, clerical workers, accountants, builders, the list goes on. Basically if your job can be broken down into a set of procedures or routines then its for the chopping block.

Nearly everyone else will be impacted in some way shape or form, through augmented reality, automated manufacturing, robotic navigation and so on.

Sounds rosy! There are some surprising jobs that fall under immediate automation, such as GP's and surgeons. Ironically enough, its possible to see a future where nurses become far important.

It just seems like there is a lethal combination of the majority of people and governments ignoring it, and a very small subset of people that will push for it and gain vast wealth from it (then again, whats new!?)

Theres something deliciously ironic about people building machines to replace themselves, programmers and coders and IT etc, theyre gonna be the monkey work of the near future, if not outright replaced.

(Probably best to pay them lots now and make it seem like a bright future, just to get the ball rolling!)

And all of this is without even mentioning artificial intelligence, just plain robotic automatons.

Junkyard Tom · 22-06-2017 10:43PM

pangbang wrote: »

What do you think of automation in general, is it a doomsday clock or will it give you free time...

Automation is inevitable. How people live when it becomes the norm is up for discussion.

do you think that the above problems of tax-take, infrastructural funding and so on will be answered by governments with.....more automation?

Tax the robots? I'm sorry Laura I don't understand the question.

ED E · 22-06-2017 10:43PM

farmerwifelet wrote: »

meh - they automated the ordering service in the mcdonalds on the kylemore road in dublin - it's a disaster. The machines don't take cards and everybody ends up in a big group at the serving counter waiting for their order number - its like a food argos. It takes longer to get the food which is weird and people are visibly more stressed. the thing is a certain amount of automation is good but after that you still need real people to do some of the work.

Must be the exception. Super fast in Dublin Airport while burger king takes forever. Same abroad where I've used them all the time.

pangbang · 22-06-2017 10:45PM

The Legend Of Kira wrote: »

A Mcdonalds on Georges street/Waterford was closed for around a month while it was being done up, since it has reopened its done up inside with new chairs/tables etc + with a [font=Open Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Kiosk , they have changed the service where you can order your food at the Kiosk print off your receipt with order number or order your food at the left hand side of the counter from a cashier & be given a [/font]printed off receipt with order number & wait at right hand side of the counter for your order number to be called, kinda similar service to argos after paying you wait for your order number to be called, besides Kiosks in places there is also self services drink taps at some bars in some countries too also, I think in the longer term automation is a bad idea as its gonna cost a lot of jobs for people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmKUdLrSTJw

Yeah, seen this in a few places around the country now. Its already seeping in.

Its sad watching the workers trying to show you how to use the new systems, literally being forced to give away their own employment.

I walk out of them. I know it wont make any difference, but at least I wont support it happening.

pangbang · 22-06-2017 10:50PM

captbarnacles wrote: »

Working conditions will deteriorate rapidly with increased working times and less pay to try and keep profitability on par with automation. European workers will refuse and companies will relocate manufacturing to Indian sweatshops etc or anywhere there is less workers rights.

Seems to be a spiral for sure. Don't protest against it and you'll lose your job/be crippled with tax, country goes down. Protest about it and your job will "emigrate", country goes down.

Just as well we have such good leadership in the country already planning for this inevitability (not taking a dig at any particular party, because they're all crap)

hatrickpatrick · 22-06-2017 10:51PM

It's one of those examples of how our society is f*cked up by in-the-box thinking. Automation should be good for quality of life, as it makes everything cheaper and drastically lowers the amount of time people need to spend working. But in order to fulfil it as a good thing, the current model of capitalism is going to have to go. Things like universal basic income and higher taxes for corporations across the board will have to come into play. On the other hand, automation will facilitate a lot of government work as well, ergo public spending won't have to be nearly as high as it is now - imagine for instance if a supercomputer working with a bunch of robots could design and construct a block of public flats in half the time it takes for humans to do so? Government capital spending immediately plunges. Supposing computers get perfectly good at accounting, managing etc? Great, the corporate bloat in the HSE disappears overnight.

This can be a good thing for society - we can potentially end up with an end game in which people have a lot more free time - but we're going to have to tackle the issue of distributing the spoils fairly so that everyone can benefit, and that won't happen as long as the neoliberalism of Reagan / Thatcher is the prevailing ideology governing Western politics.

pangbang · 22-06-2017 10:52PM

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Automation is inevitable. How people live when it becomes the norm is up for discussion.

Tax the robots? I'm sorry Laura I don't understand the question.

Freakish looking thing, yikes

the_pen_turner · 22-06-2017 10:57PM

way too much automation already.
look at farming, its a one person job of most farms now , jobs are subbed out, years ago farms were manned by several workers
building was all done by man power, now its all machinery
carpentry/ joinery, engineering it being taken over by cnc routers and plazma cutters etc

look at that cnc block layer, great machine buy look at teh job loses.

look at CAD, it has sped up drawings hugly.
automated cashiers, tole booths etc

all this is costing jobs.
this is the real reason why we have so moch unepmloyment. no basic work anymore

Senna · 22-06-2017 10:58PM

Automation has always been happening since the industrial revolution, its just the type of jobs that are constantly being replaced that change. There will be jobs in 10 years time that are unheard of today, likewise there will be jobs now that won't be around in 10 years time.
You can either embrace technology and the changes it brings, or...... well nothing ready, you cant stop progress.

pangbang · 22-06-2017 11:05PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It's one of those examples of how our society is f*cked up by in-the-box thinking. Automation should be good for quality of life, as it makes everything cheaper and drastically lowers the amount of time people need to spend working. But in order to fulfil it as a good thing, the current model of capitalism is going to have to go. Things like universal basic income and higher taxes for corporations across the board will have to come into play. On the other hand, automation will facilitate a lot of government work as well, ergo public spending won't have to be nearly as high as it is now - imagine for instance if a supercomputer working with a bunch of robots could design and construct a block of public flats in half the time it takes for humans to do so? Government capital spending immediately plunges. Supposing computers get perfectly good at accounting, managing etc? Great, the corporate bloat in the HSE disappears overnight.

This can be a good thing for society - we can potentially end up with an end game in which people have a lot more free time - but we're going to have to tackle the issue of distributing the spoils fairly so that everyone can benefit, and that won't happen as long as the neoliberalism of Reagan / Thatcher is the prevailing ideology governing Western politics.

Having free time is not the end-goal of life, strictly speaking it is to have children. That becomes a massive problem when there is quite literally no reason to have children. No children = no life (I'm talking big picture society, not an individuals personal choices)

What would people do with all that free time? We are intrinsically built for competition, to progress in life. And while its a nice idea to think that painting pictures and reading poetry is where we'd all end up, its not going to happen, we're not built for it.

So even if an intelligent system could replace a government and save money and time......for whom would the time and money be saved? I mean, another way to think about it is this; the best thing for planet earth is to get rid of all people. Better not to be too quick to eradicate yourself out of the equation! A computer system can build a block of flats quicker than people.....great, you know whats even better? Not having to bother building it for those pesky people in the first place.

And even if there was something to do all day with the rest of your life, and even if robots increasingly took away all meaning for our lives.....what do you think the robots are gonna do with useless lumps of meat hanging around for eternity?

Maybe it is all inevitable!

It would be nice if the likes of universal income could work, but its an idealistic, impractical dream. Its far more likely that the ever-more-powerful elite would just do away with the useless bottom 90% of the planets population. Capitalism was a mistake, but theres no stopping it now except for cataclysmic intervention (which might be automation, for example!)

pangbang · 22-06-2017 11:10PM

Senna wrote: »

Automation has always been happening since the industrial revolution, its just the type of jobs that are constantly being replaced that change. There will be jobs in 10 years time that are unheard of today, likewise there will be jobs now that won't be around in 10 years time.
You can either embrace technology and the changes it brings, or...... well nothing ready, you cant stop progress.

I don't buy into this idea at all, that there will be these magical jobs that will come in to save the day.

Things are different now, that's all there is to it. Taking one broad example, you had a mass migration of people from agriculture to industrialisation, it generally evened out. It was simply a matter of changing job. But this isn't about a job changing, it is about replacing people themselves.

When horses/animals were replaced by vehicles, you still basically needed one person to ride/steer. Again, this isn't about changing the mode of the job, it about replacing the actual person.

Person riding horse > Person driving a car > self-driving machine, no person need apply.

And nyone thinking that theres gonna be a shedload of jobs in repairing the robots automatons....they'll eventually be robots too.

Theres only one end-point to all of this.

The Legend Of Kira · 22-06-2017 11:11PM

farmerwifelet wrote: »

meh - they automated the ordering service in the mcdonalds on the kylemore road in dublin - it's a disaster. The machines don't take cards and everybody ends up in a big group at the serving counter waiting for their order number - its like a food argos. It takes longer to get the food which is weird and people are visibly more stressed. the thing is a certain amount of automation is good but after that you still need real people to do some of the work.

I have little faith in stocks and shares its like a giant lotto - it is funny how people put money into things that go up and down like a whore's knickers. The stock market is a false economy it has nearly no correlation to real life.

Would concur with this post, since Mcdonalds on Georges street/Waterford reopened I have being in there 3 times, the new service system they have now is slower , the older system was faster & better service .

Ipso · 22-06-2017 11:14PM

pangbang wrote: »

Having free time is not the end-goal of life, strictly speaking it is to have children. That becomes a massive problem when there is quite literally no reason to have children. No children = no life (I'm talking big picture society, not an individuals personal choices)

What would people do with all that free time? We are intrinsically built for competition, to progress in life. And while its a nice idea to think that painting pictures and reading poetry is where we'd all end up, its not going to happen, we're not built for it.

So even if an intelligent system could replace a government and save money and time......for whom would the time and money be saved? I mean, another way to think about it is this; the best thing for planet earth is to get rid of all people. Better not to be too quick to eradicate yourself out of the equation! A computer system can build a block of flats quicker than people.....great, you know whats even better? Not having to bother building it for those pesky people in the first place.

And even if there was something to do all day with the rest of your life, and even if robots increasingly took away all meaning for our lives.....what do you think the robots are gonna do with useless lumps of meat hanging around for eternity?

Maybe it is all inevitable!

It would be nice if the likes of universal income could work, but its an idealistic, impractical dream. Its far more likely that the ever-more-powerful elite would just do away with the useless bottom 90% of the planets population. Capitalism was a mistake, but theres no stopping it now except for cataclysmic intervention (which might be automation, for example!)

What's the alternative; Socialism/Communism? That worked real swell.

Ulysses Gaze · 22-06-2017 11:15PM

Any public/semi-state sector organisation that is unionised will fight automation tooth and nail. And Governments will back them to a degree.

The private sector will get it in the neck first.

What's the alternative; Socialism/Communism? That worked real swell.

Now...now...don't you know that Socialism has never been properly implemented. THAT's been the problem.

namloc1980 · 22-06-2017 11:16PM

In banks one of the biggest sources of customer complaints was errors by human cashiers. Now that many of them have been replaced by automated tellers the errors have been virtually eliminated, but people are complaining about lack of staff. Can't have it both ways.

Canis Lupus · 22-06-2017 11:17PM

Tried a kiosk in Maccas and it was the most unintuitive piece of crap ever. Like I'm not a retard around tech but it was so badly designed however that's a software issue not an issue as such with automation.

I use self checkout in shops all the time and love it. I don't love it when like in in Australia they have no item limits and you have aul ones with trolleys of stuff through.

pangbang · 22-06-2017 11:20PM

Ipso wrote: »

What's the alternative; Socialism/Communism? That worked real swell.

Well theres no point talking about what didn't work in the past in specific situations, the real issue is recognising that the current system is NOT working. That should take paramount, and then the solutions come next.

Otherwise nothing ever changes, it devolves into a "whatabout" situation that leads nowhere.

pangbang · 22-06-2017 11:22PM

namloc1980 wrote: »

In banks one of the biggest sources of customer complaints was errors by human cashiers. Now that many of them have been replaced by automated tellers the errors have been virtually eliminated, but people are complaining about lack of staff. Can't have it both ways.

That's the problem with a market-driven society. The end-point is that we eliminate ourselves altogether. I mean what will happen when the next big problem are the CUSTOMERS making mistakes?

bazz26 · 22-06-2017 11:22PM

I for one welcome the human race's future overlords:

Pwindedd · 22-06-2017 11:26PM

This very thought crossed my mind only the other day. Self driving cars and all that malarkey. We seem to be developing ourself out of existence albeit very very slowly. And the last ones standing I reckon will be small isolated "tribes" occupying remote land that has no intrinsic value or use to anyone(thing) - the second thought that crossed the old grey matter was, feck this I reckon another 20 years of muddling through then I'd like to just not be there one day, the future sounds horrific to my delicate little soul :-(

pangbang · 22-06-2017 11:27PM

Another thing to consider is education itself.

Hypothetically, lets say 80% of accountants are automated.

Strictly speaking, that would mean an educational demand for only 20% of people.

But that's not how market-driven society works. Less demand means a slashing of opportunity, so that 20% availability of education shrinks on its own.

And that means more automatons are needed.

And that means less education needed.

Until we arrive at zero educational opportunity for people, 100% automation for accountancy.

Now apply that logic across all the different job avenues. It would make sense to me, at least, that human education will fall through the floor, a population that is increasingly reliant on more and more automation. less and less self-able. Spiralling.

ToddyDoody · 22-06-2017 11:27PM

eeguy wrote: »

Its going to be the dominant issue over the next 10 years..

I thought it was the dominant issue in the 80s?

Dominant issue now being social b*llox?

Senna · 22-06-2017 11:35PM

pangbang wrote: »

I don't buy into this idea at all, that there will be these magical jobs that will come in to save the day.

I'm certainly not saying that all these low skill jobs will just be replaced one for one with new job, not a chance, there will be more jobs evolving and many are at the higher skilled levels.

I'm not too sure what you objection is, it's going to happen, wither you like it or not.

pangbang · 22-06-2017 11:38PM

ToddyDoody wrote: »

I thought it was the dominant issue in the 80s?

Dominant issue now being social b*llox?

Spot on. Its the magicians distraction.

Have everyone at each others necks about their feelings, meanwhile we'll be replacing them under their own noses.

"We" being the financially mobile and technology companies that keep telling you that their products allow you to do more and more, whereas the reality is that they enable you to do less and less).

Think about the current trends and how we lap them up without question (or rage against those who dare to question). Work at home, tap on a keyboard, communicate from your hand, have food delivered to your bed, have robots drive you around if you dare to go outside (in the post), order your life through the internet, have your million "friends" on social media......it truly is all about doing less and less and less and less.

It started off well, mobile communication and all! But it was always going to go down the jacks.

You want to know who the best customer is in the whole wide world? The customer you can extract the most money from? Its the customer that cant do jack-sh*t for themselves anymore, reduced to an emotional simpleton.

pangbang · 22-06-2017 11:42PM

Senna wrote: »

I'm certainly not saying that all these low skill jobs will just be replaced one for one with new job, not a chance, there will be more jobs evolving and many are at the higher skilled levels.

I'm not too sure what you objection is, it's going to happen, wither you like it or not.[/QUOTE]

Well I suppose the bolded is both the question and the answer. I don't like the idea of replacement, and that's my objection.

But what do you think these new jobs will be exactly? Mechanics for the automatons? Engineers to build them? Programmers to code them?

My answer to those couple of examples is that they are at the forefront of replacement, just after retail-like jobs.

EIREDriver · 22-06-2017 11:46PM

I work in a large multinational and there's a massive focus on automation. I'm in IT and if a process can be automated by a software, it's being implemented so they can reduce resources. We have a weekly call atm and the manager of the people who will be losing out is crying out for further automation constantly.

It's the future and we may get used to it.

Side note - I find the Kiosks at McDonald's very good. Little queuing and it takes seconds if you've used them before. Also one I go to only takes card so no messing around with coins.

Automation: What do you think?

Comments