McDonald’s ex-CEO: $15/hr minimum wage will unleash the robot rebellion

I was at the very same restaurant show this week as Rensi mentions in the article.

The only robot he could have possibly have been referring to was a Baxter robot that Middleby Corp set up as an attention-getting gimmick. It was not an actual product for sale. You can see for yourself here.

https://twitter.com/WeRRestaurants/status/605484681245499393

It was also at the show last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPwjG-CnLgA

Automated kitchen technology is way more primitive than this...for multiple reasons.

Nice fear mongering from ex-CEO. We all know that robots will be here regardless of what the minimum wage is.

"Robot rebellion" in fast-food industry has already quietly happened. Those robots are called "vending machine".

There is even a moderately successful fast-food chain in the Netherlands that have fully embraced this "rebellion" some 70 years ago, and they are still going strong [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEBO

Our local Chipotle has such inconsistent quality, I would welcome our robot overlords. Last time they put on double the normal amount of sour cream... tasted like burrito soup.

If robots are worth it to replace $15/h workers in fast food stores, then they would've been worth it to replace $8/h workers 5 years from now (or less).

McDonnalds is paying even higher costs than that in other countries and hasn't done it.

We have fully automated pizza making machines, but you still see plenty of people in pizza shops. The economics clearly don't work out in favor of full automation at the moment.

CEOs have been replacing workers with machines since the start of the industrial revolution. Calling the machines "robots" is just a different label for the same-old-same-old.

P.S. they have also been crying about the minimum wage as a "job destroyer" since it was introduced a century ago.

Good, this means that fewer people have to work, which should be humanity's goal. I don't get this fetish with working. We should decouple labor from income and try to get rid of as many jobs as possible.

People still "eat" at McD's?