BUT.... there will always be a need for quality service and people will pay extra for that.
Robots for the quick, fast food/drink. People for the more relaxed service - which of course will cost more.
Ultimately there is no need for most of what we work on. Once our basic needs and comfort are covered it's a boundless quest for economical growth and a sense of "fulfilment". Low skilled repetitive jobs are needed if we continue on our current economical path.
A lot of jobs could already be automated, we could probably work half of what we do now and keep 90% of our comfort. The issue isn't technical it's political / societal. People have been talking about automation for 70+ years [0], we're still more or less at the same stage as back then. We replaced factory workers by machines, great, but this didn't deliver them from work, it just made them shift to other low skilled dead end jobs.
Fast food is a good example, they are more and more automated in Europe but in the US it won't happen because many students / people with low education rely on these jobs to survive. Same for walmart, &c ... These jobs aren't a means to an end, they're here to keep low skilled people busy. We sent people to the moon in the 60s, does anyone really believe we can't make a machine that flip patties and make fries (it would be much more efficient and cost a fraction of the employees it would replace) ?
What would be the end goal ? Efficiency for efficiency's sake ? Seems like the most efficient scenario would be to end up in a Matrix kind of world.
Anecdote: I ofter talk to the barista working for my company's internal coffee shop, he said he'd never change job because he likes human contact and relaxed working hours/conditions. Everything doesn't to be about efficiency / automation.
[0] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Fourastié
"His technological optimism (Le Grand Espoir du xxe siècle, PUF 1949; Machinism et Bien-Être, Ed Minuit 1951; Les 40000 heures, 1965) led him to announce the 30-hour week and an active life span of about 35 years, and to predict that society would evolve relentlessly towards a tertiary type of civilisation, dominated by services"
But do all the people he serves like human contact? In some cases it might be a one-way thing where the server thrives off the human contact, but the customer finds it bothersome. One of the great things about the automation that has come along already, like self-service supermarket checkouts and ticket vending machines, is that people who don’t like interacting with strangers can get the everyday services they need in peace and solitude.
A society of pure production/consumption without human contacts, man if that's what we're heading to we're in for a wild ride.
> everyday services they need in peace and solitude.
Move out of the city and you get all the peace and solitude you'll ever need. When you move to a tech hot spot to milk the sweet sweet IT money you kind of sign the social agreement of interacting with other human beings. That's the whole point of societies in the first place; people interacting and exchanging goods and services while living on a shared territory. If human interactions make someone sick to the point of actively avoiding them I think we should stop for a bit and start asking the right questions.
Someone who doesn’t like customer service interactions isn’t necessarily a loner with no human contact in his/her life. The person may be a keen member of clubs, meet people through social networks and then transition to IRL meetups, etc. The difference is that there, people bond over a shared interest, they feel something in common. In a customer-service interaction, there is no common bond, just a transaction, and so the interaction is not cherished human contact.
From the shop clerk’s side, it is extremely common to hear complaints about the effort involved in feigning politeness, smiling, etc. Why are you so shocked if some customers feel the same way?
> When you move to a tech hot spot to milk the sweet sweet IT money
Not everyone on HN is employed in tech.
But let's say for the sake of argument that we do replace all these bs jobs. What happens when you go to a bank for a mortgage and the AI doesn't agree with your conditions ? It's the same problem with autonomous cars, it works good when the conditions are absolutely perfect, the second a problem arise it becomes useless. You end up needing redundant people to watch over machines, just like what happens in factories, but these are job for skilled workers. What happens to all the unskilled workers you replaced ? They find other bs jobs.
There are many automated coffee machine in my office, they cost thousand of euros each, every few weeks we have to call the company's technicians to come and fix them because there is always 1 or 2 of them which stop working. What do you think will happen for that $33k robot arm ?
We’ve had coffee machines for decades. A robotic arm to serve them is not useful for us.
The generic robot arm is generic but expensive.
I saw this with incredibly expensive robotic arms on a recent cruise. It was actually very very flexible -- all options were external to the arm, and cheap:
https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/category/category/bionic-...
It was a very popular bar on the cruise ship in terms of drinks sold -- but it was also in a prime location. The cruise ship properly understood that these "bionic bar" robots were a performance.
I like the idea, but that's a lot of up-front expense and still requires humans, electricity, repair, and lacks customizability and speed. If they can bring the cost down it seems like a viable option. Except... how do you not serve people who are already intoxicated? How do you check id (make sure they aren't scanning a friends)? And I guess you aren't building loyalty, which bartenders often do.
This is not just vending machine coffee.
A real barista does not only make a basic product for 10hours.
And if it does there are already machines that can replace him immediately without an overly expensive robot. Heck you can have a fully automatic super espresso machine for a fraction of cost of this "robot".