Meinung: Wie Roboter, die Burger und Pommes herstellen, zu größerer Einkommensungleichheit führen können – Berufstätige Menschen verdienen es, dass ihre Stimme gehört wird, wenn es darum geht, wie, wo, wann und ob KI und Automatisierung eingesetzt werden sollten.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-05-01/ai-automation-fast-food-minimum-wage-california-restaurants-corporations
22 Kommentare
From the article
>Automation often provides cover for employers to double down on cost-cutting measures that lead to chronic understaffing, which [~increases the likelihood of injury and wage theft~](https://labor.ucla.edu/publications/fast-food-frontline-covid-19-and-working-conditions-in-los-angeles/). While automation may reduce marginal labor costs, there is [~little evidence~](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2023/12/Rebalancing-AI-Acemoglu-Johnson) that it necessarily improves [~productivity, safety or cost-effectiveness~](https://labor.ucla.edu/publications/automation-future-dockwork-san-pedro-bay-port-complex/).
Integrating automation in the service sector often results in fewer workers doing more work, as I observed at CaliExpress. Economists have clocked this phenomenon as well, documenting [~enormous growth in revenue-per-employee~](https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2023/08/sales-and-employment-in-the-food-services-industry/) in fast food over the last five years. This indicates that productivity and wealth concentration are *already* growing hand-in-hand, even before any automation — a sobering finding that chafes with the narrative that unsustainable labor costs are automation’s main driver.
Ridiculous concept. People have been getting automated out of jobs forever. UBI is the only solution to improving our way of life in an increasingly automated world, where work is less necessary.
Automation doesn’t lead to income inequality. Automation is an inevitable outcome.
Workers having their labor exploited does increase inequality.
It is unclear to me what the economic model of a consumerist society in which the consumers have no money is.
Issue isn’t that robots are being used. The issue is that corporations are so laser focused on maximizing profits. They don’t care that worker won’t have his head stuck in a fryer for 8 hours every day, they just care that robot can work 24/7 and will pay itself off fully in 2 years or something, which means everything past that point will be another bonus for the shareholders and execs.
From a business perspective, it just makes sense to go automated. Machines don’t take breaks, call in sick, or cause drama. They’re just less risky to deal with. Yes, you need to pay a high upfront cost and there’s maintenance involved but using machines really takes away the stressors of having a human employee.
It’s not supposed to lead to inequality. It only does so because of this Game we decided we should be forced to play
Typical half baked Luddite bullshit.
Some similar patently absurd arguments I could make on the same theme.
– seamstresses should be able to veto sewing machines
– blacksmiths and horse husbanders should be able to veto cars
– hoteliers should be able to veto air bnb
– legacy taxi firms should be able to veto Uber
– witch doctors should be able to veto the practice of modern medicine
– coal miners should be able to veto gas stoves
Dear fellow working people,
They aren’t listening. They will NEVER listen. The predator-class WANTS YOU TO DIE. They WANT YOU TO STARVE AND GO AWAY FOREVER.
They WILL ABSOLUTELY REPLACE YOU WITH A ROBOT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
And it will not stop with „voting“. It will not stop with „legislation“. The Predator-class has already bought off enough of the public that without violence, there will be a never-ending revolving door of parasitic sycophants masquerading as public servants, desperately vying with each other to become the housepet of a major corporation so they can be spared the horrors.
The ONLY way forward is to exterminate the predator-class entirely and globally. Seize their assets for redistribution, and federalize all of the major tech companies and turn them into utilities. Then we need ROBUST social safety measures in place like UBI and Universal Healthcare….things we will not get while we continue to tolerate the existence of the predator-class.
You can roll your eyes, you can downvote, you can read this and think it’s all hyperbole, but it isn’t. This is real. We are FUCKED if we don’t find the will to deal with the parasitic predator-class NOW. We have maybe 2 years left TOPS to start reversing course.
Aw, if only the people making money hand over fist cared or wanted change. You see in there smooth minds, the line always goes up so there is no reason to ever stop.
Humans will be retained for innovation, maintenance, some manufacturing, and other nuanced jobs and services while living in a more efficiently better society. So don’t sweat it folks!
These damn automobiles are putting Carriage manufacturers in horse breeders out of business
„Luddites deserved to had their voices heard in determining how, where, when or whether automation should’ve been used“
lol
To put it bluntly, low IQ people are going to suffer.
We need wealth redistribution. We don’t need permanent meaningless jobs.
People simultaneously believe that people should aspire to more than fast food jobs, yet they also must be protected at all costs.
Nonsense. If we let farm hands vote on whether we should mechanize agriculture, we’d still have 40% of the workforce working on farms and still be one bad weather event away from millions starving.
The problem with this idea is that it takes the completely wrong conclusion from correct facts.
We have this machine that greatly increases the productivity of employees or can even replace them. So there are three ways of dealing with that.
1. The employee’s productivity is increased and that extra money all goes to the employer. Or the employee’s job is replaced entirely and the money generated goes to the employer.
2. The employee gets to refuse to let machines in, therefore their productivity does not increase and they are not replaced and everything stays how it is. They continue to get paid but society loses out on the greater productivity and they have to continue doing this boring job.
3. The employee’s productivity actually gets rewarded and most of the increased productivity goes into their pockets through better wages (or a shorter working week) enforced by unions and/or a higher minimum wage (for that industry). Or they lose their job but there’s a UBI to fall back on so they’ll be fine.
Now, I don’t know about you, but to me 3 is the extremely obvious choice here.
We should want automation (at least for boring or unrewarding jobs) and the efficiencies it brings, we should just not allow the benefits of that to be reaped infinitely by a small group of rich people who own all this stuff.
I say, implement an automation tax. Companies should start paying taxes to the government based on the productivity (or number) of machines they have. This should go directly into a a big fund which pays out to every adult citizens of the country every month as a UBI.
Oh, and of course raise the minimum wage, increase unionization and reduce the working week. And tax the rich more.
I agree vote with your feet. I am about to dump Walgreens because when I call I get someone who sounds drug addled and starts asking personal information for prescriptions fully intending to hand me off. I preferred robot lady.
Or we could provide universal basic income and provide training so the workers can do something useful while also being treated like people.
I don’t see how this could work. Everybody wants cheaper goods and services but nobody wants to see **their** job automated away.
Then stop trying to make $20 an hour flipping burgers.