Noodle Robots Replacing Workers In Chinese Restaurants 531
kkleiner writes "Recently developed noodle-making robots have now been put into operation in over 3,000 restaurants in China. Invented by a noodle restaurant owner, each unibrow-sporting robot currently costs 10,000 yuan ($1,600), which is only three months wages for an equivalent human noodle cook. As the cost of the robot continues to drop, more noodle shops are bound to displace human workers for the tirelessly working cheaper robots."
And it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Funny)
I'll take one for the team.
Idle = Trouble (Score:4, Insightful)
There is some truth to the saying, "An idle mind is the work-shop of the devil". Too many idle people is a recipe for mass social problems: drug abuse, crime, depression, gaming addiction, etc.
It may be better to split up work and have shorter work-weeks, but more participants in the work-force.
However, Republicans would have a hissy fit over such an idea. Reality has to bite them in the ass a hundred times before they even consider the possibility it's not 1780 anymore.
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Re:And it begins (Score:4, Insightful)
The masses bought into the propaganda narrative that growing working-class prosperity mid-20th-century was the result of capitalism, instead of counter-capitalist workers' movements (unionization, fights for minimum wages and improved working conditions). So, by the Regan era, advances for the working class were brought to a halt (even as the overall economy grew, the amount going to the masses stagnated while all the gains in productivity were given to the rich), and now thrown into full reverse (so the working class is seeing their remaining sliver of the economy trickle away into the pockets of the rich). Total economic productivity has continued to grow plenty to support a continuing trend of decreased work with higher standards of living, but the overwhelming majority of gains are captured by the top 0.01% instead of being distributed to the populace.
Re:And it begins (Score:4, Insightful)
But when the correlation empirically exists and causal mechanism is obvious, it's awfully hard to handwave away. Rich people keep more money from paying lower taxes and wages; invest in technology to let them fire workers while maintaining growing production levels; reap record profits, from which a smaller cut than ever is returned to improving middle-class conditions instead of further increasing the power of the rich. What else would you expect than the "rich get richer, everyone else gets poorer" obvious (and observed to be true) outcome of such a vicious cycle?
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Re:And it begins (Score:5, Interesting)
Fairly simply. You can survive on your allowance. Want more than survival? Get a job!
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Because humans with access to enough resources do not breed that way. We are not cats or mice, we will limit our breeding to enjoy our lives more. Access to education and healthcare will make this even more dramatic.
Look at the people who are not breeding, those are the people who have enough to be content with. First world nations are at or below replacement rates.
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Not only the opulently wealthy. The middle class in our nation is not breeding at replacement rates.
If the living wage is suitable high it will achieve that goal. As will access to modern healthcare. Birth control should already be extremely low cost and available OTC.
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Total personal income in the US in 2012:
$13,401,868,693,000
People in the US:
313,914,040
Average income-per-capita:
~ $42,962
Each family of four could get $160,000 a year. I'm pretty sure that would be upper-middle-class by today's standards.
Re:And it begins (Score:4, Interesting)
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Divide the number of hours...let's all work 30hrs/week instead of having millions putting in 60+ hours and millions with no job.
Impossible to do. if a company had say, 20 people working 40 hours a week they had to pay a living wage to, and you cut their time in half while doubling the workforce to 40 to cover all those hours, they would be doubling their payroll expense. While that might be possible financially for some businesses, other businesses work on very thin profit margins and the (possible) slight increase in customers from more people having free time (limited to a very few number of industries) would not be enough to co
Re:And it begins (Score:4, Insightful)
I would rather work 5 days than 3. By the 3rd day off I am bored out of my mind.
Might I ask why you aren't doing something creative with your time? Paint a picture! Compose a song! Write a novel! Design a game! Create some new cool software! Why are you just sitting around getting bored? USE that time while you have it!
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Minimum Wage (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of what's broken about the U.S. economy is the minimum wage. In 1968, adjusting for inflation to the current dollar, it was around $12 and hour, or so. Now it's $7 and change. And, unlike 1968, when it was the wage for teenagers working at fast food outlets, now more than 40% of the American workforce is earning less than the 1968 minimum. So how's that globalized economy working for you?
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Might be news to most people through most of history who worked most of their lives.
Must be nice to have a first-world privileged mentality that life is for frivolity.
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Not only no, but hell no.
France is a perfect example of why this is a horrible idea because they tried exactly this. The idea being that if people were forced to work fewer hours, then you'd be able to have more of those "hours" to spread around, thus giving more people jobs and lowering unemployment. This actually made unemployment worse because the demand for labor isn't as inelastic as far too many people believe.
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Interesting)
This actually made unemployment worse
I never understood why "unemployment" was seen as "bad". In my eyes, 100% unemployment is the goal. Do you enjoy being forced to work just so you can eat?
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My take is that nobody would get a pass from having to work, rather everybody would work but, say, only 3 days a week rather than 6.
If you only want to work 3 days a week, you can arrange it, but you'll normally have to take a pay cut.
Myself, I work around 30 hours a week. It's great. But a lot of people would prefer to have more money than more time.
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
If we started handing out the paycuts to the top capitalist class instead, who pocket the savings whenever they replace a worker with a robot, then the working class could receive the benefits of mechanization (same quality of life for less hours of work) instead of just the downsides.
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Carnegie was a Monopolist, totally separate issue.
Not everyone is cutout to be a banker, so what should they do?
At some point we will have to realize that we have unemployable people and must do something with them.
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Read what I wrote and do the same.
I never suggested everyone should become a banker. I asked what other jobs they could find to do. Asking what sort of work we can find for the unemployed and possibly soon to be unemployable is not a strawman.
At some point you must realize there are people who will not longer be able to find work. What do we do with them?
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been well over a century since carpets needed to be handmade. The working class did receive the benefits of mechanization for about the first three quarters of the 20th century (including machine-made carpets and cloth) --- however, in the last couple decades of the century, the trend where increasing worker productivity also meant increasing wages/benefits came to a halt. For the last several decades, the American working class has continued to become increasingly productive, but has seen (inflation-adjusted) wages stagnate as all the benefits accrue to a tiny wealthy elite. Improved mechanization no longer means the working class gets more/better stuff for the same work; it means the working class loses jobs and wages, so they're struggling to afford even cheap Wal*Mart crap.
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, here you go: a CNN report with chart of productivity and inflation-adjusted wages [cnn.com]. Note how hourly compensation perfectly tracks steady productivity gains up to ~1980, then completely flatlines thanks to Regan era "trickle-up" policies (continuing into the present day) while productivity continues on the same upwards trend.
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the average job paid $100,000, and the average need for a person was $25,000, someone might just choose to work every other year and live an above average lifestyle.
Far easier to just vote up the wage for not working to $20 billion a year. Why not, the government can just print money with no downside! Anyone who votes otherwise is just a big greedy conservative meanie!
I already hear these arguments regularly. We should work for our keep, for most of our lives. We're wired to need to - we value what we have if we work for it; otherwise we delight in destroying it.
That being said, there's likely some kind of work that would please almost everyone to do, even if (espe
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Informative)
We should work for our keep, for most of our lives. We're wired to need to - we value what we have if we work for it; otherwise we delight in destroying it.
Studies of hunter-gatherer societies, typical of the evolutionary conditions for which humans might be "wired," indicate rather low typical work loads. Actual "work" time is typically 2-4 hours per day; interspersed with a lot of lollygagging about, chatting, telling stories, playing games, singing songs, sitting about pondering. Of course, there are sometimes brief periods of highly strenuous work and intense need. But the idea that humans are "wired" to need 40+ hour weeks of toil, instead of spending most of their time in leisure and "artsy" pursuits, is an artifact of the development of labor-intensive agricultural societies during the latest tiny fraction of human evolutionary history.
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One small problem - most (not all, *most*) humans require doing useful pre-directed work as a precondition of having a quality life.
If you're not doing something useful for your family or society, well, you're not going to enjoy life all that much.
I spent a lot of time at my last job sitting idle a lot (mostly in meetings, waiting on people to supply the things I needed, waiting on clients to make up their minds, etc)... long story short, I got so damned bored that I wrote a 450pp book on the hypotheticals
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I agree with you for the most part, however your specific example doesn't illustrate your point very well. Your JOB was boring for great stretches of time, but you were AT work. If on the other hand you worked from home and only had to "work" when you had work to actively do, you could have spent that "wasted" time doing more productive things which you picked. Since you were actually at work, you were limited in what you could do.
My job is very similar, in a typical week I work less than half of the hou
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the science fiction story you want is:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm [marshallbrain.com]
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Informative)
We need to first let go of the perverse idea that work is itself virtuous. Especially in the US, the more productive people get, the more they're working (and the less they're making on a real-inflation-adjusted basis). For a decent chunk of time, as people became more productive, their workload decreased and their leisure increased, but that trend stopped in the early 70's.
But, heck, according to the video somebody else posted here, the property taxes I have to pay are alone more money than a noodle chef makes in a year in China and they keep going up, so the total picture isn't just as simple as "so then just work less".
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I'd say that work is virtuous, well, to be more accurate production is
That's actually a contradiction, but Americans have been trained to see it as shades of meaning. Production leads to happiness and the elimination of suffering, but work is just a means to production. If work were the virtue itself, we'd be best off working seven days a week.
Happiness is the real virtue, though clearly production and work are ways to get there. If Strong AI comes to pass as predicted, we're going to see a re-alignment
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Well, there are jobs that need to be done that nobody really likes doing. The current mode d'employ is simply to force people to do them. By giving them the option to do it or starve. This doesn't work if you give them what they need to survive.
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can we please finally now get on with dealing with the fact that we don't need 100% employment anymore?
Consider what you are proposing; it sounds like an economy not based on monetary exchange for human labor. That's all well and good however whats the plan for purchasing goods people consume? Electricity, food, entertainment, internet access... those costs do not magically go away just because a robot is shoveling coal, growing corn, topless dancing or programming a switch. Besides, employment drives innovation as well as providing mental and social benefits which people do need. Even a Basement Dweller use
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as machines take over jobs to produce products and services people NEED, the jobs will migrate to products and services people WANT. like leisure.
not like the money just vanishes. the unspent money of noodle worker salaries will go into some leisure type business
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
People aren't commodities. They're humans that have skills that they have acquired and (hopefully) chosen their skills to acquire based on their unique talents and abilities.
If you want to rush head long into the future that's fine, but if you are a humanist then you have make provisions for the people you are going to make permanently obsolete. Hell, maybe humanist isn't the right word, maybe REALIST is more correct, because if you make classes of people obsolete you're spreading the seeds of revolution.
You're right, but right now we have a ruling class that would just like the people who don't fall into the schemes to DIE. That's dangerous in the long term.
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"How can we ensure a quality life for everyone now that we know machines can do a lot of the work?"
Fewer humans?
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These concerns have been around forever, and gave rise to the term "Luddite".
What makes you think that this new advance will kill off the need for human employment any more than the last zillion improvements that obsoleted various types of menial labor?
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Guessing there's a lot of Sub-Saharan Africa that would both disagree with you and welcome even the dirtiest of factories
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck, a lot of people wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they suddenly had an extra 50 hours a week (you need to include commuting time, lunches, etc) with no boss giving them structure and direction. Most people would just flop down on the couch and eat Cheetohs until they can no longer get off the couch.
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Or they become part of the couch [medicalnewstoday.com]?
Re:And it begins (Score:4, Insightful)
Worse, many would probably start getting involved in basically anti-social movements and groups. Cult groups that provide an illusion of meaning to their lives.
So basically those 50 hours will be spent helping some would be dictator gain power.
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good news! that is why i am designing and patenting a housework robot! it doesn't actually do housework, but is designed for people that have been displaced from the work force by robots and so now have too much free time. It will entice them into doing housework and telling them what to do with their "extra time".
and if you pledge now on my kickstarter...
At the "Hal 9000" level you will receive an ominous Red LED Eye, so the robot can stare you down. This is a great option if you would like to wire the
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The machines will provide for all their needs. In this case, a lifetime supply of noodles. In the future it will be cars and iPads
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Re:And it begins (Score:4, Insightful)
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If anything can be produced cheaply by robots, where are people going to find the minimal amount of work necessary to pay for things?
Well, why would we have to pay for things? If the labor cost of goods goes to zero, wouldn't the material cost go to zero as well? After all, if a robot can build you a house, couldn't a robot also harvest lumber, mine metals, and do all the other work that goes into production of construction materials from raw resources? That is, if there is zero cost associated with the creation and distribution of goods, why would it be necessary to pay for things?
If there is no possibility for income, why would anyone offer these? How will the robots be purchased by the businesses? Or, if businesses no longer need to exist, what would be the motivation for making the robots? Who builds and maintains the warehouses or storefronts where goods are stored and distributed? I don't mean who physically, but what entity controls them? The government?
Moneyless societies are impossible. Without the requirement of needing money to survive, there is no motivation. Peopl
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If there is no possibility for income, why would anyone offer these?
A bit of a loaded question; if goods and services have no cost, and everything is free, why would anyone seek income? What would you do with said income if there was nothing to spend it on? Don't worry, I'll return to this point shortly.
How will the robots be purchased by the businesses?
Currently, businesses have capital. They can (and do) buy robots to further automate their workflows.
Or, if businesses no longer need to exist, what would be the motivation for making the robots?
Well, the robots would be made while businesses still exist. Once the existence of said robots obviates the need for businesses to exist, there need not be a motivation for m
Re:And it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
People are not going to labor and make stuff with no compensation but the guarantee that others are doing the same, this goes against human nature.
Tell that to anyone who has ever written a book, played a song, painted a picture, or danced a dance without being paid for it. Tell that to anyone who has ever poured their time and money into a hobby with negative monetary returns --- taking photos, flying airplanes, watching the stars, climbing mountains, feeding the hungry, planting gardens, writing Free Software --- raising a family. Human nature is to ponder, create, aspire, help, love; to do so freely for the joy of living.
Re:And it begins (Score:4, Interesting)
Bingo.
If you eliminate the need for somebody to do a certain task, then that doesn't simply mean that eventually we'll run out of things to do. Now money that was once spent on a noodle cook can be spent on something else. Whether the restaurant spends it on something else, or whether they lower their price so their consumers can spend their money on something else, that money doesn't simply disappear.
The restaurant owner now has more income, so he maybe buys a nicer car.
Or
The customer now spends less on food, so now he buys some nicer shoes.
See "opportunity cost". Or, if you've ever heard of the "parable of the broken window", that is the alternative to this (e.g. forcing them to hire noodle cooks when they don't need them.) This isn't an emerging "job loss problem" that needs to be solved. Socialist types will never understand or accept this, but the market will reach equilibrium. It happens every time, and it has been doing so since time immemorial. Sadly Oregon hasn't learned this yet, and they still force you to pay somebody to pump your gas in order to keep unemployment down, meanwhile they are one of the most unemployed states in the US.
Re:And it begins (Score:4, Interesting)
Eventually the car and the shoes will be made by a robot. What then?
Stop playing politics, this is not a socialist concern, just a human one. What happens when all work or enough that unemployment exceeds 25% can be done by robots?
We used to work 100 hours, laws made that 40 hours. Without laws to enforce even shorter working hours or an more equitable split of resources all productivity gains are being captured by the top few percent. This argues against your claims.
reaching equilibrium will be painful (Score:4, Informative)
Once all the menial jobs are replaced by robots, what do people that are only suited to menial jobs do? Not everyone can be a robot technician, and there will be fewer robot technicians than robots.
Given that it is physically impossible for the economy to keep growing (due to resource scarcity if nothing else) at some point productivity increases must lead to either a reduced population or else a lower average work week.
This is happening in North America too...here in Canada one of the major banks just got a bunch of bad publicity for shipping skilled technical labour offshore because it's cheaper. It's becoming a global economy, places with relatively high cost of living are going to have a tough time keeping their population employed.
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New stuff will come around; it always does. Everything that can be invented hasn't been invented. 100 years ago nobody would have imagined there being even a robot technician. So what will happen later? Who knows, but the economy will always find an equilibrium somewhere.
What an economy ultimately solves is how we allocate scarce resources. Because in the end, that is what people want. First you start with the minimum (e.g. food, shelter) and then you go to the luxuries.
Politicians usurping this process by
Re:reaching equilibrium will be painful (Score:5, Insightful)
Who knows, but the economy will always find an equilibrium somewhere.
And if this equilibrium is the masses living in miserable slums, patrolled by the private goon armies of a tiny super-wealthy elite, like the "economic equilibrium" produced in many third-world countries with extreme wealth disparities? I'm not comforted that some equilibrium will be reached; I'm quite concerned about what the structure of said equilibrium is. "Just let unregulated market forces decide" has a terrible track record for producing pleasant equilibria.
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YouTube link (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukNkCnNJuR8 [youtube.com]
YouTube link with the robots in action.
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So they're just cut noodles? Much better if the robot was making pulled noodles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT2qbeOfR7E [youtube.com]
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Re:YouTube link (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, as is typical on slashdot, the "news" is about 7 months old, so there are a lot more related materials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGvHxLEhC5A [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwAgZ2WLQyA [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEfqmBMydZw [youtube.com]
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That's interesting, though from what I've seen the hard part in making truly great fresh noodles is making the dough. Anthony Bourdain did a segment with a guy that still makes them from scratch in Hong Kong and he talked about permanent groin disfigurement from the pole used to pound out the dough! To me this looks like labor multiplication, you still need someone to do everything other than shaving the noodles, it will just allow a single chef to do the work of several, thus allowing folks who today can't
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Doesn't look like this is the same kind of noodle as those. That looked like just pre-made dough out of a pack, and would almost have to be to allow the robot to shave consistent sized noodles. Seems like that at the rate they need noodles, they had to pay someone to do only that and nothing else. Imagine a fastfood company here paying one person to 'just cut buns in half'.
The personal touch (Score:3)
It's not really a robot. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not really a robot. It's simple kitchen appliance with dummy head.
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That's what you think. It is actually an acolyte of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Expect to bow down under their fearful, wrathful gaze 8 and 1/2 times a day.
Not A Robot! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is basically a simple Kitchen Appliance with a face attached. I don't consider this a 'proper' Robot.. If this is a Robot then me super-glueing a Barbie head to my washing machine makes it a "Washing Robot".
You are wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
From merriam webster [merriam-webster.com]:
2: a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks
It is a robot.
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That's phase 2, where they export the robots to Japan.
What now? (Score:2, Funny)
What do I do now with my Masters degree in noodle slicing?
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What do I do now with my Masters degree in noodle slicing?
teach?
obligatory "noodle" joke... (Score:3, Funny)
Robot uses it's noodle to make...noodles!
Re:obligatory "noodle" joke... (Score:4, Funny)
Now all we need is an apostrophe robot that check's all our submissions!
Capital vs Labour (Score:4, Insightful)
Whenever Marxists talk about economy they like to overstate the importance of labour and understate the importance of capital. They are of-course completely wrong, there is always a cost associated with labour and a cost associated with capital, the more labour costs the more it makes sense to use capital to decrease cost of labour and that's why we get labour saving devices.
The first shovel displaced people from digging holes with their bare hands and sticks.
The first excavator displaced thousands of people with shovels.
Computers displaced untold numbers of individuals, millions upon millions obviously that's because computers are labour savings devices.
In the process we make the operators of the labour saving devices so much more productive because they command these tools. Notice however that without capital (savings used as investments) no person can increase his productivity in any significant manner, you can't just dig with a shovel fast enough to be as productive as a guy operating an excavator.
You can't count numbers with your ruler or an abacus or just a piece of paper and a pen as fast as a computer that runs a program. The person that operates the implement is now much more effective, much more productive than all the manual workers were, but of-course the number of workers that are needed go down dramatically.
It's interesting to hear people talk about "productivity of the economy going up while employees who grow the productivity aren't ripping the reward, instead the owners do". Well excuse me, the owners created the productivity, not the employees.
Employees are not adding to productivity, it is the owners, the investors, the capitalists that are improving their productivity. In case of the noodle restaurants the productivity of the owner (investors) of the restaurant is going up, he can serve more noodles with fewer labourers doing manual work, but it costs him the original investment into the labour saving device - the robot.
People displaced by the robot are not increasing their productivity, they lost all of it, now they have to find a different job. However from POV of the market this is a very good development - the fewer people we need to do things that we do already now, the more supply of labour exists and so prices for labour go down and more businesses can be created because it takes less capital, less investment to hire people at lower prices to do things that were uneconomical while the cost of labour was more expensive before the labour saving devices were added to the economy and replaced these workers.
It is a good thing for any consumer of goods to be able to buy more of them cheaper, to have more choice and to see more competition (even among labour and capital).
The price of the robot is higher than cost of a human noodle cutter, the prices now will come down for human noodle cutter and more restaurants may even open because of this development.
It's possible that most restaurants will eventually have noodle cutting robots and there will be a competitive advantage of having a human cut noodles, maybe somebody will advertise their restaurant as one that does not use robots, some people are gullible enough to prefer that, but that would be a niche item of-course.
More importantly, the restaurant is now more productive, the labour market has more surplus so it may be cheaper for other businesses to hire labour, and that's great. As long as the government does not try to "level the playing field", as it is now in America trying to do for Brick and Mortar stores, that cannot compete with the Internet stores, that are obviously more competitive and can do more for less money.
The government steps in and makes everything more expensive for one reason only: get more money for politicians. They can be on the side of a business that cannot compete in the changing business environment because of all the new labour saving devices (like the Internet, which is a labour saving device).
The gover
Re:Capital vs Labour - They're made out of meat. (Score:3)
Re:Capital vs Labour - They're made out of meat. (Score:5, Informative)
Socialist and communist don't mean the same thing, nor are either the exclusive domain of Marxists.
Try less rhetoric and you might be a tiny bit convincing.
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I think the disconnect here is rooted in two things:
1. How quickly we as individuals think the society and economy can or will react to major changes in the cost of labor. Lower labor costs as roman_mir has said mean that everything can be a lot cheaper and hence available in large quantity, variety and qualities. Products can also improve in important ways while staying at the same relative price or even becoming cheaper. Personal electronics are an excellent example of this trend. However not everything t
Re:Capital vs Labour (Score:5, Informative)
Whenever Marxists talk about economy they like to overstate the importance of labour and understate the importance of capital.
Umm, the whole concept of Marxism is basically based around technology causing capital to become increasingly valuable, eventually leading to the capital in a few private hands destabilizing the economy and society as a whole.
Re:Capital vs Labour (Score:4, Insightful)
I find that telling capitalist proselytizers that they're actually restating Marx drives them wild.
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The owners provide capital that would be worthless without labor. The productivity was created by the labor that made the robot. The capital just bought it.
I don't think not paying taxes is being more competitive.
This labor saving will be really great when they are no more jobs. Then the economy can truly flourish.
Protip: not everyone cares about the economy more than their fellow man.
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Why do we care what Aaron Smith would say?
I think people are more interested in what Adam might say.
Capitalism is not always interaction among equals. Imperfect information makes sure it never is.
I for one welcome our noodle making overlords! (Score:2)
Finally the Chinese have been outsourced, the circle is complete.
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So, one noodle shop in 10,000 ? (Score:3)
There are a lot of noodle restaurants in China. Based on my extremely limited sampling, for most of them $1000 USD would be a hefty expense.
There are also a lot of cheap (but not quite as cheap) noodle restaurants in Japan (and Taiwan) as well - I wonder if this invention might find more of a market there.
Obligatory "Blade Runner" reference... (Score:2)
"A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies, the chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure..."
Give me four. No, four! Two, two, four! ...and some replicant-served noodles.
Note on the noodle (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why do you need a "robot"? (Score:5, Insightful)
1
a : a machine that looks like a human being and performs various complex acts (as walking or talking) of a human being; also : a similar but fictional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized
b : an efficient insensitive person who functions automatically
2
: a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks
3
: a mechanism guided by automatic controls
You're hung up on definition 1a.
A vending machine IS a robot.
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sure, a vending machine is a robot but this thing looks like a guy with his legs cut off.
though that might be because the inventor invented it to do it like a human would, so the looks might actually help with sales so that people will feel that it does it like a human and not complain about quality(which could be better or worse).
Re:Why do you need a "robot"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Great, so now two pieces of metal (arm) joined by some bolts to some motor and encased in plastic is a robot? And this is 2013 when we were supposed to be on flying cars and have robo-hookers. You suck humanity!
Re:Why do you need a "robot"? (Score:4, Funny)
Because it has a head and Angry eyebrows, and glowing yellow eyes. Why build a machine that can be considered a tool to make your life easier, when you can build a robot that does the same thing and look like it will overthrow you during the next uprising.
Re:Why do you need a "robot"? (Score:5, Insightful)
A vending machine cooking dried (ramen-style) noodles will not dispense the same quality product as noodles made using traditional methods, which is what this robot does.
Re:Why do you need a "robot"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Robots are like asteroids.
We need to keep an eye on every single one, lest we overlook the one that will destroy all humanity.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a given that with advancing technology jobs will become obsolete while others will replace them. But the jobs replacing the obsolete ones will require higher skill. You can't simply move a worker that did some menial job earlier to a position that requires specialized training.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:I for one (Score:5, Funny)
Becasue nothing makes you feel like a man then having humans do menial work for you.