In California, a machine has been developed to prepare and serve made-to-order hamburgers and it probably intones, “Do … you …want …fries … with … that?”
This is bad news for patty-flippers.
“Our device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient,” the machine’s creator admits. “It’s meant to completely obviate them.”
Burger Doodle workers aren’t the only endangered species. Some forecasts are that half the workers in this country eventually could be replaced by technology. No matter how irreplaceable you think you may be, you too could be obviated.
Which raises lots of questions.
“What if, say, the bottom quarter of the population in the United States and Europe simply couldn’t find a job at a wage that would cover the cost of basic staples?” the Times story posited. “What if smart-learning machines took out lawyers and bankers? Or even, God forbid, journalists and economists?” While a world without bankers, lawyers and economists has a definite appeal, I’m sure we all can agree that a world without journalists is too terrifying to consider.
One answer is that, instead of working for a salary, we all could take the rest of our lives off and receive a stipend called a Universal Basic Income. That money, theoretically, would come from the profits reaped by the robots’ owners. Sort of like that wall on the border will be paid for by Mexico.
But regardless of whose jobs would be eliminated and how incomes would be distributed, the question that remains unanswered is:
What are those millions of formerly-employed humans going to do all day?
Charity work? There won’t be enough poor people to go around because everybody will be getting that Universal Basic Income thing. Golf? Getting a tee time is tough enough without all those unemployed bankers, lawyers and sushi-slicers clogging the courses.
Travel? Have you tried finding an empty seat on an airplane lately? None of those options appeal to me, so I probably should learn a back-up profession in case I become obviated.
I’m thinking stripper.
No matter how sophisticated technology becomes, who’s going to pay to watch a robot take off its clothes?
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