Artificial Intelligence & Wendy’s
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AI will take some fast food jobs, but it won't affect the overall availability of labor that much. We're deep into the automation game and there's still a lot of slack in the labor market. The fear mongering over automation and AI is nothing more than another chapter in a developing economy. It will make everyone's life mostly better and there will still be plenty of jobs at all levels of the ability spectrum. The other side of the story is that fast food is a significant source of morbidity and mortality in western countries. It's poison in a box and it shortens life spans. It could disappear tommorrow and we'd all be better off.
All I can tell you is that in other parts of the Country, like the upper mid west , fast food places are mostly staffed with older retired folks trying to supplement their retirement income. Their service is polite, accurate, and reasonably quick. Around here, it’s pretty much the opposite on all points.
Nothing can. Because of the corporate requirements and how ****** the cleaning process is of that machine.
Just to note, all other fast food places use the same machine and they don't have issues.
If it is, it will invent case law that doesn't exist and quote it. Seriously. AI really does this.
It wasnt an inevitable change due to technology progressing, its because people pushed for higher wages- got it.**
I do like the term 'living wage' when used disparagingly. Like, do you want the opposite?...cuz thats a dead wage, or at best its an unlivable wage. I get it- that level of pay and type of job, in your view, is not meant to fully fund the basic lifestyle of an adult. You view it as what should be a temporary stop on the way to more permanent and consistent work.
Thats cool, and I often view it thru that lens too, but reality doesnt fully support your view anymore. That many people cant realistically transition to higher pay with more consistent hours because not enough people are moving out of those jobs. Its a simple to see bottleneck when you step back and look without bias.
Anyways, the blame in your post makes it read like you arent aware there are literal centuries of pay and working condition struggles between low level employees and management/owners.
If you really believe that AI is going to put a lot of low skill people out of a job, doesn't pushing it to happen faster than the market would dictate seems like a risky policy for low productivity workers, to say the least? I think I'd rather let the market dictate it, although certainly it's possible that by accelerating the issue by essentially outlawing low productivity employees, we are making people in general better off on the backs of the low productivity employees that aren't going to be able to be employed legally at a profit.
Living wage is a great marketing ploy. Absolutely meaningless (lots of people live on less than "living" wage) but it sounds really nice and as you said, makes people without a lot of logic or knowledge on the subject view arguing against a "living wage" as heartless.
That's all the more reason to not force them into unemployment by mandating a productivity floor. If you want to help them, wage subsidies or the EITC (basically the same economically except for the timing of when the worker gets it; only a question of which is more susceptible to fraud).
Devil's advocate. People are living too long and too much of our population (the olds and the very olds) are living well beyond their usefulness to society. If we aren't going to push the social safety net and public pensions out to 72-75, then I say more fast food is a useful tool.
That is certainly the case historically but the transition isn't necessarily painless. Also, productivity gains in the past have generally been sector by sector. It seems likely that AI will make huge swaths of the population more or less unemployable doing what they are doing right now. I also think there's been a cultural shift against utilizing a lot of low wage workers in people's personal life. I knew several people that basically had full time maids in their house growing up. That seems much less common now, even as the affluence of people I know has grown. I think it's just uncomfortable for a lot of people. Not sure that's a huge deal. I think as people become richer because of AI, you will see them spend more money on services like massages, manicures, lawncare, house cleaning, etc. But I don't think you'll see a lot of people that could afford it hire full time assistants/maids/grounds keeper, etc. I don't know. Maybe if the quality of workers willing to do that work goes up because of AI, you will see people want to do it more. Certainly I think you could see a lot more seniors be able to afford sitters/aids, but that assumes they or one of their children or relatives has stayed employable and enjoyed the benefits of AI without bearing any costs personally.
Or just do away with them entirely and replace them with means tested welfare. Or if you're not going to means test, put everybody at the minimum benefit. It's absurd to tax the working poor to pay extra money to well off retirees.
How's all those self-driving cars going?
And, my spellchecker still doesn't work for shite.
"AI" is just hype.
I was reading the birth rates are plummeting globally. 2023 was the US's lowest number of new babies in a century. This may even itself out.
That's the next step in increasing our longevity - making the extra years actual quality years and not just dragging us along. I really have no interest in adding 15 years to my life if they are ****** years where I'm not productive and fixing this or that ailment every few months.
Give me 15 extra where I'm healthy, low cost, and productive (potentially even more productive due to wisdom that's leveraged) - sign me up for that.
This book is a pretty good read. Author is probably overly ambitious in what's going to happen in the near future but it's cool to learn about all the advances in health/longevity we will make with gene therapies, etc. AI will no doubt speed that up. But as I said...we need those extra years to be healthy and productive - not a financial drain on society. Could be a net win for humanity but a lot of ethical and financial planning questions to answer as humans push triple digits in lifespan.
Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To
It’s a seemingly undeniable truth that aging is inevita…
There were 3.591 births in '23 per the CDC.
This shows there were 3.66MM births in '21(and has a chart for recent years).
This shows there were some years in the 70s with fewer births, but you have to go back to the mid-40s and earlier for consistently fewer births.
Pretty interesting. While last year wouldnt be the fewest births in a century, it sure as hell is a serious drop in total live births, especially considering the substantial rise in population since the mid-40s.
Gonna be interesting to see how daycares, schools, etc adopt to this change in the coming decade, and how universities and employers adopt to the change in the coming decades.
Exactly. We can disagree on the philosophy of minimum wage, and those in favor can say, "Yeah, but losing jobs due to technological progress was inevitable." But they should at least be able to admit that pushing minimum wage increases while technology made certain workers obsolete was a miscalculation. Instead, they'll be pushing a new government program to address the problem.
I may have misquoted. It could have been lowest birth rate in a century, since, as you point out, there are more people in the US and the World than there were in 1940 or 1970. I'd have to go back and find the article.
And philosophy be damned, if you are a healthy able bodied human sitting in a minimum wage job slinging fries waiting for the government to give you a raise, you are going to struggle in life in any country with any compensation philosophy. Try harder.
I generally hate pull yourself up by your bootstraps arguments, but how hard is it to quit Wendy's and stock shelves or run the register Buccees for 18/hr with a good chance at moving up? Want more money? It's there for the taking. It's hard for me to feel too bad when you know there are low skill jobs out there with employers that will train you, provide benefits, and pay more than 2x minimum wage for jobs that aren't going to break your back. Buccees is just an example. There's still plenty of other low skill / low ed opportunities out there.
Wait, so your position is that pushing MW increases was a mistake...because it's created a current situation where MW unskilled workers can't find jobs? Or are you saying that AI is definitely going to change the employment situation at some future point and thus current wage levels are a mistake?
Agree. As I said in another post, the people hurt by minimum wage laws are the people earning minimum wage who are convinced they shouldn't have to level up.
Yeah, birth rate is probably lowest in a century- I think even up to the 60s there were almost 4 births per woman and now its like 1.5 or something.
My earlier post wasnt really intended to counter your comment- it was really interesting to see and the numbers still back up what you said- births are down bigly.
Probably a much better direction to go than being forced to pay kids $20/hr to mess up my order.
On a related note, self-checkout did not lower prices, and now grocery stores have even MORE employees, because they’re constantly in my way on every damn isle grabbing lazy 17ers stuff and taking it to their car for them.
The nice people will actually get their asss off the seat to open the suv hatch for them**
And then biitch about the cost of groceries
As multiple people have said in the thread, minimum wage laws accelerate the incentive to reduce labor costs using technology. Are you pretending not to understand this?
Naw, my wife and I worked and paid into Social Security for just over 50 years each. We are now receiving our benefits for our combined 100 plus years of paying in. Y’all all just work harder and insure that our checks are on time every month. Also, we want another cost of living raise! Thank you for your monthly contribution. We preciate y’all.
Multiple posters seem to be hung up on the idea that AI automation is coming faster than it otherwise would for entry service jobs, because lower wage employees have pushed for their hourly pay to rise.
This is just such a goofy 17ing take.
- EVERYONE's wages should have risen over the last 4+ years because costs have risen so much.
- These posters should, I would think, expect EVERYONE to want and try to be paid as much as they can be paid for their labor. That is a basic drive in compensation for labor.
- Fast Food service jobs have historically been jobs with high turnover and inconsistent/unreliable labor. Companies have tried to automate for years now- it isnt simply because entry workers are now paid more- its for a number of factors beyond just pay.
- There has been a general labor imbalance in Fast Food for years now- its been a debilitating shortage, then it was just an inconvenient shortage, then it turned into a regional issue or seasonal issue. Thru all of it though has been a constant- a need for more workers. This goes to grocery and other commodity retailers too, and its a large reason for the rise of automated checkouts and reduced staffing to stock shelves etc.
- If wages and wealth for the top 20% continue to surge and the wealth gap continues to widen, the demand for more pay at the bottom will only continue to grow. Its a simple reality of the 'haves vs have nots'- when the haves become both fewer and wealthier, pushback increases.
Shaming and blaming low paid workers for multi-national companies trying to automate to reduce wage costs is the goofiest thing on SPS so far this week.
...but its only Monday, so I am sure multiple other ideas will be goofier.
This is just such a goofy 17ing take.
- EVERYONE's wages should have risen over the last 4+ years because costs have risen so much.
- These posters should, I would think, expect EVERYONE to want and try to be paid as much as they can be paid for their labor. That is a basic drive in compensation for labor.
- Fast Food service jobs have historically been jobs with high turnover and inconsistent/unreliable labor. Companies have tried to automate for years now- it isnt simply because entry workers are now paid more- its for a number of factors beyond just pay.
- There has been a general labor imbalance in Fast Food for years now- its been a debilitating shortage, then it was just an inconvenient shortage, then it turned into a regional issue or seasonal issue. Thru all of it though has been a constant- a need for more workers. This goes to grocery and other commodity retailers too, and its a large reason for the rise of automated checkouts and reduced staffing to stock shelves etc.
- If wages and wealth for the top 20% continue to surge and the wealth gap continues to widen, the demand for more pay at the bottom will only continue to grow. Its a simple reality of the 'haves vs have nots'- when the haves become both fewer and wealthier, pushback increases.
Shaming and blaming low paid workers for multi-national companies trying to automate to reduce wage costs is the goofiest thing on SPS so far this week.
...but its only Monday, so I am sure multiple other ideas will be goofier.
The alternative is still an inevitable reduction in low skilled work and those working are paid less up to the point when their jobs are eliminated.
When labor is viewed as a 'necessary evil' or even as 'a cost of doing business', then those with power will work to reduce labor costs thru automation.
It will happen regardless of if low wage workers push for higher pay, or if they stay quiet and keep their heads down.
To be clear, min wage laws are a result of low wage workers pushing for higher pay.
What will be absolutely hilarious is when this automation doesnt bring prices down for the end user, because there is no actual reason to think prices will drop across the board if/when AI ordering is fully implemented and X% of staffing is reduced.
Who will financially benefit?...not the unemployed and not the consumer.
The only person we should all protest Wendy’s to keep at all costs is whomever was running their Twitter handle with surgical brutality
This statement assumes that minimum wage laws work as intended.
Fun fact: Thomas Sowell called himself a Marxist until he did an analysis of the effects of minimum wage laws while working for the Department of Labor.
Anytime a food order is that large, there's bound to mistakes.****
Pretty sure working at Bucees takes more than just being an able bodied human. A huge disqualifier for a lot of people is just not being able to have a visible tattoo. Granted that's a self inflicted harm by a lot of people, but lots of people are genuinely stupid and/or have poor impulse control and they can't just flip a switch and not be those things. That said, while they might not be able to get a job making $18 plus benefits, if you will show up to work on time and work diligently following directions given to you, I don't know of anywhere that you won't make well over the federal minimum wage pretty quickly. Maybe in extremely rural, depressed areas? Can places in the delta fill jobs at the federal minimum wage?
We don’t have anyone on minimum wage. If we did, we wouldn’t have any employees.
In engineering economics we did a lot of this sort of analyses. The math is relatively simple. But you have three options here. All three have a cost. Not increase pay. Meaning fewer/worse workers translating into losses, increase pay meaning higher costs, or research AI ordering which has a cost, but also a benefit of not having to pay anybody to take orders. You take the cost of all three, shift them into a present value, and go with the lowest cost option.
Eliminating people from the work flow is rapidly, if not already becoming the lowest cost option.
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