Robot Chefs replace workers at chinese restaurant

[GivePeaceAChance]

Saw this in my feed and i thought this was one of the coolest things... I dont have enough posts to put a link here so


Bartenders, waiters, and noodle-makers have all already been replaced by robots in China, so one restaurant is taking it a step further with a fleet of robot chefs: The BBC reports a traditional Chinese restaurant in the Heilongjiang Province stocks its kitchen with robot chefs who are (slowly) "stir-frying up a storm."

According to the restaurant manager, employees simply stock the pantry and shelves with ingredients and "press one button, then the robot can handle it all." It appears there's a human runner on staff, but robots also serve as waiters. As one customer tells the BBC: "The dishes taste just as those made by human chefs. If no one tells me, I think people won't see the difference." Go, watch the robots in action:

[theworks]

That sounds really coo; I wish they would do that in my restaurant.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Yes, all those unemployed service workers will be the coolest fucking thing since... I don't know, Detroit becoming what it is today! Fuck yeah!

[motion denied]

More pressure against workers.

Keep on struggling for benefits, you just might become more expensive than a machine...

[sosolo]

Although I hate to see things like this under capitalism, in socialism automation would free loads of workers to either work on something more interesting, or for everyone to work less.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

I hate service industry automation for two reasons. One, as previously noted, they are designed to replace people and to deprive them of their livelihood. As a result, capitalists increase productivity and their profits without the need to hire much labor. To the degree there was ever any fairness in the system, the sudden worthlessness of human labor eliminates it.

Second, it eliminates human contact in day-to-day life. I like greeting and chatting with store clerks and public sector works. Replacing them with machines makes the world just a bit more lonely. I hate those self-serve registers at the supermarket. When invited to use one instead of a live cashier, my prepared response is, "Sure, as soon as it gets a union card." This all started with self-serve gasoline in the 1970s.

[RedMaterialist]

"Chef Mike" = microwave

[ComradeOm]

Yes, all those unemployed service workers will be the coolest fucking thing since... I don't know, Detroit becoming what it is today! Fuck yeah!I know what you mean. I still can't get over at how those 19th C weavers were made unemployed by mechanised looms. Gods, sometimes I get so angry I just want to start smashing machines up. Damn you, Industrial Revolution! *Shakes fist*

[ckaihatsu]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchboard_operator


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Telephone_operators%2C_1952.jpg/220px-Telephone_operators%2C_1952.jpg
Telephone operators, 1952

In the early days of telephony, through roughly the 1960s, companies used manual telephone switchboards and switchboard operators connected each call by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks. Each pair of plugs was part of a cord circuit with a switch associated that let the operator participate in the call. Each jack had a light above it that lit when the telephone receiver was lifted (the earliest systems required a generator on the phone to be cranked by hand). Lines from the central office were usually arranged along the bottom row. Before the advent of operator distance dialing and customer Direct Dial (DDD) calling, switchboard operators would work with their counterparts in the distant central office to complete long distance calls. With the development of computerized telephone dialing systems, many telephone calls which previously required a live operator can be placed automatically by the calling party without additional human intervention. Switchboard operators are typically required to have very strong communication skills.[1][2]

[Skyhilist]

This is one of those things that should be good but isn't because of capitalism. Less work should be a good thing. But it can't now because it fucks over workers.

[Lynx]

This is gimmicky and is not an example of robotics. A noodle-slicing machine isn't about to render food service jobs obsolete.

[Quail]

I know what you mean. I still can't get over at how those 19th C weavers were made unemployed by mechanised looms. Gods, sometimes I get so angry I just want to start smashing machines up. Damn you, Industrial Revolution! *Shakes fist*

I think it's perfectly understandable to resent machines that replace workers. Under capitalism all it means is that capitalists can make more money while hiring fewer workers. Working in the service sector is probably not many people's idea of fun (I was a waitress/shop assistant for a while), but it's better than having no job because robots are doing your job.

[ComradeOm]

Let's be clear: I have every sympathy with someone who is laid off because of machines. That's never a fun place to be.

But while people can be upset, intellectually there is no real justification for this. If a machine is more efficient then the machine does the work. Otherwise you start railing against automatic switchboards and self-checkouts and tractors and the entirety of modern society. And only a nutter wants to return to a pre-mechanisation age.

The irony is of course that I'm not at all impressed with the case in hand. I don't know about anyone else here but I'd never take a date, for example, to a fancy restaurant staffed by robots. On the opposite side of the scale, it must be hard to justify the capital cost of the robots in a low-margin eatery. So I don't see this catching on at all.

[Thirsty Crow]

But while people can be upset, intellectually there is no real justification for this. If a machine is more efficient then the machine does the work. Otherwise you start railing against automatic switchboards and self-checkouts and tractors and the entirety of modern society. And only a nutter wants to return to a pre-mechanisation age.

I think you've got a serious problem here.

Intellectually, the justification for being damn pissed because of this situation and connecting it to automation is hardly necessary; it's part and parcel of an immediate class response, and when this connection to automation is made it is a proposition that is in fact true.

But you assume that this necessarily, or at least very likely, leads to a complete rejection of technology and modern society; as if workers who got canned just have a nasty primitivist alter ego waiting to pop out. I don't actually think this is the case, or at least that interaction between worker militants and communists, and broader members of the class might dispel any such notions.

Along these lines, I don't even think it is correct to view the historical Luddites in this way; after all, class struggle and the means it placed at such people's disposal was absolutely limited, and sabotage along such attitudes did become a part of it really.

And of course, it's not a question of efficiency, but of labor costs and costs on capital forwarded.

[ComradeOm]

Intellectually, the justification for being damn pissed because of this situation and connecting it to automation is hardly necessary; it's part and parcel of an immediate class response, and when this connection to automation is made it is a proposition that is in fact true.Elaborate.


But you assume that this necessarily, or at least very likely, leads to a complete rejection of technology and modern society; as if workers who got canned just have a nasty primitivist alter ego waiting to pop outOn what basis are we to support the rejection of machines in favour of manual labour in Case A but not Case B? Why is automation to be forbidden or deplored in the case of service sector jobs but not when it replaces workers on the factory floor? And if it is equally unacceptable to make factory workers unemployed via mechanisation then what of agriculture? And so on and so forth.

Nobody here is celebrating people losing their jobs but nor can anybody question the logic of mechanisation. Questioning the impact of technology now, in this case, is an implicit condemnation of those decades of industrial progress.


Along these lines, I don't even think it is correct to view the historical Luddites in this way; after all, class struggle and the means it placed at such people's disposal was absolutely limited, and sabotage along such attitudes did become a part of it reallyAnd I never suggested that they should. The Luddite attitude is, ironically, a modern one. It's only in recent decades that 'machine breaking' has come to be seen by some supposed 'leftists' as somehow progressive. Actual historical Luddism was simply rick-burning - a tactical response to depression in a proto-industrial context.


And of course, it's not a question of efficiency, but of labor costs and costs on capital forwarded.These machines can, presumably, produce more meals in a set time at a lower cost. Ignoring my reservations as to quality and the capital cost, then that counts as efficiency.

And let's not pretend that this is ever going to change in anything other than a post-scarcity environment. That's what increasing the productive forces of society means - the ability to do more with less.

[Thirsty Crow]

Elaborate.The primary situation and workers' response is that of being fucking pissed.
Then comes the connection with the automation - the present state of anxious insecurity due to unemployment and meager living is tied to automation in thinking.

If we stop here with the description of the process - there's no basis to dispute any of these two aspects. Not an intellectual basis, not a class basis if we to think from a proletarian class position. This is my point.

You said:


But while people can be upset, intellectually there is no real justification for this. If a machine is more efficient then the machine does the work. Otherwise you start railing against automatic switchboards and self-checkouts and tractors and the entirety of modern society. And only a nutter wants to return to a pre-mechanisation age. "This" in the first sentence is a bit unclear to me, but I take it that you're referring to being upset due to being pushed out of unemployment due to automation.

But this I believe to be a false move on your behalf as you already assume a full blown primitivist, anti-technology, pro-manual labor in general attitude. As I said, I think that this is were you go wrong as this is a big, big assumption. I'd much sooner say that this resentment is a kind of a individual class response to what happens - not that I think it cannot go wrong and in the direction you outline. But I do think this isn't as likely as you make it out to be.

And the other bolded part concerns that likelihood, and it seems to me that you're making the case that it is extremely likely. As I said, this is a huge and also an unwarranted assumption.

There are some other points as well.


Nobody here is celebrating people losing their jobs but nor can anybody question the logic of mechanisation. Questioning the impact of technology now, in this case, is an implicit condemnation of those decades of industrial progress.

I didn't say that anybody was celebrating this.

But I think that the logic of mechanisation isn't something different from the logic of capital - it's one and the same process, or if you will, automation is one side of the process. And surely I'd hope that communists would question this logic, rigorously expose its effects on the working class and advocate a total social overhaul in interaction with workers and the unemployed - which doesn't presuppose a primitivist attitude at all.


It's only in recent decades that 'machine breaking' has come to be seen by some supposed 'leftists' as somehow progressive.
I don't think that anyone apart from trendy irrationalists and technophobes in the leftist academia and some kind of primitivists view this as progressive; on the other hand, I think it's vital to see in these kinds of actions something other than a primitive and unrestrained lashing out. As I said, it's a kind of a class response which should not and cannot be dismissed by communists in such a way, especially in relation to more recent events of this kind.


Questioning the impact of technology now, in this case, is an implicit condemnation of those decades of industrial progress.This connection is only part of your own reasoning; there's nothing really implicit about it.

On the other hand, I think it's vital for communists to be aware of the processes capital uses to ensure its profitable accumulation; this is one of them. Therefore, it would not only be anything like you say, but also vital to question the impact of technology now.


These machines can, presumably, produce more meals in a set time at a lower cost. Ignoring my reservations as to quality and the capital cost, then that counts as efficiency.
And I don't understand how is it so easy to adopt the standpoint of capital in handling a term like "efficiency". I'd say that something completely the opposite would be the route for communists; to unearth the way the notion is used and in relation to what phenomena, with the aim of criticism.


That's what increasing the productive forces of society means - the ability to do more with less.
Do you think that increasing social productivity in the context of a hypothetical period of transition to communism will have increased unemployment and other consequences it definitely has now?

[ComradeOm]

"This" in the first sentence is a bit unclear to me, but I take it that you're referring to being upset due to being pushed out of unemployment due to automation.Then let me clarify. "This" is the next step in that thought process: that an environment in which jobs are threatened by automation, the fault lies with automation. That was not directed at the chefs in question but the commentary in this thread.


But I think that the logic of mechanisation isn't something different from the logic of capital - it's one and the same process, or if you will, automation is one side of the process. And surely I'd hope that communists would question this logic, rigorously expose its effects on the working class and advocate a total social overhaul in interaction with workers and the unemployed - which doesn't presuppose a primitivist attitude at all.I disagree that they are one and the same. The advance of technology, and the impact on society, is, barring something cataclysmic, inexorable. The application of said technology, in the pursuit of capital accumulation, is a different matter entirely. I've already said that I see little future in this particular use of robotics.


Do you think that increasing social productivity in the context of a hypothetical period of transition to communism will have increased unemployment and other consequences it definitely has now?That would be pretty silly, no? But then would anyone assume that this would be the result? That the engine of capitalism, with its private profits and need for reserve labour, would operate in the same way as that of socialism? I'm slightly baffled as to why the question would even be asked.

Unless of course one starts from the assumption that increasing efficiency and productiveness is an inherently capitalist feature and that it is impossible to work to such ends without 'adopting the standpoint of capital'. Which I would deny entirely. The principles of efficiency are as valid under socialism as they are capitalism; it is the purpose and impact of them that varies.

[synthesis]

LinksRadikal and ComradeOm, I don't really see any mutually acceptable resolution to your discussion that isn't essentially a roundabout restatement of this post:


This is one of those things that should be good but isn't because of capitalism. Less work should be a good thing. But it can't now because it fucks over workers.

I mean, nobody expects anybody to take the replacement of their jobs by machines sitting down. But I think the automation of labor is perhaps the one connate and truly inevitable "forward" tendency of capitalism. (I say "forward" because "progressive" has positive connotations I really don't want foisted onto that statement; think "stagist" but hopefully not as reductionistic.) The replacement of more and more jobs by machines just seems completely ineluctable to me, and only a useful cause for communists insofar as fighting it is something to organize the working class around, not as an end in itself.

[synthesis]

I'm also genuinely curious how people would answer this question: why is it that when workers lose their jobs due to automation, it's a cause for concern among communists, but when they lose their jobs due to "immigrants who are willing to do the work for less pay," it's "tough shit"? I'm not in any way suggesting that we should be reacting any differently; these immigrants are also workers, of course, and any communist who attacks immigration in the same way that automation is attacked is rejecting the core concepts of internationalism in the most reactionary and repugnant way possible, with the possible exception of vitriolic imperialist chauvinism.

But the attitudes towards workers who lose their jobs due to automation and those towards workers who lose their jobs due to immigration seem completely contrary to one another, and I'm wondering why that is. (This question of course elides the fact that both are engineered by and for the bourgeoisie; I'm just asking for surface-level answers to a surface-level question.)

[Thirsty Crow]

Then let me clarify. "This" is the next step in that thought process: that an environment in which jobs are threatened by automation, the fault lies with automation. That was not directed at the chefs in question but the commentary in this thread.
Okay, I get it what is, or could be problematic in this kind of an argument. What I would insist on is connecting automation - the immediate cause of joblessness in this case - with the way capital works; it's not that automation is inherently destructive and no matter the social conditions of its implementation. But I don't think anyone can deny that under conditions of labor being subsumed by capital automation indeed is a) a result of the capitalist process of chasing profit (doesn't at all mean that every innovation in this will be actually successful) and b) destructive for the working class (especially in conditions of sluggish growth, low investment and unemployment of today).


I disagree that they are one and the same. It's a mattter of formulation really. I'd rather say that automation is one side of the capitalist process in general.


The advance of technology, and the impact on society, is, barring something cataclysmic, inexorable. The application of said technology, in the pursuit of capital accumulation, is a different matter entirely.Well yes, I'm primarily concerned with this "application", the social effects of this; I also think that profitability and applicability in the production process plays a big role as ideal goals in earlier stages of research programs being set as well.


That would be pretty silly, no? But then would anyone assume that this would be the result?Because you don't assume it, and are correct not to assume it, it seems to me that you're also doing what I think ought to be done - discussing the "application", though you're more concerned with a potential negative route here in some forms of primitivism and technophobia. I get it, and agree with you, but the initial formulation that one can't question technology is what I find misleading since technology can't be separated from its impact really (which means that when we collectively make a radically different kind of social conditions of technological application, the impact will change greatly). The very existence of technology and the technical side to these things, yeah I don't think this can be meaningfully questioned here.


I'm slightly baffled as to why the question would even be asked.
It was a rhetorical question that meant to flesh out my focal point in this discussion in a better way


Unless of course one starts from the assumption that increasing efficiency and productiveness is an inherently capitalist feature and that it is impossible to work to such ends without 'adopting the standpoint of capital'. Which I would deny entirely.Sure, I agree.

But:

The principles of efficiency are as valid under socialism as they are capitalism; it is the purpose and impact of them that varies.These aren't at all the same principles of efficiency then if the very purpose and impact varies. That's also what I'm saying.


LinksRadikal and ComradeOm, I don't really see any mutually acceptable resolution to your discussion that isn't essentially a roundabout restatement of this post:

I agree, and I think COm and I also agree; the discussion was, at least when I'm concerned, centered on some details.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm also genuinely curious how people would answer this question: why is it that when workers lose their jobs due to automation, it's a cause for concern among communists,


I'll stop you right here and question your whole premise -- as communists we objectively *can't* bring a personalized line to every worker who loses their job to automation. We all know, and could state as much, that this process of job losses due to automation is inherent to the drive for profit, and will continue to take place as long as the capitalist mode of production is in place.

(It almost sounds like there's an expectation for communists to show up with flowers and consolation cards at the home of anyone who gets canned due to automation, the way this is worded.)

Our 'concern' is as ever -- that the workers of the world be able to collectively control *all* implements of mass production, so that the innate human process of developing new tools can be done fully *consciously*, in a planned way, rather than left to the vagaries of the markets.

Also, please note this observation of yours:





[T]he fact [is] that both [the loss of jobs due to automation and the loss of jobs due to immigration] are engineered by and for the bourgeoisie

[Sea]

Yes, all those unemployed service workers will be the coolest fucking thing since... I don't know, Detroit becoming what it is today! Fuck yeah!Problem is, this is just silly.

The automatic loom was.. well.. that's the obvious one.
I hate to say it, but ckaihatsu has a point about switchboard operators. The disappointing lack of an incomprehensible diagram to accompany the point shall be overlooked for now.
The widespread adoption of ball bearings in replacement of journal bearings has all but obsoleted the oiler.
So-called human calculators are no longer in demand at places like CERN because of computers (not that they were ever in super-high demand anywhere anyway)


Oh, and the Amish would probably like to have a word with you too. I'd love to patch you through to one, but I seem to be the only person at the switchboard so there will be a considerable delay. I have had no luck in getting them to adopt iPhones.

[ComradeOm]

But I don't think anyone can deny that under conditions of labor being subsumed by capital automation indeed is a) a result of the capitalist process of chasing profit (doesn't at all mean that every innovation in this will be actually successful) and b) destructive for the working class (especially in conditions of sluggish growth, low investment and unemployment of today).I fully agree with 'a' (although the same can be said of almost any innovation under capitalism) but am ambivalent towards 'b'.

We act as if this is the first time that this has happened. The reality is that this process of automating is inherent in capitalism (or indeed progress in general). Driving the peasants off the fields, the very establishment of factories, early robotics in automotive industries, today's robot chefs, etc, etc. We've gone through several waves of this automation in the past two-three centuries. Which is why I'm keen on stressing the historical aspect to this: it is nothing new.

Now this process has always caused hardship in the short-term (certainly in the cases of those losing their jobs) but it's part and parcel of the expansion of society's productive forces. The latter has allowed new roles to emerge as economies evolve and grow. In terms of work, leaving aside pay and conditions, these new jobs are rarely worse than the old: people like to complain about retail work but I've certainly not found it worse than a shift on an assembly line. Go back to the early 20th C and it was precisely the increasing mechanisation (ie, automation) of industry that allowed for the tremendous growth of the industrial base in those decades. This is a form of creative destruction and I don't see automation per se as corrosive towards the working class.

What is perhaps new is the inability of this late capitalism in which we live to create these new jobs. That's a whole bigger issue. But even there the problem is not automation but the wider breakdown of capitalism and its failure to progress.


It's a mattter of formulation really. I'd rather say that automation is one side of the capitalist process in general.Sure. In the sense that all progress over the past few centuries (from technology to modern healthcare systems) is part of capitalism. There's no contradiction there.


These aren't at all the same principles of efficiency then if the very purpose and impact varies. That's also what I'm saying.In their explicit form, perhaps. But, without getting too far into semantics, when you boil efficiency right down to the bones then it becomes 'do more with less', a concept that is pretty timeless.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

This is one of those things that should be good but isn't because of capitalism. Less work should be a good thing. But it can't now because it fucks over workers.

^^This.

Interesting to see all the closet primitivists coming out, by the way. Critiquing technology instead of capitalism. Nice.

[ckaihatsu]

I hate to say it, but ckaihatsu has a point about switchboard operators. The disappointing lack of an incomprehensible diagram to accompany the point shall be overlooked for now.


And, for the viewers out there in Internet Land, those "incomprehensible diagrams" would be at:

tinyurl.com/ckaihatsu-diagrams-revleft

http://www.revleft.com/vb/political-educational-diagrams-t111586/index.html