McDonald's ex-CEO just revealed a terrifying reality for fast-food workers

[werepossum]

Well I'm not surprised that 2010 data showed a higher percentage of adult workers given the economy at the time. More recent data shows that was likely a temporary spike:



http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2013/09/02/wsj-misreports-demographics-of-minimum-wage-workers/#cda403a7838f

She has a point though. Time was many older people worked this sort of job. The safety net grew deeper, relative wages grew smaller, and more of the jobs were filled by the very young, with automation used to reduce the required skill set. But each time we have a major recession, we seem to get back fewer of the better jobs. More older people move to disability or other welfare programs, our working percentage goes down, and more lower paying jobs are created for immigrants and the young. There is obviously a limit to that, so it seems likely that such jobs are going to swing back toward adults. Especially given likely minimum wage hikes; if one is forced to pay $12 or even $15 plus benefits, one must either replace these employees or exercise much higher standards to get sufficient benefit.

Bit off topic, but even when the jobs don't leave, they often become worse paying. A local chair factory switched from piece pay (where employees made over $20 an hour, else they could not keep up with production) to $10 flat rates with mostly illegals and visa hires. A West Tennessee meat plant did the same thing, and when busted literally hundreds of Americans and legal residents showed up to get these jobs at the lower pay. A local school system switched from employing janitors to employing a service, and although the system pays roughly $12 per hour and no benefits versus $15 and benefits before, the actual janitors now receive roughly $8 and no benefits. This same thing is playing out all over America. We are moving into a modern serfdom where a very large slice of society is effectively stuck at near-minimum wage levels.

 

[Jaskalas]

Exactly that Werepossum.

Capitalism is extracting the value out of labor and we're hitting critical mass. The America with decent wages that we grew up in, that our parents worked in, that country no longer exists. Today we are a lesser nation of greater poverty and government dependents.

Worst part is we're not done. Wages can, and will, continue to get worse.

 

[Jeff7]

Exactly that Werepossum.

Capitalism is extracting the value out of labor and we're hitting critical mass. The America with decent wages that we grew up in, that our parents worked in, that country no longer exists. Today we are a lesser nation of greater poverty and government dependents.

Worst part is we're not done. Wages can, and will, continue to get worse.

One of the ideas is "bring manufacturing back."
Manufacturing often gets placed or viewed differently from "service sector jobs," and is held in a higher regard.
Isn't manufacturing just a service though? Here's raw material. I'll pay you for the service of turning it into something else. And honestly, if I didn't have to pay for the service, I wouldn't. I just want the thing. Well what happens if most of that service is done by machines?

I guess the distinction is that a "durable good" has been produced. How long do manufactured things stick around for nowadays though? It's not like 100 years ago when someone would hand-craft a nice steel bucket that you'll keep the rest of your life. There are many things made now that might last several months or maybe a year or two, and then you buy another one. The purchase price may be low, but you're buying it again and again, more like you're renting or leasing that steel bucket.

Basic labor has always been something humanity's sought, even to the point of kidnapping people and forcing them into lifelong slavery.
Now we're realizing the generations-long dream of a society where that labor doesn't require people at all, but I don't think we quite know how to have a society like that. (If someone figured out cheap fusion power and how to make Star Trek style food replicators, then what? How would society handle it without the need for most food services, when you could just talk to a box on a countertop and it would make any food you'd want in several seconds?)



"A nation of greater poverty." There's also standard of living to consider. I feel like to accurately assess that, you'd have to buy a 1950s or 1960s standard of living and then see how much money is left.
No cable TV, no satellite, no cellphone, no Internet. OTA TV on a small screen.
There's just that huge wealth gap thing that turns up so often, not only in these sorts of discussions, but it also shows up constantly throughout human history. It seems like that may just be the normal tendency of a society, unless it remains vigilant about it. There can, and I think should, always be some inequality. Some. But it needs to be kept bounded to ensure that it doesn't become extreme. (Yes, "bounded" and "extreme" are not easy to define, and must be adjusted periodically.) That's where my often-used term of negative feedback comes in. Stuff like progressive taxes are a way of effecting that sort of feedback for the sake of long-term stability.



....sort of side-tracked there. Oh well.

 

[slugg]

15x40x50 = 30k a year

10x40x50 = 20k a year

Robot arm costs 35k

Not sure why they wouldn't do the robot arms at 10 a hour. They would make the money back in 2 years.

The robotic arm doesn't need training, health insurance, or sick pay. It's also a 100% write-off.

 

[theeedude]

The main issue is that money in exchange for work is the reward system of our society.
If there is no demand for most people's work, because AI and robots can do it cheaper/better, then the reward system breaks down. Then the question is how do you reward people and for what?

 

[Exterous]

But each time we have a major recession, we seem to get back fewer of the better jobs.

I don't know about total numbers but there seems to be a lot of support out there for the idea that, collectively, our job seeking focus has its share of the blame. It's not that the better jobs aren't there but that people don't want them. Anecdotally I know SE Michigan is having issues finding skilled trades or even unskilled labor that wants to be trained. Lots of stories about manufacturing floors, plumbers etc having a hard time finding workers despite paying above average wages. Two of my brother-in-laws are constantly complaining about the long hours as a lineman and a welder because they can never hire enough workers despite wages well above national and local averages.

Less anecdotally we have reports like this on the 50,000 trucker shortfall:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/09/news/economy/truck-driver-shortage/?iid=EL

Or this one about plumbers:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/01/news/economy/america-job-skills-gap-apprentice/?iid=EL

Or this one about electricians:
http://www.npr.org/2015/02/02/383335110/economists-say-millennials-should-consider-careers-in-trades

Not to mention the rise of foundations like Mike RoweWorks to try and train people to fill the growing number of unfilled skilled jobs - many of which start at higher salaries than a college grad and without the student loan debt.

Some say the market will correct and that those jobs just need to pay more. First, that's not a fast fix. The issue has to be prevalent enough to be noticed which is only made worse in this case as these jobs are at odds with the 'everyone should go to college' mantra that is so widely embraced. (And even if people don't think that 'everyone' should go to college they tend to think that their kid should). Second there needs to be an applicant available. If there isn't there needs to be training and a skilled trade isn't just something you plop someone into. It takes years to train.

So the slow pendulum swing will result in years of a gab where we have well paying jobs that we don't have workers for

 

[werepossum]

Exactly that Werepossum.

Capitalism is extracting the value out of labor and we're hitting critical mass. The America with decent wages that we grew up in, that our parents worked in, that country no longer exists. Today we are a lesser nation of greater poverty and government dependents.

Worst part is we're not done. Wages can, and will, continue to get worse.

Yup. For low skilled people, that is certainly true. However, highly skilled people are also being hit by visa scams and off-shoring. One can be a highly skilled tool and die maker or mold design engineer, but if the factories move to China, your job will very soon follow. And if your job cannot be easily off-shored . . . Time to declare it unfillable and bring in someone from India or China or Pakistan - at half the salary.

One of the ideas is "bring manufacturing back."
Manufacturing often gets placed or viewed differently from "service sector jobs," and is held in a higher regard.
Isn't manufacturing just a service though? Here's raw material. I'll pay you for the service of turning it into something else. And honestly, if I didn't have to pay for the service, I wouldn't. I just want the thing. Well what happens if most of that service is done by machines?

I guess the distinction is that a "durable good" has been produced. How long do manufactured things stick around for nowadays though? It's not like 100 years ago when someone would hand-craft a nice steel bucket that you'll keep the rest of your life. There are many things made now that might last several months or maybe a year or two, and then you buy another one. The purchase price may be low, but you're buying it again and again, more like you're renting or leasing that steel bucket.

Basic labor has always been something humanity's sought, even to the point of kidnapping people and forcing them into lifelong slavery.
Now we're realizing the generations-long dream of a society where that labor doesn't require people at all, but I don't think we quite know how to have a society like that. (If someone figured out cheap fusion power and how to make Star Trek style food replicators, then what? How would society handle it without the need for most food services, when you could just talk to a box on a countertop and it would make any food you'd want in several seconds?)

"A nation of greater poverty." There's also standard of living to consider. I feel like to accurately assess that, you'd have to buy a 1950s or 1960s standard of living and then see how much money is left.
No cable TV, no satellite, no cellphone, no Internet. OTA TV on a small screen.
There's just that huge wealth gap thing that turns up so often, not only in these sorts of discussions, but it also shows up constantly throughout human history. It seems like that may just be the normal tendency of a society, unless it remains vigilant about it. There can, and I think should, always be some inequality. Some. But it needs to be kept bounded to ensure that it doesn't become extreme. (Yes, "bounded" and "extreme" are not easy to define, and must be adjusted periodically.) That's where my often-used term of negative feedback comes in. Stuff like progressive taxes are a way of effecting that sort of feedback for the sake of long-term stability.

....sort of side-tracked there. Oh well.

Manufacturing is different because it is one of the few means of wealth creation, together with farming, fishing, mining, and probably a couple others. Everything else is simply wealth redistribution. Nothing inherently wrong with wealth redistribution - a society is damned unpleasant without such jobs, no matter how productive - but if a nation does not produce the wealth it consumes then it must sell off its inherent wealth. We are like a farmer who after years of struggling discovers that he can sell off a bit a land each year to supplement his income. Each year he sells a bit more and lives an ever-better lifestyle. But eventually he runs out of land - and farming is no longer an option.

Your other points are spot-on - there are a LOT more things to consume now. But as human animals, we tend to measure ourselves by our peers. It does little good to compare ourselves to people in Georgia (the nation) if we see people around us who aren't struggling as are we. We would likely all be better off to be less materialistic (well, maybe not Moonbeam) but faced with sliding potential to earn the American dream - a home, economic security, enough income to allow our kids to do better than did we - the lower half of society is definitely being squeezed and the upper half's non-financial/non-governmental/non-political members are increasingly being faced with that same squeeze.

I don't know about total numbers but there seems to be a lot of support out there for the idea that, collectively, our job seeking focus has its share of the blame. It's not that the better jobs aren't there but that people don't want them. Anecdotally I know SE Michigan is having issues finding skilled trades or even unskilled labor that wants to be trained. Lots of stories about manufacturing floors, plumbers etc having a hard time finding workers despite paying above average wages. Two of my brother-in-laws are constantly complaining about the long hours as a lineman and a welder because they can never hire enough workers despite wages well above national and local averages.

Less anecdotally we have reports like this on the 50,000 trucker shortfall:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/09/news/economy/truck-driver-shortage/?iid=EL

Or this one about plumbers:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/01/news/economy/america-job-skills-gap-apprentice/?iid=EL

Or this one about electricians:
http://www.npr.org/2015/02/02/383335110/economists-say-millennials-should-consider-careers-in-trades

Not to mention the rise of foundations like Mike RoweWorks to try and train people to fill the growing number of unfilled skilled jobs - many of which start at higher salaries than a college grad and without the student loan debt.

Some say the market will correct and that those jobs just need to pay more. First, that's not a fast fix. The issue has to be prevalent enough to be noticed which is only made worse in this case as these jobs are at odds with the 'everyone should go to college' mantra that is so widely embraced. (And even if people don't think that 'everyone' should go to college they tend to think that their kid should). Second there needs to be an applicant available. If there isn't there needs to be training and a skilled trade isn't just something you plop someone into. It takes years to train.

So the slow pendulum swing will result in years of a gab where we have well paying jobs that we don't have workers for

I'm in construction engineering and I face that daily. Some areas where we go in, the bids are simply unreal because every contractor has as much work as he can handle, so any additional work is going to require extraordinary efforts and must be highly lucrative to be worth taking. Speaking just for the areas I know, the bottleneck is in training. It generally takes seven years to produce a union electrician or plumber/steamfitter. Ramping up capacity is very expensive, so the training program has to accommodate the bust years as well as the boom years. Most years they typically turn away 2/3 to 3/4 of the applicants because their duty is to ALL the union members, not that particular class, and they have to balance the times guys are sitting on the bench with the times there aren't enough to g around.

 

[Fern]

Didn't the CBO estimate the loss of 500,000 jobs with a $10 min wage? If so, what's the effect of a $15 min wage?

Fern

 

[WhipperSnapper]

unfortunately it seems like many decided to just work at fast food to support families and are mad it's not working.

When you say "decide", are you implying that lots of higher paying jobs (say lower middle class wage factory work at $15/hour with benefits) are available and that these people have chosen fast food work over those better jobs? Are suggesting that jobs paying $15+/hour with benefits cannot find people to fill the jobs?

 

[bshole]

These are hard tasks to program, but can be machine learned with deep neural nets. You just need to tell the robot when it's doing it right and when it's doing it wrong, and over time, it will learn by itself to do it wrong less and less.
http://www.popsci.com/googles-robots-are-learning-hand-eye-coordination-with-artificial-intelligence

I took a course in neural networks when I was getting my master's degree. Never used it once since and I have been doing embedded programming for near 30 years. PID feedback has been sufficient for the stuff that I have controlled (transmissions, corrugated paper machinery and CO2 sensors). I guy I worked with tried fuzzy logic and scrapped it for PID.

As a software engineer I have never understood how people think real AI will ever happen. The machines basically do exactly what you tell them. The amount of "learning" they do is strictly limited and is NOTHING like human learning.

Here are five directions for knowing the limitations of computers as thinkers.

1. Computers can calculate anything but understand nothing.
2. Computers cannot truly create — only recombine what humans create.
3. Computers are strictly rational. A human mind owes its richness largely to non-rational aspects.
4. Computers have no insight. They are immune to “aha” moments.
5. Computers cannot relate to human existence at levels we most cherish — love, beauty, truth.

The success of our technologies depends largely on the fact that, while we were speculating about the possibility of ultraintelligence, we increasingly enveloped the world in so many devices, sensors, applications and data that it became an IT-friendly environment, where technologies can replace us without having any understanding, mental states, intentions, interpretations, emotional states, semantic skills, consciousness, self-awareness or flexible intelligence. Memory (as in algorithms and immense datasets) outperforms intelligence when landing an aircraft, finding the fastest route from home to the office, or discovering the best price for your next fridge.

 

[MrDudeMan]

The problem isn't a $15 minimum wage. The problem is having a minimum wage regardless of the dollar amount. It's a stupid concept that doesn't actually help.

 

[OutHouse]

we had a Pepsi machine at work that had a robotic arm that grabbed your bottle and put it in the dispenser. it was cool to watch when it worked.

 

[theeedude]

I took a course in neural networks when I was getting my master's degree. Never used it once since and I have been doing embedded programming for near 30 years. PID feedback has been sufficient for the stuff that I have controlled (transmissions, corrugated paper machinery and CO2 sensors). I guy I worked with tried fuzzy logic and scrapped it for PID.
As a software engineer I have never understood how people think real AI will ever happen. The machines basically do exactly what you tell them. The amount of "learning" they do is strictly limited and is NOTHING like human learning.

It doesn't need to be for most jobs. Self driving car computer doesn't need to know love, beauty, truth, or creativity. Manufacturing work is repeating production tasks defined by engineers.

 

[OutHouse]

you can build a machine that makes a burger with specifications. they are already made.

http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robot-2014-8

looks like a complicated mess that would be slow and impractical. I worked at mcdonalds when i was 16 once i got my groove on the grill i could bust out a lot of burgers during the rush hours.

 

[theeedude]

I think the people facing jobs like restaurants will be some of the last to be automated.

 

[spacejamz]

I think the people facing jobs like restaurants will be some of the last to be automated.

fast food restaurants or sit down restaurants???

 

[shortylickens]

Not sure why this thing keeps getting posted all over to begin with.

A robotic arm would run 24/7 just for starters, of course ...

I'm just off to elsewhere.

No sick days. Wont sexually harass coworkers. Doesnt get pregnant. Doesnt need a cigarette 10 times a day. Doesnt whine. Doesnt pee in the food. Probably doesnt spread as many germs. Doesnt necessarily need light or air conditioning.

 

[MongGrel]

No sick days. Wont sexually harass coworkers. Doesnt get pregnant. Doesnt need a cigarette 10 times a day. Doesnt whine. Doesnt pee in the food. Probably doesnt spread as many germs. Doesnt necessarily need light or air conditioning.

Yep.

Someone has to build and maintain those though. I was doing that as far back as the early 80's with several different types of robotic assembly lines.

Just the GMF arm with multiple tools that pick and place and glue components on an alternator was pretty slick.

GM sent a few things like that down to Mexico at the time and they came back inside of a month broken when they had outsourced them to the shop I was working at at the time.

Crap would get broken and they would have no idea how to maintain them or repair it. I remember some Cadillac things at the time that were similar, but they have veered of to China pretty heavily these days.

 

[Jaskalas]

As a software engineer I have never understood how people think real AI will ever happen. The machines basically do exactly what you tell them. The amount of "learning" they do is strictly limited and is NOTHING like human learning.

Human thought process is merely a complex rule-set. We don't have to make an exact copy, just a good enough imitation. It'll begin as a rough and poor match, but then quickly advance forward as something beyond our wildest imagination. In the meantime... we do not need AI to replace the vast majority of human labor.

Someone has to build and maintain those though.

Construction and repair are just another task for simple mechanical labor.
In the middle stages a human will make the design... sets forth the task, but it will not be a human that labors to complete it.

 

[MongGrel]

I took a course in neural networks when I was getting my master's degree. Never used it once since and I have been doing embedded programming for near 30 years. PID feedback has been sufficient for the stuff that I have controlled (transmissions, corrugated paper machinery and CO2 sensors). I guy I worked with tried fuzzy logic and scrapped it for PID.

As a software engineer I have never understood how people think real AI will ever happen. The machines basically do exactly what you tell them. The amount of "learning" they do is strictly limited and is NOTHING like human learning.

You may only be fooling yourself then, got me.

I have a cousin who has been working in AI with Microsoft in Seattle over 30 years now.

 

[MongGrel]

Construction and repair are just another task for simple mechanical labor.
In the middle stages a human will make the design... sets forth the task, but it will not be a human that labors to complete it.

You apparently know very little about complex machinery, is all I can say.

Building something along the lines of a satellite or a complex assembly line is not like installing a toilet.

 

[sm625]

I took a course in neural networks when I was getting my master's degree. Never used it once since and I have been doing embedded programming for near 30 years. PID feedback has been sufficient for the stuff that I have controlled (transmissions, corrugated paper machinery and CO2 sensors). I guy I worked with tried fuzzy logic and scrapped it for PID.

As a software engineer I have never understood how people think real AI will ever happen. The machines basically do exactly what you tell them. The amount of "learning" they do is strictly limited and is NOTHING like human learning.

As an automated systems designer, I have reached the same conclusion myself. System design is actually far more complicated than the robotics itself. It is relatively easy to design the mechanical device that performs the task. It is also relatively easy to write the software and firmware that controls the robotic device. But the design of the system... the decision of what needs to be automated, how it can be automated, calculating the MTBF for any specific design, this has proven to be the most challenging aspect for me. I actually spend more time in the initial design phase of any project than I do actually working with the prototypes or testing/coding the production version. It is extremely difficult and challenging and the thought of any type of AI attempting this just makes me laugh.

 

[realibrad]

As an automated systems designer, I have reached the same conclusion myself. System design is actually far more complicated than the robotics itself. It is relatively easy to design the mechanical device that performs the task. It is also relatively easy to write the software and firmware that controls the robotic device. But the design of the system... the decision of what needs to be automated, how it can be automated, calculating the MTBF for any specific design, this has proven to be the most challenging aspect for me. I actually spend more time in the initial design phase of any project than I do actually working with the prototypes or testing/coding the production version. It is extremely difficult and challenging and the thought of any type of AI attempting this just makes me laugh.

A lot of that is because we use very subjective reasoning. AI can calculate the values but it can only make judgments given to it. The current limitations of AI is that its not complex enough. But hey, there was a time when that same logic was used about AI driving cars.

 

[theeedude]

fast food restaurants or sit down restaurants???

Both. Look at Starbucks. Coffee making is already possible to automate, but you need people facing people.

 

[bshole]

A lot of that is because we use very subjective reasoning. AI can calculate the values but it can only make judgments given to it. The current limitations of AI is that its not complex enough. But hey, there was a time when that same logic was used about AI driving cars.

It would take some kind of paradigm shift. Software programming hasn't changed much since the advent of compilers and the C standard. You specify a very limited range of inputs and specify a limited range of outputs and there you have a software module. You create a bunch of software modules to implement an overall design supplied by a project engineer. All of the intelligence is with the engineers. None of it is with the computer. At it lowest level the computer is just a machine flipping the binary switches it was programmed to flip. It has no choice about what switches to flip, it must flip the switches it was programmed to switch. Even within the context of neural networks and fuzzy logic, this is true.

How would somebody go about programming a computer to think of a novel solution for global warming? It would be problematic in the extreme. A computer can never DISCOVER knowledge. That knowledge MUST be programmed into it. It of course can acquire data but that is not knowledge. Knowledge is passed from the programmer to computer via software and then used by the computer to deal with the data.