Re:A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?
by JoshTriplett on Monday October 09, 2017 @01:01AM
(#15431677)
A machine doesn't have to optimize only for "good enough" or "burnt"; it optimizes for whatever parameters it was given. If there's a trick to "pull a particularly great espresso shot", then you can build a machine to do that. It's not even particularly hard, compared to, say, keeping up an intelligent conversation, doing laundry, or any number of other harder-to-automate tasks.
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Re:A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs?
by sethhochberg on Monday October 09, 2017 @01:56AM
(#15431822)
Of course - but people are going to control those machines, and the people who control the machines probably aren't going to be the people who (in another version of history where automation didn't take over) would be operating them with care out of personal passion.
In our Starbucks example - they also own Clover, the boutique automatic single-serve coffee brewer. It's a brilliant machine and makes a great cup of coffee. But it's artificially only available in certain markets, with certain collections of their own branded roasts. The macinery could be programmed to allow me to get a great cup of coffee at any Starbucks in America, but business incentives don't allow that (presumably - because Clovers are rare machines reserved for special store in major markets). Comiditization entails more than just automating the product and making things consistent and widely available. It also typically changes the incentives of the game and the people who are overseeing implementing them.