[quote name='slayemin' timestamp='1304035557' post='4804209']
...Hmm, I wonder... Can McDonalds replace 95% of their workforce with machines?

I'll take that as a rhetorical question...
[/quote]

Not really I think you could seriously engineer a McDonalds restaurant to work very little human intervention.

The meat patties are just frozen disks of meat, so devising a machine to cook those in a JIT principle would be better than the way it's currently done. Creating sandwiches is merely selecting the right bun, adding meat, and combining different variations of ingredients. If machines can do all that and customers can place their own orders, then there is little need for the cooks and cashiers. All you need is a person to keep the machine stocked on raw ingredients -- which would eliminate about 95% of the labor.

McDonalds is the company that eliminated literacy and basic arithmetic as requirements for cashiers. I wouldn't put anything past them.

[quote name='owl' timestamp='1304037970' post='4804221']
[quote name='slayemin' timestamp='1304035557' post='4804209']
...Hmm, I wonder... Can McDonalds replace 95% of their workforce with machines?

I'll take that as a rhetorical question...
[/quote]

Not really I think you could seriously engineer a McDonalds restaurant to work very little human intervention.

The meat patties are just frozen disks of meat, so devising a machine to cook those in a JIT principle would be better than the way it's currently done. Creating sandwiches is merely selecting the right bun, adding meat, and combining different variations of ingredients. If machines can do all that and customers can place their own orders, then there is little need for the cooks and cashiers. All you need is a person to keep the machine stocked on raw ingredients -- which would eliminate about 95% of the labor.
[/quote]

Yeah, also a vinyl player with a disk saying: "Do you want to enlarge your combo for 2 more dollars?" "medium or large?" "do you want onion rings for 1 more dollar?" "pepsi, seven-up, orange or tonic?" And a freckled robot that can manage to get your order wrong and another one to yell the heck out of it for screwing it up. lol

Not really I think you could seriously engineer a McDonalds restaurant to work very little human intervention.

In my area, CVS pharmacies well on their way to this transition. All the checkout registers are now automated, and you are lucky if you can find a single employee on the floor. Obviously the shelves are still stacked by humans, but I don't think it is unreasonable for that to be automated sometime in the future.

[quote name='slayemin' timestamp='1304049069' post='4804270']
Not really I think you could seriously engineer a McDonalds restaurant to work very little human intervention.

In my area, CVS pharmacies well on their way to this transition. All the checkout registers are now automated, and you are lucky if you can find a single employee on the floor. Obviously the shelves are still stacked by humans, but I don't think it is unreasonable for that to be automated sometime in the future.
[/quote]

I'm fairly sure that either a McDonalds, Wendys, or Hardees by where I live actually had a machine that took whole potatoes cut them and filled the fry basket by weight, then put the basket in the deep frier and brought them back out again. A human still had to dump the basket into the fry hole.

When I was in France some months ago, I saw a pizza vending machine. You put in bills or your bank card, select the pizza of your choice, and it'll come out after a short wait (during which the premade pizza is re-heated, presumably). The machine was simply standing there on the sidewalk. It was quite a surreal sight.

When I was in France some months ago, I saw a pizza vending machine. You put in bills or your bank card, select the pizza of your choice, and it'll come out after a short wait (during which the premade pizza is re-heated, presumably). The machine was simply standing there on the sidewalk. It was quite a surreal sight.

Does Paris still have those self-cleaning public toilets? They were these free-standing cubicles on the sidewalk, you put 5 francs or something to get in, and after you come out, the entire interior is flipped upside-down and pressure-washed by water jets... Very cool as automation goes.

However, you'll never be able to completely replace a human workforce (who will maintain & run the systems?).

If a computer can detect a faulty component, and a robot can build a another robot on an assembly line, then what makes you think that it is impossible, or even that hard, to build robots designed to service other robots?

[quote name='slayemin' timestamp='1304035557' post='4804209']
However, you'll never be able to completely replace a human workforce (who will maintain & run the systems?).

If a computer can detect a faulty component, and a robot can build a another robot on an assembly line, then what makes you think that it is impossible, or even that hard, to build robots designed to service other robots?
[/quote]

Ok, but who will maintain those? O_o

[quote name='slayemin' timestamp='1304035557' post='4804209']
However, you'll never be able to completely replace a human workforce (who will maintain & run the systems?).

If a computer can detect a faulty component, and a robot can build a another robot on an assembly line, then what makes you think that it is impossible, or even that hard, to build robots designed to service other robots?
[/quote]

It's entirely possible to fly an airplane from Point A to Point B on autopilot. If that's possible, why do they still put pilots in the the cockpit? I think the answer to my question is the same as the answer to your question.