A central theme at the Manna Project is that automation is going to destroy so many jobs in the coming years that society will not be able to adapt quick enough. There are a number of studies that are predicting the loss of tens of millions of jobs in the United States alone. Countries like China and those in the EU face similar percentages of losses.
This is one of the main reasons we believe a basic income is going to be necessary. This is purely a technological move that is going to destroy the jobs. It will be global in scale, affecting the third world nations first, before moving to the more developed ones.
Sadly, there are many who tend not to follow what is happening. We all lead busy lives so not spending one's day reading about technological innovations and how it will affect society is understandable. This is, however, a necessary part of the educational process that must be carried forward.
Each Wednesday, we are going to compile a few stories that show what is happening in this area. They will be linked to the original source and contain information about part of the oncoming technological boom.
We hope this helps each reader to garner some idea of the potential that is ahead of us. The studies done that conclude tens of millions of job losses is made real when one sees the research that is taking place.
Here are this week's submissions:
The automation of the fast food industry has long been discussed. Thus far, not many strides were made that will eliminate jobs. The first few forays into this arena did fail miserably (google flippy the automated hamburger flipper).
This could be changing. Check out this automated pizza maker.
Automating the pizza industry would be incredible yet it would not rival if that happened to the world of hamburgers, especially in the United States.
This is another area where we see a commercial robot in action. A location opened in California that is backed by Google. The burgers in this location are all made by the machine. There are people who wait on the customers and take orders via an application (wonder how long until that is automated too).
The pricing on the burger is exceptional. $6 in a market like that is a very fair price for a quality burger. We see that the reduced labor costs means that higher quality meats and condiments can used. This means a better quality product for less money.
The question with both of these robotic devices is whether they are truly the start of an industry shift or another false alarm. Sooner or later, there will be a product that gets the automation right and it will spread throughout the industry.
Whether it is pizza or hamburgers, automation might be just around the corner.
The potential cost is millions of lower end jobs.
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