When the cost of automation becomes cheaper than manual labor, you better believe it has something to do with this.
It does, except you haven't done the math on this. For the classic McDonald's ordering kiosk, we passed that labor cost long ago. So let's do the math. For the purposes of this, I'm going to be absurdly generous to "your side" of this question.
How much does the kiosk cost? We need a glorified iPad attached to a kiosk, wired to power and connected to our wifi. An ipad pro is about $1000, we'll start there. We need a bigger screen, but we also don't need the "pro" hardware with a stronger CPU. We're not running complex software or multiple programs at once. We're also buying in bulk, we're McDonald's. We aint paying full
Apple retail prices per unit. $1000 per unit is probably way too high, but I'm going with it.
$1000 per employee replaced. (don't object yet, this number will change)
Now, we need the software. That's mostly up front and probably peanuts in the long run and grand scheme of this billion dollar business. But let's say that
doubles the cost per unit. Absurd, but we'll take it anyway.
$2000 per employee replaced.
Now we gotta install these things. Labor costs, hook it up to power, make sure the wifi works, etc. Let's say that doubles the cost
again. Absurd, but we'll take it.
$4000 per employee replaced.
Of course, an employee is faster than the customer on these screens. An employee uses the software all day, they can punch in orders faster than grandma can. So you need more than one unit per employee. Probably at least two, even three. We'll be super generous
again and say
four units per employee on shift to be replaced.
$16000 per employee replaced.
Oops. Just one shift. The screen doesn't go home, it doesn't eat, it doesn't sleep. It's there all day, every day. Two shifts per day means these four screens actually replace two employees. Of course, employees also take vacations, shift overlap isn't quite so neat, some McDonald's are 24/7, so the real number is probably a little over 2, but we'll stay at 2.
$8000 per employee replaced.
Now, there are ongoing costs to the tablet. (if the tablets ran forever for free, they'd be cheaper than literal slaves!) Electricity is probably too trivial to bother with, ipad pro specs say like 10 watts max. But there's maintenance and replacement. Let's give an
utterly outrageous maintenance cost: complete failure of
50% of units every year, requiring complete replacement of the entire kiosk. (including the installation instead of just the tablet, for no good reason) Now, if McDonald's vendor for these tablets actually supplied units with that failure rate, McDonald's would sue the shit out of them and drop the contract, but we'll take it anyway.
$12000 per employee replaced, per year.
At 2000 hours per year, that's a $6/hour employee. Oops, lower actually. Every good business owner knows the actual costs of an employee go beyond just the wage. There's taxes and training and supplies and benefits and all that. But let's pretend that's zero, for no reason.
6 bucks an hour is already below minimum wage and
this was based on an outrageously inflated cost estimate for the machine.
There's also our long-term problem. If machines are continuously driving down the value of labor... how long can society survive such a trend? Machines get better, faster, and smarter over time. We do not. I'd be hesitant to point at
any occupation and smugly declare it can never be automated.
