My suggestion for the brand: "touched by humans".<p>"Genuine Food - touched by humans".
"Authentic Underwear - touched by humans".<p>Robots don't spit in coffee. Robots don't under-cook your burger when they have an ambition crisis. Robots sew neat seams.
This is the future of automation: <a href="http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm</a><p>All you need is software that determines what needs to be done, and a minimum wage work force wearing headsets to receive task commands to carry out. Short circuits the need for ANY advancements in AI to enslave entire social classes.<p>I would love this to be wrong.
A large volume of the jobs that are being automated are are invented with computers in mind.<p>The more stringent accounting standards that were created over the last 20 years would have led to the demand for thousands upon thousands of white collar workers, if we still kept books and records the way we did in 1910.<p>On the other hand, companies would not have been able to grow large enough to need new accounting standards in the first place, if not for the productivity increases since the introduction of the computer.
I'm one of those people that prefer automation<p>I'll actually wait slightly longer for the automated checkout at the market, mainly because I want to see it in more places.
The belief that the future will be this dark and gloomy place where one struggles to find work is understandable. Certainly there are things that can indicate this is right. Manufacturing is becoming more heavily automated for example.<p>I think that we will see a period in the coming years that could be regarded as a "growing pain" for the human species. Jobs and professions could shift to be more inline with rapidly advancing technologies. During this time there will probably be people who find themselves either out of work, or unqualified. After this time I think that jobs and professions will again be available and that many people will be qualified for them. Perhaps even more jobs.<p>Who knows, maybe I'm an optimist.
> I can imagine, for example, that "made (or served) by humans" could be the "organic" or "fair trade" of the future.<p>Actually, I would see it the other way round, on one condition. If people had a guaranteed income (or housing, healthcare & food) then paying humans to do work that robots can do would seem like an unnecessary luxury to me.
<i>47 percent of U.S. jobs are “at risk” of being automated in the next 20 years.</i><p>The other way to look at this, of course, is:<p><i>47 percent of our labor force will be freed from their menial tasks.</i><p>Our societies will collectively be able to produce and accomplish almost double what we currently can.
> I can imagine, for example, that “made (or served) by humans” could be the “organic” or “fair trade” of the future.<p>... or the "handmade" of the future?
The only way that automation works is through creating a highly controlled environment where production can proceed in a predictable fashion.<p>The only way to have a completely automated restaurant is have a big box that spits out meals. The alternative is no automation or a lot of little boxes that are used for pieces.<p>The thing is that a restaurant would still needs counter-help and clean-up help so further. Let's assume the box reduces the cost of prep-labor by 50%. That reduces the labor past of your costs by 25% and your total costs by 12.5% assuming labor is 50% of costs. So it's a good savings but not an astronomical savings. But the counter-weight you have sell people on buying the food that comes out of the box. A few places compete on price alone but that's hard. Just consider that restaurants are already competing with microwave dinners in the frozen section that quite possibly are already spat out of a better, cleverer box at a central factory. It would seem restaurants compete on ambiance and human relations and a 12.5% prices savings might not compensate.<p>Another thing about "food out of a box" restaurant is that the box might not have the flexibility of a human preparer. If you need to change your menu, you might find you have to do expensive retooling on your box rather than a quick retraining of your employees. If you have to close a given restaurant, you may find no one wants your box. You may find yourself more dependent on your small number of box-technicians than you were previously on a large number of easily replaced unskilled cooks and so-forth.<p>The thing is that humans are a fabulous deal once you remove the price differential. Human comes with amazing skills, often train themselves with more, supervise and trouble-shoot each other, require little capital investment and manufacture themselves. This kind of thing is a good deal for nearly everything except production at a large scale (and the most important items, cars and iphones, are going to that large scale). The only unfortunate thing from the buyers perspective is that humans have a nasty habit of expect a share of the output instead of just a bare wage. But the solution to that problem is visible all around us ... humans.