Robot Baristas

Starbucks’ 95,000 baristas have a competitor. It doesn’t need sleep. It’s precise in a way that a human could never be. It requires no training. It can’t quit. It has memorized every one of its customers’ orders. There’s never a line for its perfectly turned-out drinks. It doesn’t require health insurance. Don’t think of it as the enemy of baristas, insists Kevin Nater, CEO of the company that has produced this technological marvel. 

Oh by all means please do think of it as the enemy

But.. who cares if it is the enemy or not? Let’s automate everything. Let’s destroy jobs as much as possible. It is the surest way of bringing the end of a defunct system. Industrial system is based on the idea that you get up, go to work (factory), send the kid to educational factory, and buy things that are made in other factories, by people who went to work just like you. Automation, in a scale that is now possible through robotics and AI / machine learning strikes at the heart of this system. Economists are going berserk over 10% unemployment. What happens when it is 30%? Or 40%? Maybe then they will start thinking about the economy of the future rather than the future of the economy.