feel at ease|financial security|jobs on the go Archives

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hy_posts.post_status = 'tribe-ea-success' OR hy_posts.post_status = 'tribe-ea-failed' OR hy_posts.post_status = 'tribe-ea-schedule' OR hy_posts.post_status = 'tribe-ea-pending' OR hy_posts.post_status = 'tribe-ea-draft'))) GROUP BY hy_posts.ID ORDER BY hy_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 9 " ["posts"]=> &array(9) { [0]=> object(WP_Post)#13668 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(971) ["post_author"]=> string(3) "547" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2018-06-20 00:00:00" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2018-06-20 00:00:00" ["post_content"]=> string(6673) "Cooking is a skill which most of us never find the time to master. It takes a lot of practice and persistence before the dishes we’ve cooked become works of art. Still, everybody appreciates a well cooked meal and if it was up to us to decide, we would have every meal prepared by someone with excellent cooking skills. This may become possible in the near future, as a robotic chef is already being trained to mimic the work of celebrity MasterChefs.

You Don't Need a Whole Droid in the Kitchen

This robot of the future is actually a pair of robotic hands produced by the London-based company, Shadow Robot. Using technology that has already been applied in NASA projects, this company has begun to create two very precise hands that can create whole meals without any human help. Equipped with twenty-four joints and twenty motors, these hands can mimic a bunch of complicated tasks, which is the purpose of their creation. Cooking by completely recreating the movements of the trained chef is an interesting way to teach a robot such a difficult task.

It’s Easy When You Have the Recipe

A recipe for this robot is a special recording of the whole food preparation process. The ingredients are listed and all the movements are translated into machine language using complex algorithms. This is why the prototype of this robot can already cook bisque like celebrity MasterChef Tim Anderson in just thirty minutes.

What Does this Imply?

For a robot to do all of this on its own, it needs to gather the ingredients, measure adequate quantities and show some actual skill on and off the stove. Cutting ingredients, melting butter and stirring everything together may sound simple for a human, but, for a machine, it is simply amazing. As long as it has all of the ingredients it needs and it has already seen someone else prepare the meal, this robot should be able to replicate the process. Jobs on the go - chef

A Giant Door to New Possibilities

These robotic hands are not only intended to operate in restaurant kitchens and large service facilities. The whole installation is small enough to fit into a home kitchen. If the final price makes it affordable, this robotic chef could be a way to try something new at home without fearing that you will mess up the recipe. The idea is to make recipes available online, so that people can have access to an unlimited number of different dishes. Recipes would be categorised and rated by other users who have already had the chance to try them out. In the future, a simple download and install should be enough to enrich your home's menu. Of course, you will still need to have all the ingredients; there is no going around that at the moment. However, many shops do have automated stock control nowadays, so automatic food ordering for cupboard replenishment at home might even be possible in the future.

More Free Time and Healthier Meals

Not being needed in the kitchen will give you a lot more free time and it will allow you to eat more healthily. The robotic hands can prepare your lunch or dinner in your absence and they can time it just right so you can have a hot plate when you return home. This will eliminate the need for quick fixes like fast food which are never good for your health. If you want to entertain guests at home over dinner, this robot can save you all the trouble of slaving over a hot stove. You can actually enjoy more time in conversation with your friends, rather than going in and out of the kitchen all evening.

The Limitations of the Robot

The obvious limitation of any robot chef is that a robot does not have taste buds. Sometimes, the same ingredients can give different results and chefs have to rely on taste to adjust the recipe. This will eliminate some extremely complex dishes, but there are still many recipes that will work every time. These robot hands will also lack the dexterity needed to prepare sushi. Slicing and filleting might be out of reach at the moment, but given enough time, this concept has the potential to overcome all obstacles.

Conclusion

In the end, it all comes down to the question, "Would you try it?" Some cooks feel a great sense of achievement in preparing food on their own, so they may be reluctant to try the robotic chef. However, if you only know how to boil an egg and cook spaghetti, this may just be the perfect thing for you.

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Lessons from history

We have always used machines to eliminate or improve routine tasks. Just think of the watermill that helped us to grind flower instead of having to do this by hand, or the washing machine that stopped us from having to wash or launder manually. The impact of these two machines seems rather small, but it did have an impact on someone's job. Larger events such as the industrial revolution did have bigger consequences for employment and this did not always receive a warm welcome. In the sixteenth century, the queen of England refused to grant the patent for the automatic knitting machine to William Lee stating that "it would assuredly bring to them ruin by depriving them of employment, thus making them beggars. During the industrial revolution, the Luddites destroyed machines because they were seen as a threat. As always, humans don’t like change, especially when it's very disruptive. However, we should look at it from a positive angle. What was clear from the examples above is that skilled artisans were replaced by machines that could be operated by lower skilled workers, who were supervised by higher skilled workers. That means that the greatest beneficiaries of the industrial revolution actually were the unskilled workers. As the machines became more and more complex, this balance did shift in the twentieth century in that more knowledge was needed to operate a machine. This favoured the higher skilled workers again. Furthermore, it also led to a race between technology and education. In order to stay competitive as an employee, you needed to stay abreast of the latest technology. Even if computers were to replace us, it will also mean a shift in the types of jobs we do. The obvious question is to ask whether there will still be something to do.

What is happening now?

Machines and computers have traditionally replaced routine cognitive and manual tasks. However, the non-routine tasks are gradually being handled by computers as well. An example of a computer performing a complicated non-routine cognitive task is IBM's Watson. It is able to diagnose cancer using the data from medical journal articles, medical evidence, patient records and clinical research data. The evolution of sensor technology has also allowed robots to perform non-routine manual tasks. Machines are able to learn as they operate. Typical examples are household robots. The big question is how far this will evolve and whether robots will eventually become self-aware. Recently, a robot passed a simple self-awareness test. It is an indication that the race is on, but there is still a lot of room for us to stay ahead of this evolution. A key element is that the cost of computation time has gone down dramatically and will continue to decrease. Computers have also reduced in size and more computational power can now be built into smaller machines and robots. Will robots take our jobs

How will this impact future employment?

Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne at the Oxford University Engineering Sciences Department came up with a mathematical way of estimating which jobs were under threat. They realised that jobs that had more accurate task descriptions could be more easily computerised. Tasks which are more difficult to describe lead to a computerisation bottleneck. They estimate that these bottlenecks will shift as technologies evolve. However, they can give a good indication as to which jobs are closer to the bottleneck and also those which are further away. The following bottlenecks were identified: perception and manipulation, creative intelligence and social intelligence. They ranked about seven hundred job types. The big picture conclusion is that jobs which require creativity and social skills were less at risk than jobs requiring manual dexterity (perception and manipulation). What also became clear is that highly paid and highly skilled jobs are less sensitive to computerisation. Contrary to the industrial revolution, the lower skilled worker is becoming vulnerable. Driverless cars will have a huge impact on the transportation sector. The legal sector will see the growing effect of computers doing more effective research and even allowing more effective decision making processes excluding human bias. Of course, this is just a mathematical prediction but it does highlight some interesting points. What makes us specifically human will drive where we will still have jobs and that is very positive.

What can we do?

According to the predictions, about half of the jobs in the U.S. are at risk because of computerisation. This might seem to be a lot, but it is not dramatic. What needs to happen is that workers who are at risk are moved to professions that are not at risk and new skills will need to be learned. This was also the case in the past and only now has the pace increased. At the same time, the available knowledge has increased due to the development of the Internet. This is a great example of how computerisation can help humans to learn faster and stay ahead of the technology race. Governments have a big role to play. On the one hand, they can control the pace at which technology gets deployed, such as setting the legal framework for driverless cars. On the other hand, they can ensure the reorientation of the workforce by identifying risks, creating conditions for new jobs and providing education. During the industrial revolution, the UK government realised that the technological advances could not be stopped and they did have great benefits. This made them pass a law making the destruction of machinery punishable by death. The above study only took the jobs that exist now into account. New jobs will emerge through all the technological changes. Examples are drone controllers or space miners. The key take-away is that you have to keep an open mind and need to be willing to keep learning. It is important to keep seeing the opportunities. It is also important to notice that machines will actually drive us to be more human. We can start focusing on what makes us unique as humans. For instance, in hospitals, the routine tasks, e.g. cleaning, can be performed by robots, yet the real human tasks, such as a friendly conversation with a patient, will become the ultimate job of a human. However, with the advancements of social intelligence and social mimicking, even that could be technically covered, although the chances are high that people won’t like it, at least not for now.

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Want more? Don't be sad that the article is over! We got plenty of other exciting stuff to share with you. Subscribe to our bi-monthly newsletter and we'll keep you up to date with our latest news!" ["post_title"]=> string(26) "Will computers replace us?" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(0) "" ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["ping_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(25) "will-computers-replace-us" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(248) "https://www.happonomy.org/en/self-checkout-cashiers/ https://www.happonomy.org/en/fast-food-workers/ https://www.happonomy.org/en/future-scientists/ https://www.happonomy.org/en/software-programmers/ https://www.happonomy.org/en/body-part-designer/" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2020-05-20 15:21:13" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2020-05-20 13:21:13" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(62) "https://www.happonomy.org/creativity/will-computers-replace-us/" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [2]=> object(WP_Post)#13665 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(956) ["post_author"]=> string(2) "36" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2015-04-27 00:00:00" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2015-04-27 00:00:00" ["post_content"]=> string(8324) "Nobody likes to have to call a customer service centre because those calls are generally linked to a problem. There are multiple other reasons for that (you know them yourself, no need for me to enumerate them here) and if you happen to have forgotten them, just Google “why I hate calling customer service” and you may end up reading some quite furious blog posts and articles. In spite of all the fury, it looks like we are not yet fully self-sufficient to find answers to everything ourselves, not even with the big "crystal ball" of search engines at our disposal, so we still need to dial those 0800 numbers and indulgently agree to have no control over the next 10, 20, 40 minutes of our lives!

What’s in store for people working in call centre jobs?

The big question is: what should the future hold in this regard? The trend is quite clear, as many companies are shifting to automated call centre operators. These are essentially robots that can communicate with you with a crystal clear voice and answer your questions with beautifully nuanced sentences; they may even laugh at your jokes and ask you if everything turned out well with that grass cutter you called to complain about last time. A clear illustration is “Samantha West”. Unlike what you may think, Samantha isn't a person, it is the name used by telemarketing software to call potential clients. While nowadays we find cases like Samantha West to be funny and even a little sweet in her dullness, this will probably be the standard in the future.

The business case for automated Call Centre Agents

The reasons why companies are going for automated call centre operators are rather straightforward. For starters, most of the information we can get from calling customer service centres is available at our fingertips by performing an advanced web search. So if it is already out there, the only gap that companies need to close is the “search” function which used to be done by trained employees, but nowadays can already be done by even the less sophisticated robots. Secondly, for services where we are dependent on getting in contact with the company to provide some input data, such as when calling a bank or a flight operator where we usually have to key in a card or account number or a reservation code, it certainly easier, faster and more error proof if the dialogue partner is a computer… of course given that it is not suffering from an acute “technical issue”. Among other benefits associated with this are the cost savings, the flexibility of location, space, languages, training and updates.

Aren't Call Centre Agents better off?

While people working in this field are fighting hard to keep their environment human, the job satisfaction of call centre operators is under attentive observation. Across the entire industry, call centers replace 26 percent of their front-line agents annually, according to Response Design Corporation in 2009. This means that at a company with 1,000 agents, for instance, managers should expect 260 telemarketers to leave voluntarily or involuntarily by the end of the year! This is a lot. Call Center job satsifaction

The top motivations for leaving don’t seem to relate to the presence of colleague robots but are more personal such as “Not the right job fit to begin with”, “Fairness of Pay & Medical Benefits”, “Supervisor Problems” and “Lack of Career Opportunities”. I will not even try to make a proposal of the ideal, “jolly” model of a telemarketing service center; this has been the theme of many papers already, but perhaps what we can learn from the motivations for leaving, listed above, is that the people working in the call centres themselves are showing us the direction we should move towards. If we want to answer the question :"What would make call centre operators happy in times where their job is being taken by fellow robots?” I believe the answer will not always be “give them their job back"...

The Happonomy Question

Many people working as a call centre agent aren't satisfied with their job. Therefore the question if the rise of software should be considered a job threat or rather an opportunity to free people from low satisfaction jobs becomes increasingly relevant. In our current way of thinking, a job such as a call centre agent provides financial security, even though it doesn't necessarily provide much (if any) satisfaction. Clearly, applying this logic, automation is threatening the livelihoods of many. The alternative perspective is more appealing: technology frees people from a job they dislike to free up time to do things they do like. Technology enables them to contribute to our economy and society in a different way. Clearly, the latter perspective is only viable if we tackle the resulting financial insecurity that follows. Either way, regardless where this will go towards and how quickly, one thing is clear as also stated by Denver Nicks in his article quoted above: "We must quickly set a standard for robot’s morale until they all start to lie about their identity." Some readings :

References:

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What a sales representative does

A sales person is rarely the cliché of the “slick smile in your face counting the money” kind of person though. Let us take a look at what a good sales person does:

He builds trust with the potential client;
He analyses your situation to understand how you can be helped;
He analyses the solutions that are up for sale and matches this with your needs;
He explains which solutions are good for you and which aren’t;
He answers your questions and tackles any concerns you may have;
He quotes you a price that is profitable for the company.

Now, as with all logical tasks, add sufficient computer power and you should be able to automate it right? Voice recognition technology enables software to instantly analyse what you are saying and Walmart-owned supermarket chain Asda has commented on a 'virtual' sales assistant trialled at its Milton Keynes store in January. The female hologram, developed by queue management specialist, Tensator, greeted shoppers and gave details on the supermarket's ten percent price guarantee which a spokeswoman for the company told The Grocer was 'very successful and popular with customers'.

While Asda has no immediate plans to roll out the technology nationwide, Tensator predicts that its Virtual Assistant could soon be a familiar sight in shops and airports, where the technology was first tested at the check-in queues. Highlighting retail applications for the holograms, Ajay Joshi, media product development manager at Tensator, says: "Imagine having a virtual assistant in the wine aisle. You could have a virtual sommelier in the aisle 24/7. Customers could scan a bottle and be told all about the wine, or food it would be ideal with." US pharmacy chain Duane Reade, which rolled out the holograms last summer, says the technology offered its stores a 'wow factor'. "The virtual assistant is so compelling, shoppers are receptive to the wealth of information she provides," says a spokesperson. The holographic technology start-up, Provision 3D Media, has successfully produced three-dimensional floating virtual images up to 52 inches large, and now it's setting out to develop a working life-sized hologram. The start-up is trying to raise $950,000 on Kickstarter to develop and test the prototype.

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Why do you work? Do you know the answer to that question? Maybe you get up every morning for financial security or because you want to connect to people. Or is it because you want to grow? Find out your answer by using the Happonomy Value Canvas!" ["post_title"]=> string(53) "Virtual sales assistants - coming to a store near you" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(0) "" ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["ping_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(24) "virtual-sales-assistants" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2019-07-16 10:16:54" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2019-07-16 10:16:54" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(61) "https://www.happonomy.org/creativity/virtual-sales-assistants/" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [4]=> object(WP_Post)#13669 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(932) ["post_author"]=> string(3) "547" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2015-02-18 00:00:00" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2015-02-18 00:00:00" ["post_content"]=> string(5466) "Jobs impacted: 1,268,011 lawyers in the US & 650,033 lawyers in the EU Lawyers; you either love them or you hate them. I am married to one, so I need to be careful here… Maybe you're a legal professional yourself? Lawyers are a prime example of people who earn their daily bread by using knowledge. They first invest significant time understanding the rules of the legal system in place and then help people who require ‘justice’ or “protection” under that system. At the same time, they monitor changes in the system and propose modifications to it in specialised literature. These criticisms and suggestions are then extensively debated by legal professionals and if any substance is found in these discussions, these trickle into jurisprudence on a case by case basis or in the legal system as a new rule or a new interpretation of it. As with many other knowledge-driven jobs, current and future technologies are poised to significantly impact the day to day law profession. A report from Jomati consultants, aptly titled Civilisation 2030: the near future for law firms suggests that robots and artificial intelligence will dominate legal practice within fifteen years effectively pushing out all knowledge driven tasks linked to the profession. Technology will confirm Shumpeter’s law of creative destruction again, in spite of increasing requests caused by: 1) more people, and 2) more complex legal systems.

Let’s take a closer look.

As with any rule based system, law can be modelled into a quite extensive decision matrix with variables and algorithms. Software can scan and deduct the rules in place and qualify a case. Today, there are already services that have a grain of what is to come in their DNA. Take Road Traffic Representation which has a free service pre-qualifying your road traffic case on feasibility and substance, effectively replacing the first analysis done by a lawyer. Law firms who bill hefty fees will have to either have hyper-specialised senior lawyers or the latest artificial intelligence to support the bills. The question to be asked is, "how will we have hyper-specialised lawyers if we don’t give them the time to learn?" Associate lawyers will become largely redundant as their expertise is too low to the warrant service fees as they are charged now. It doesn’t stop at the doorstep of lawyers though; let’s take it one step further:

Automated judiciary systems

With text mining technology advancements and exponential increases in computing power, we could evolve towards a legal system where automated judgements based on specific variables are set in place. Software available today mainly drives visualisation, categorisation and management of legal arguments. This helps lawyers to automatically react to given arguments by the opponent but can also be used to come to a legal decision matrix, effectively replacing a judge. The benefits are clear: faster access to justice, reduction of the public costs of running the law system and more predictable judging in place. Do we want the decision to be made for us?

The big Happonomy question

What should the prime focus of the activities of a lawyer be: knowledge driven advice or social support to people? Obviously, both would be relevant, but the question remains in which balance these will find each other. Do we want to be judged by people who make mistakes or do we prefer the automated judgement of a machine? If so, to what extent?

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What a scientist really does during the day?

The day to day activities of the average scientist exists of three activities:

Absorbing knowledge

Being a scientist means you are an expert in the field, meaning that scientists need to read the scientific literature from their specific domain. One problem is that no one can read everything as there is just too much being put out. Thanks to the internet, however, researchers now have access to a global pool of knowledge. To give you an idea about the vast amount of knowledge to process, in the US alone, a scientist in biomedicine is confronted with 4.000 new publications daily.

Setting up and validating hypotheses and experiments

The cherry on the cake of the scientific profession: thinking of a new - to be tested - hypothesis which adds to the body of humanity's knowledge. Once a research hypothesis has been defined, the research needs to be set up and executed, very often using statistical analysis.

Publishing the results

To be considered as scientific knowledge, the outcome of the research needs to be shared with other scientists in the field so that they can provide feedback, work on improvements or retest the hypotheses for validity.

How do machines impact a scientist's job?

Text mining technology enables computers to process vast amounts of knowledge, like a human scientists would process this. This technology assesses authority of the publication and sees correlations between each part of the research. This is in fact a great aid for scientists who need a ‘summary’ in their field of expertise. We touch the essence of the profession when this software sees correlations that scientists don’t see, link it with other knowledge domains and formulate new research hypotheses themselves. If the execution can be automated as well (statistical analyses are easily done with software) and conclusions can be drawn from these results, the only part a scientist needs to do is report about its results, that is, provided that automated writing software doesn’t do that for them, of course. In case you were wondering, this technology has already existed for several years. One example is CRAB, a tool for cancer risk assessment that could help risk assessors move beyond manual literature review. It is only a matter of time before this technology can be applied in other fields of research.

A big Happonomy question to ask

Where does that leave us? One of our core human needs, “understanding” is up for grabs... Therefore, we need to ask ourselves: what is the goal of science? Is it the resulting body of knowledge, or the process of understanding, or maybe both? Do we want to remove learning and “a-ha moments” from our existence? These answers will impact us tremendously. If we choose the former, expect to see neurochips with instant access to knowledge popping up during your lifetime.

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Are you a scientist and do you want to contribute to the Happonomy? Then feel free to join our scientific research!" ["post_title"]=> string(62) "For the sake of science - what the future holds for scientists" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(0) "" ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["ping_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(17) "future-scientists" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2019-07-15 15:08:55" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2019-07-15 15:08:55" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(54) "https://www.happonomy.org/creativity/future-scientists/" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [6]=> object(WP_Post)#13662 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(934) ["post_author"]=> string(3) "547" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2015-02-18 00:00:00" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2015-02-18 00:00:00" ["post_content"]=> string(3635) "Technology-driven jobs are the ultimate frontier of human labour where machines have no place. This indeed seems hard to contest. Software programmers will still be required to program all of this wonderful artificial intelligence that is going to significantly impact all other jobs right? Wrong… Software today is as faulty as one doesn't want to imagine and that is why self-modifying code was invented. Yes, this is software code that modifies itself automatically. Today, the main functionality is usually aimed to improve performance and to reduce the size of the code-base in order to make it easier to maintain. Obviously, that is still a far stretch away from computer programs programming additional functionality with minimal or even without intervention of a human being.

Artificial intelligence - still an infant

Code that functionally creates itself needs to be driven by smart machinery, i.e. artificial intelligence. Today, that is still part of the future but as with many exponential changes, the curve of advancement is starting to become steeper by the day. A major milestone crossed in 2014 was a machine passing the Turing Test. This test, developed by one of the grand fathers of computer science, Alan Turing, states that a machine passes the test in a written conversation, if it is able to deceive another human being to believe the machine is in fact another human. Back in 2014, the computer fooled several judges - all sensible adults - that the machine was in fact a 13-year-old boy.

What about the programming, you may ask?

The initial seeds of this evolution are already present. Google recently acquired DeepMind Technologies, aiming to build a brain-like computer. Today, technology has already successfully executed machine learning tests which created a code output. A program automatically outputting the simple and beautiful phrase, “Hello World” is also here. Take a look if you want to see how it is done in more detail.

The final frontier

Machines automatically creating other machines, software automatically creating other software; these are two of the ultimate barriers we are pushing against. For now, software programmers only have to worry for the rapid shifts in programming languages that makes knowledge of today, obsolete tomorrow. However, in the long run, there is a real chance that these priests of technology will also become replaceable.

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Automated checkouts

Whether you like it or not, capitalism and automation are best friends. Enabling customers to receive their goods and pay for it, without requiring someone to process your payment, is good for the bottom line. Take a look at McDonalds, who already ordered 7.000 automated cashiers in Europe during 2011; it is the same thing with a US fast food giant, Panera Bread, which intends to have kiosks instead of cashiers by 2016. With over 1800 points of sale, this will affect many cashiers. Scanning your product bar code with your cell phone and then paying via your digital wallet, may sound like science-fiction to you but this is already possible within companies like Apple Inc. and J C Penney’s, a large US retailer.

Self-scan cashiers

You may have encountered this yourself: a machine in a grocery store where you need to scan the goods you have chosen and pay for them via a self-check out. These self-check out machines have a couple of advantages - apart from the purely financial benefits a company has after installing them. They give people control over their shopping experience, similar to our current banking experience where we use cash withdrawal desks and internetbanking (or 'netbanking') software. You feel in charge and you get the feeling you're not 'wasting time' if you can take care of the task yourself. That control also extends to the belief everything is correctly registered. Take away the human out of the equation and it will be done better. Or at least, so we presume. Finally, these drive privacy. You may not feel comfortable with your cashier knowing you bought condoms or only in-house brands. Although the number of these machines may have been growing exponentially, some stores like IKEA have been removing these machines, claiming they extend check out times and drive down the customer experience. However, if technology advances - take a look at ITABs Easyflow technology - it may just be a matter of time before it will be performing better.

This is not a clear-cut case

It is up to us to decide what we value most: efficiency and (perceived) time gain, or social contact within our communities. Many options exist to get rid of that person taking care of your purchases. Which one do you prefer?

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Want to find out in what way our community impacts our quality of life? We got you covered! Find out more about communities and connecting. " ["post_title"]=> string(59) "With the rise of self-checkouts, do we still need cashiers?" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(0) "" ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["ping_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(22) "self-checkout-cashiers" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2020-05-20 14:43:30" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2020-05-20 12:43:30" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(59) "https://www.happonomy.org/creativity/self-checkout-cashiers/" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [8]=> object(WP_Post)#13782 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(925) ["post_author"]=> string(3) "547" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2015-02-17 00:00:00" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2015-02-17 00:00:00" ["post_content"]=> string(4642) "Number of impacted people working in fast food: 3.7 million in the US With the high variety of fast food chains providing many people with a job that pushes them above the poverty line - one can obviously debate whether this is justifiable - many of these companies absorb a large quantity of low skilled workers. That is soon to change as 'hamburger robots' are poised to disrupt the fast food industry. Yes, these hamburger robots are everything you imagine them to be. They replace the need of anyone working in the fast food restaurant entirely. Everything will be automated, from ordering and preparation to delivery.

What Do Hamburger Robots Look Like?

Or will it? You may imagine seeing a humanoid robot but this type of machine is a typical example of an automated assembly line, something we've already known for many years in the car manufacturing industry.

Already today, you can enter your order while queuing and then pay for it in large fast food restaurants. However, did you know that a company called Momentum Machines presented its fully automated hamburger preparation robot as far back as 2012? In just a few minutes, the hamburger robot can grill the beef, add the vegetables and sauce, put it all in a bun and wrap it up. One of the co-founders of the company, Alexandros Vardakostas, is quite clear about their ambition: “Our device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient; it’s meant to completely obviate them.”

Fast Food Is Not Only Hamburgers

Of course, fast food is more than just hamburgers. What about the other fast food favourite, pizza? Here, the story is similar. Pizzametry creates pizza vending machines which effectively have the potential of replacing all of the pizza preparers in both restaurants and fast food chains.

Do We Want Hamburger Robots?

The benefits are clear. With the introduction of these machines we can increase the food quality in many ways. Adding sensors will ensure that the meat is sufficiently cooked, the vegetables are fresh and fewer diseases are transferred from unhygienic situations (Did you know that 1 in 5 among us doesn’t wash their hands after going to the toilet?) Also, the production speed will increase lightly enabling us to feed more mouths at a lower cost. When the cost of production goes down, some businesses may actually invest in the ingredients, meaning higher quality food at the same cost. The reason not to go ahead with this is also clear: without economic reform or additional measures, these people will lose the small income they earn.

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You Don't Need a Whole Droid in the Kitchen

It’s Easy When You Have the Recipe

What Does this Imply?

A Giant Door to New Possibilities

More Free Time and Healthier Meals

The Limitations of the Robot

Conclusion

Want more?

Want more? Don't be sad that the article is over! We got plenty of other exciting stuff to share with you. Subscribe to our bi-monthly newsletter and we'll keep you up to date with our latest news! " ["post_title"]=> string(36) "A robotic MasterChef in your kitchen" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(0) "" ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["ping_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(18) "robotic-masterchef" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2019-07-17 09:31:43" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2019-07-17 09:31:43" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(55) "https://www.happonomy.org/creativity/robotic-masterchef/" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } ["comment_count"]=> int(0) ["current_comment"]=> int(-1) ["found_posts"]=> int(10) ["max_num_pages"]=> float(2) ["max_num_comment_pages"]=> int(0) ["is_single"]=> bool(false) ["is_preview"]=> bool(false) ["is_page"]=> bool(false) ["is_archive"]=> bool(true) ["is_date"]=> bool(false) ["is_year"]=> bool(false) ["is_month"]=> bool(false) ["is_day"]=> bool(false) ["is_time"]=> bool(false) ["is_author"]=> bool(false) ["is_category"]=> bool(false) ["is_tag"]=> bool(true) ["is_tax"]=> bool(false) ["is_search"]=> bool(false) ["is_feed"]=> bool(false) ["is_comment_feed"]=> bool(false) ["is_trackback"]=> bool(false) ["is_home"]=> bool(false) ["is_privacy_policy"]=> bool(false) ["is_404"]=> bool(false) ["is_embed"]=> bool(false) ["is_paged"]=> bool(false) ["is_admin"]=> bool(false) ["is_attachment"]=> bool(false) ["is_singular"]=> bool(false) ["is_robots"]=> bool(false) ["is_favicon"]=> bool(false) ["is_posts_page"]=> bool(false) ["is_post_type_archive"]=> bool(false) ["query_vars_hash":"WP_Query":private]=> string(32) "45c2f4a4ae038a04706b0b4022605f57" ["query_vars_changed":"WP_Query":private]=> bool(true) ["thumbnails_cached"]=> bool(false) ["allow_query_attachment_by_filename":protected]=> bool(false) ["stopwords":"WP_Query":private]=> NULL ["compat_fields":"WP_Query":private]=> array(2) { [0]=> string(15) "query_vars_hash" [1]=> string(18) "query_vars_changed" } ["compat_methods":"WP_Query":private]=> array(2) { [0]=> string(16) "init_query_flags" [1]=> string(15) "parse_tax_query" } ["tribe_is_event"]=> bool(false) ["tribe_is_multi_posttype"]=> bool(false) ["tribe_is_event_category"]=> bool(false) ["tribe_is_event_venue"]=> bool(false) ["tribe_is_event_organizer"]=> bool(false) ["tribe_is_event_query"]=> bool(false) ["tribe_is_past"]=> bool(false) ["tribe_controller"]=> object(Tribe\Events\Views\V2\Query\Event_Query_Controller)#12545 (1) { ["filtering_query":"Tribe\Events\Views\V2\Query\Event_Query_Controller":private]=> *RECURSION* } } string(10) "have posts"

Titel

Mollit duis Lorem amet veniam minim ad.Voluptate commodo labore aliqua quis esse aliqua.Veniam tempor elit velit non.

You Don't Need a Whole Droid in the Kitchen

It’s Easy When You Have the Recipe

What Does this Imply?

A Giant Door to New Possibilities

More Free Time and Healthier Meals

The Limitations of the Robot

Conclusion

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Lessons from history

What is happening now?

How will this impact future employment?

What can we do?

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What’s in store for people working in call centre jobs?

The business case for automated Call Centre Agents

Aren't Call Centre Agents better off?

The Happonomy Question

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What a sales representative does

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Let’s take a closer look.

Automated judiciary systems

The big Happonomy question

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What a scientist really does during the day?

How do machines impact a scientist's job?

A big Happonomy question to ask

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Artificial intelligence - still an infant

What about the programming, you may ask?

The final frontier

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Automated checkouts

Self-scan cashiers

This is not a clear-cut case

Want more?

What Do Hamburger Robots Look Like?

Fast Food Is Not Only Hamburgers

Do We Want Hamburger Robots?

Want more?

You Don't Need a Whole Droid in the Kitchen

It’s Easy When You Have the Recipe

What Does this Imply?

A Giant Door to New Possibilities

More Free Time and Healthier Meals

The Limitations of the Robot

Conclusion

Want more?

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