By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, December 06, 2013
After you heard President Obama's call for a hike in the
minimum wage, you probably wondered the same thing I did: Was Obama sent from
the future by Skynet to prepare humanity for its ultimate dominion by robots?
But just in case the question didn't occur to you, let me
explain. On Tuesday, the day before Obama called for an increase in the minimum
wage, the restaurant chain Applebee's announced that it will install iPad-like
tablets at every table. Chili's already made this move earlier this year.
With these consoles customers will be able to order their
meals and pay their checks without dealing with a waiter or waitress. Both
companies insist that they won't be changing their staffing levels, but if
you've read any science fiction, you know that's what the masterminds of every
robot takeover say: "We're here to help. We're not a threat."
But the fact is, the tablets are a threat. In 2011, Annie
Lowrey wrote about the burgeoning tablet-as-waiter business. She focused on a
startup firm called E La Carte, which makes a table tablet called Presto.
"Each console goes for $100 per month. If a restaurant serves meals eight
hours a day, seven days a week, it works out to 42 cents per hour per table --
making the Presto cheaper than even the very cheapest waiter. Moreover, no
manager needs to train it, replace it if it quits, or offer it sick days. And
it doesn't forget to take off the cheese, walk off for 20 minutes, or
accidentally offend with small talk, either."
Applebee's is using the Presto. Are we really supposed to
believe that the chain will keep thousands of redundant human staffers on the
payroll forever?
People don't go into business to create jobs; they go into
business to make money. Labor is a cost. The more expensive labor is, the more
attractive nonhuman replacements for labor become. The minimum wage makes labor
more expensive. Obama knows this, which is why he so often demonizes ATM
machine as job-killers.
Just a few days before Obama's big speech on income
inequality, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos launched a media frenzy by revealing on
"60 Minutes" that he's working on the idea of having a fleet of robot
drones deliver products straight to your door. I can only imagine the
discomfort this caused for any UPS or FedEx delivery guys watching the show.
There are still a lot of bugs to be worked out, but does anyone doubt that this
is coming?
You might take solace in the fact that there will still
be a need for truck drivers to deliver the really big stuff and to supply the
warehouses where the drones come and go like worker bees. The only hitch is
that technology for driverless cars is already here, it just hasn't been
deployed -- yet.
None of this is necessarily bad. Machines make us a more
productive society, and a more productive society is a richer society. They
also free us up for more rewarding work. As Wired's Kevin Kelly notes,
"Two hundred years ago, 70 percent of American workers lived on the farm.
Today automation has eliminated all but 1 percent of their jobs, replacing them
(and their work animals) with machines."
While some hippies and agrarian poets may disagree, most
people wouldn't say we'd be better off if 7 out of 10 people still did
back-breaking labor on farms.
That doesn't mean the transition to a society fueled by
robot slaves won't be painful. The Luddites destroyed cotton mills for a
reason. Figuring out ways to get the young and the poor into the job market
really is a vital political, economic and moral challenge. My colleague at the
American Enterprise Institute, James Pethokoukis, argues that one partial
solution might have to be wage subsidies that defray the costs of labor,
tipping the calculus in favor of humans at least for a while.
"Of course," Pethokoukis notes, "wage
subsidies are an on-budget, transparent cost -- which politicians hate -- while
the costs of the minimum wage are shifted onto business and hidden. But the
costs exist just the same."
The robot future is coming no matter what, and it will
require some truly creative responses by policymakers. I don't know what those
are, but I'm pretty sure antiquated ideas that were bad policy 100 years ago
aren't going to be of much use. Maybe the answers will come when artificial intelligence
finally comes online and we can replace the policymakers with machines, too.
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