CNBC
Here is an article that talks all about the efficiencies of replacing human fry cooks with a machine named Flippy because cooking burgers is just repetition. Unmentioned is that machines long ago ate into a far more complex repetitive task of assembling automobiles. Why has it taken so long to move into the burger flipping efficiency? That would be the ever expanding minimum wage and the associated costs of human employees. It is no coincidence that California is the first to see inroads by Flippy. Get rid of the government-imposed cost burdens related to human employment and Flippy would have no market.
Unlike how telephone operators and horse-drawn carriages were replaced by new technologies, this is a case of government driving up the price of a product - low-skilled wage labor - to the point that machines became competitive. Rather than providing more money to low-skilled workers, the minimum wage is going to put them in the unemployment line. If one believes that the intent was to improve the standard of living of those on the bottom rungs, then this is a clear case of unintended consequences. On the other hand, if government wants more citizens dependent upon it, perhaps this is the intended - though unstated - goal.
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