Have you heard of "Flippy"?
This is a robotic arm that was designed by Miso Robotics. It is designed to handle the cooking in fast food restaurants.
Originally brought to market in 2016, Flippy went through some iterations along with additional features. Most importantly, the price of it dropped significantly from just 4 years ago.
A few years ago, it took a cool $100,000 to get a hold of Flippy. Today, it comes in at roughly $10,000 with cheaper models on the way. This is an enormous drop in price which is showing how the robotic industry is changing. More companies are going to be able to access the technology with the continued drop in pricing.
Flippy can be had for about $2,000 a month on a subscription basis. This amounts to roughly $3 per hour. The key is that humans cost between $4,000-$10,000 per month depending upon the hours a restaurant keeps.
This is a big deal. When the companies producing these robots can show a significant cost savings, we are going to see an acceleration in their implementation.
In this instance, automation in the worst case situation is break even based upon Miso's pricing strategy. New models will most likely offer savings the first month.
Of course, a lot of it depends upon how well the robotics actually work. There are obvious limitations to these technologies but, in addition to price drops, they are improving.
The pace of implementation is going to affect how well we are able to handle the job loss. If it is quick, that could be something that society has difficulty adjusting to. The longer it takes, the greater the chance that we can adapt.
Four years is not a long time and shows the power of advancement. This is the reason why many feel that technological unemployment is going to be a problem at some point in the next decade. With price drops like this, another 5 years will enable most companies to be able to afford technologies of this nature.
It is going to be interesting to watch.
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Posted via Steemleo
