The Rise of the Machines and Making Burritos

Look at the employment trends in auto manufacturing and fast food.  Manufacturing, including auto, continues the long decline while fast food is 10% higher than is has ever been.  The fast food industry still has two huge employment advantages - (1.) making a burrito or hamburger is still location specific, one needs to be at point X to make it, and, (2.) it is harder to substitute technology for labor when building a burrito than your engine in the family car.  Someone needs to start a Burrito Index - - where the index measures the rise and capabilities of technology in the fast food industry.  We don't have burrito robots, yet.  A burrito robot would be a good measure of the rise of the machines in a corner of capitalism that on the surface seems distant from robots.

Matthew Yglesias covers this is his Slate column - A Burrito Stomping on a Human Face - Forever.  From the column:

"Last but by no means least, a huge challenge to robot burrito-making is that the inputs are poorly structured. The last time I went to Chipotle, I ordered a burrito with “uh, some carnitas I guess, but not too much—just a bit—yeah, that’s great, thanks.” This perhaps annoyed the woman whose job it was to scoop the protein into the burrito, but she understood it perfectly well. Later, when asked if I wanted anything to drink, I said “no, thank you,” but then remembered that my wife strongly prefers fountain soda to cans, so I reversed myself and said “a Diet Coke, actually no, make that two,” since I wanted one too! The cashier not only parsed that double flip-flop but cruised past the irrelevance of my stated soda-brand preference and just handed me two cups. Chipotle expects customers to fill their own cups, thus saving on labor costs and letting the customers decide exactly how much ice they want."