By the way, I know there is an argument that "low-skilled" jobs should not be eliminated because there are supposedly people who are unable to perform more demanding and varied tasks. But I believe this is partly a myth that was invented as a result of the industrial revolution, because back then, a very large number of people were needed to do such jobs. In addition, this doesn't even address the fact that many of these jobs require some type of specific skill anyway (which isn't getting rewarded appropriately, though).

The best example to this day are immigrants who have to do "low-skilled" jobs even though they possess academic degrees from their home countries. In such cases, I believe that automation could even lead to the creation of more jobs that match their true skill levels.

Another problem is that, especially in countries like the US, low-wage jobs are used as a substitute for a reasonable social safety net.

AI (especially large language models) is, of course, a separate issue, because it is claimed that AI could replace highly skilled and creative workers, which, on the one hand, is used as a constant threat and, on the other hand, is not even remotely true according to current experience.

McDonald's has the worst kiosks of the three that I have experienced (the other two being Taco Bell and Burger King.)

They feel slightly laggy, while cramming in as many upsell interstitials (and "log in with your personal data accumulation rewards account" nags) as possible. This makes ordering feel like wading through molasses. The other two could also be slightly streamlined, but the number of clicks to order doesn't feel as egregious. (I'm now tempted to go count and see if my perceptions are accurate...)

I guess that’s basically one of my problems with this ai craze. It’s the wrong tool for the job. There are way better ways to automate processes ir whatever they are trying to do. Possibly cheaper, though not having tried to purchase an ai system in kit sure.

You point nails it, yeah the self serve kiosks are a good example they work way better. Then the human backup is there too.

At this point I fundamentally disagree that it will replace jobs, the kiosks didn’t. Walmart and Home Depot almost exclusively have self checkout, right? Well what about the cashiers? For one, those stores had like…. 3 cashiers for the entire store so not many are replaced. Further, now they have the employee milling about the self checkout kiosks for whatever. Shrink prevention, assistance because the self checkouts are hilariously dumb etc. the jobs changed but they are still there.