...and I'm not sure that I know about it now. Whaddya think?
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
The "robot" installed at this first Burger-G restaurant looked
nothing like the robots of popular culture. It was not hominid
like C-3PO or futuristic like R2-D2 or industrial like an assembly
line robot. Instead it was simply a PC sitting in the back corner
of the restaurant running a piece of software. The software was
called "Manna", version 1.0*.
[snip]
Manna told employees what to do simply by talking to them.
Employees each put on a headset when they punched in. Manna had a
voice synthesizer, and with its synthesized voice Manna told
everyone exactly what to do through their
headsets. Constantly. Manna micro-managed minimum wage employees
to create perfect performance.
The software would speak to the employees individually and tell
each one exactly what to do. For example, "Bob, we need to load
more patties. Please walk toward the freezer."
Or, "Jane, when you are through with this customer, please close
your register. Then we will clean the women's restroom."
[snip]
So, the first real wave of robots did not replace all the factory
workers as everyone imagined. The robots replaced middle
management and significantly improved the performance of minimum
wage employees. All of the fast food chains watched the Burger-G
experiment with Manna closely, and by 2012 they started installing
Manna systems as well. By 2014 or so, nearly every business in
America that had a significant pool of minimum-wage employees was
installing Manna software or something similar. They had to do it
in order to compete.
Cool, huh?
(It's a much longer piece, several chapters.)
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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