I'm thinking of a few families who I dined with periodically -- cookouts, Thanksgiving, etc -- and today they order breakfast from McDonalds. It's Uber or Doordash or Grubhub for every single meal.

COVID broke people. I know people who cooked their own food all the time, and they've shifted to 100% online ordering or going for take-out -- even breakfast and lunch -- and they're paying through the nose. But this just seems like the New Normal to them.

I don't think the problem is unique to Gen Z but it definitely skews toward the younger generations.

You may be thinking of the first episode of the US version of Max Headroom?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekg45ub8bsk

"The only people that inactive are pensioners, the sick, or the unemployed. I mean, come on. Who really cares?"

Fast food restaurants don't really have kitchens any more, though. Just "stations" where frozen components are toasted or broiled, then shifted right into a wrapper.

Read the story. That's essentially what happens, as the economy contracts and only the fittest and quickest can survive doing labor, everybody else gets moved into basic income slums.

It's not a long read, and Brain's foresight around what happens to displaced workers is proving to be incredibly accurate.

Someone call Phil Plait!

The biggest risk I see is Idiocracy. Like, the movie.

Business workers become afraid to do or propose anything without AI signoff. Retail & service workers are told to do what the AI says, the way the AI says to do it, or get fired.

Technology innovator Marshall Brain (RIP) wrote a book in the early 2000s about an AI called "Manna" designed to replace fast food managers:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204080050/https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

The AI just talks in your ear all day: "Empty one bag of fries into the fryer. You have 6.5 minutes, switch to the sandwich station. Make one Big Burger: grab one patty from the 1/4 pound bin and place it on the griddle... ... The fries are ready, turn around and lift them into the drain hopper..."

All day, every day, exactly 8 hours plus mandatory breaks, employees on autopilot listening on ear buds.

I am shocked. Shocked, I say!

Well not that shocked.

Sysipup

No Doppler effect? COME ON. I thought that was going to be the joke!

On ice, one might say

Hourly? That's a rookie schedule.