Last week while taking the family truckster to the beach, my kids talked me into stopping at a Taco Bell and getting a Doritos Locos Taco. I hadn’t been to a Taco Bell in about 30 years, so I decided to indulge the offspring in a search for culinary delights.
There were two people working — one making the food, and the other wearing a headset and working the drive-through. After a few minutes of waiting at the counter, the drive-through girl swished her ponytail and said, “We have a kiosk. You should use it instead of waiting for me.”
Not Enough Workers
Poor service is now common. You have to wait for just about every type of service these days: car repairs, dentist visits, boat put in the water. It’s the same short-staffed excuse everywhere you turn.
About 12 years ago, I predicted that robots would eventually take over many jobs traditionally done by service workers. The prediction was based on the growing demand for higher wages and the falling cost of robots.
What I didn’t predict was that a vast number of Americans would simply quit their jobs and force companies to switch to robots.
Unemployment is at 3.6%, but the labor participation rate has dropped to 62.3%, down from 72% where it was in February 1995. The Census Bureau reasons that fewer baby boomers are working.
It’s also true that robots are just better now, and not just in fast-food. Miners are relying on robots as well.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
At Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine, nearly two dozen driverless trucks haul iron ore on preplanned courses, tracked by autonomous water carts that are used to control dust. Robots are used to transfer samples in the site’s laboratory, while ore departs the mine on a driverless train for export to customers in Asia.
ZDNet is reporting about robots that can make and deliver pizza. Indeed, robots have incredible range, from assisting in combat to helping in nursing homes and hospitals. They even write articles and poetry and create art.
Last of the Luddites
Replacing workers with technology is nothing new. It's a story as old as the Luddites, who protested against newly developed labor-saving machinery by destroying power looms back in 1811.
Technology is a creative and destructive force that changes workforce norms. There will be both pain and profits — and it is unstoppable.
You can fight a rearguard action and lose, or you can embrace the next wave of robots and profit.
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The choice is yours.
Here at Energy and Capital, we prefer winning to whining.
Robot Profits
There are three ways to profit from the proliferation of robots:
- Buy the companies that make robots.
- Buy the companies that make the components, like sensors and software.
- Buy the companies that will benefit the most from automation.
I’ve found one company that fits the bill for No. 2.
Here's the deal. Elon Musk of Tesla fame is working on a humanoid robot called Tesla Optimus. Musk is planning to reveal this robot on Tesla’s AI Day, which falls on September 30, 2022.
During an interview with Qatar Economic Forum, Musk said, “Well, I hope that we will have an interesting prototype to show people. We have a very talented team at Tesla that I’m working with closely to have a prototype humanoid robot ready by the end of September. And I think we are tracking to that point.”
Now, no one knows what components will be in this robot, but I’ve done some research and discovered one small company that is in almost every advanced robot there is from the military to Boston Scientific. It makes sensors that allow the robot to move and get to where it's going without falling over.
It's sort of an artificial “inner ear” system. It has a lot of patents and a deep moat. If this company’s system is revealed on September 30, the stock could skyrocket. Read my free research about it here.
To your wealth,
Christian DeHaemer Christian is the founder of Bull and Bust Report and an editor at Energy and Capital. For more on Christian, see his editor’s page.
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