In a fit of hunger and procrastination, the Hawkeye staff took Thursday night off and went out to Chili’s for dinner (2 for 20 you guys. Bring on the chipotle chicken crispers and ribs). 

When we took our seats, we noticed each table had a miniature TV/tablet sort of thing. Of course, we couldn’t mind our own business or keep our hands to ourselves, so we started to play with it. 

With some help from the server, we found out it was an electronic waiter. An actual, touch screen waiter. 

You could place drink orders without going to the bar, send your food order directly to the kitchen, play games and even pay your bill at the end of the meal, all with the tip of your finger. 

My initial thought was, “Who has quarters, I need to play games on this thing.” This eventually turned into, “Wait, why do we even need a human waiter if we have this thing?” 

While technology is a pretty cool and necessary thing, it’s becoming more and more obvious that humans are rather terrible at thinking ahead. 

If the opportunity for something new and innovative comes along, we’ll take it without really considering the long-term consequences.

Our ability to innovate and to produce what doesn’t exist in nature is the reason humans can overcome diseases, communicate with people on the other side of the world and know what exists even beyond our little blue and green ball of stuff in the universe. 

We have the ability to create, but just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

Imagine if the mini-TV waiter became efficient enough that Chili’s found there was no longer a need for human labor around the restaurant. Then, restaurant chains around the world followed Chili’s brilliant plan and decided they didn’t need people either.

Cutting labor is cutting costs and that’s good, right? 

In the United States alone, this change would result in the loss of roughly 2.36 million jobs in the restaurant industry. 

Changes like this are affecting every industry, whether it’s restaurants, farming, medical services or even daily life. 

We as a country want to complain that it’s impossible to find a job in today’s economy, but we look for every chance to outsource human labor to technology. 

But while it’s easy to throw blame on the U.S., there is a constant, worldwide technology battle over what country can build and implement technology first. The battle is accelerating with no bounds, and the U.S. is simply doing what every other country is doing: keeping up. 

Humans are literally eliminating the need for people.

The world needs to take a moment to slow down and to simply be human. We should continue to solve problems that exist, but stop creating ones that don’t.

That’s a pretty lofty goal when you’re thinking big, but think a little smaller. 

What’s wrong with going out to dinner with your friends and family and actually enjoying the experience without the help of a table-top gaming system? Are we really so impatient that we can’t stand the thought of waiting an extra ten seconds for our waiter to walk 100 feet to the kitchen and place the dinner order? 

Not everything needs to be done quickly or without effort. Not everything should be controlled. 

Not all problems are actually problems.