In earlier posts (here and here) we raised the prospect that increases in the minimum wage would accelerate the trend of replacing human workers with software and machines: "raise the minimum wage high enough, and you'll be the one punching in that order yourself at the Dunkin' Donuts or McDonald's drive-through or counter."
Now Bloomberg reports, under the headline "More Kiosks, Fewer Cashiers Coming Soon to Panera": "Panera's rolling out a new store design where customers order on their phones or at kiosks. ...The average restaurant will have about eight kiosks and one to two fewer registers."
