Anxious Gen Z want to create a soulless economy

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The supermarket cashiers have already been consigned to the history books. The shop assistants are turning into a distant memory. Nobody under the age of 40 knows what a phone call is anymore, and actually going to the office is a rarity.

And now we learn that the waiters and waitresses are on the way out as well.

The casual dining chain Bill’s is offering the option of a more automated process for ordering a burger and a glass of beer because many of its Gen Z customers prefer interacting with a QR code over an actual flesh-and-blood ordering system.

But hold on. This is crazy.

In reality, companies may believe they are just following the market and saving some money at the same time. Bills has been clear that it will never scrap waiters, and in fact it is creating more jobs. And yet the wider industry shift towards automation also risks creating a soulless, dead economy, bereft of human contact – and we will all suffer from that.

Bill’s is one of the less assuming of the casual dining chains dotted across the country, with a functional menu of burgers, salads and fish pies, all served at reasonable prices.

It is a reliable, reasonably priced choice, while not exactly breaking new ground. This year it is trying out something new, with a plan to offer the option of more automation.

Bill's plans to phase out waiters across its restaurants
Bill's plans to phase out waiters across its restaurants in response to rising 'menu anxiety' among Gen Z - lovethephoto / Alamy Stock Photo

According to Tom James, managing director of the chain, younger diners increasingly do not engage with waiters and would rather order and pay digitally when dining out.

“I just think it’s how they’ve grown up,” he said. “They communicate through their phones and their devices.

“There’s no question that you’ve got to then offer that functionality if the new modern guest – Gen Z – are going to be more comfortable ordering, rather than speaking to a stranger.”

It is not hard to understand why it thinks that is necessary. Indeed, a survey last year by rival chain Prezzo found that 86pc of Gen Z suffered from “menu anxiety” when confronted with the task of actually ordering something from a real person instead of touching an icon on a screen.

And of course, the restaurant business is already seeing increasing levels of automation. There are QR codes for the menu, and you can often pay by scanning your phone at your table instead of asking for the bill.

Chipotle has made such a success of its robots to make salads and burritos that its boss was poached to run Starbucks earlier this month, where no doubt very soon he will be working on a barista-bot.

The trouble is, it is hard to see this trend ending well.

Human contact, even if it occasionally provokes some anxiety, is fundamental to a healthy, functioning economy. After four years of working from home, just about every company in the world has concluded that the office was better for creativity, with ideas sparking between colleagues, and people putting more hours in than when they are in their kitchen.

That is why more and more companies have been ordering staff back to their desks, even at the risk of a backlash from their younger employees. Likewise, cashiers at the supermarket were often quicker, created a better bond with the customers and cut down on theft.

It remains to be seen what the restaurant equivalent of the famous “banana trick” might be – for the more naive and law-abiding among our readers, it is a well-known scam for fooling an automated check out machine – but no doubt there will soon be TikToks explaining how you can get a steak and a G&T for the price of a couple of breadsticks and glass of tap water.

Meanwhile, phone calls were always a far better way of communicating than simply relying on email or messaging systems, allowing colleagues and work contacts to catch up with one another, swap some gossip, and exchange ideas, in a way that can’t be replicated elsewhere.

And of course, it was often the waiters and waitresses that created the atmosphere and fun of a restaurant, and barmen (the next to go surely, replaced by vending machines pouring out pints and shots of tequila) even more so.

The list goes on and on. In reality, every time another part of the economy is automated, a small part of it also dies.

There were signs that the trend was turning.

Asda, for example, has started adding more staff as it worked out that self-service has reached its limit, while the smaller Booths chain said last year it was getting rid of almost all the self-service tills.

Amazon has largely given up on its experiment with shops that don’t just get rid of cashiers, but even automated check-outs, relying instead on a sinister-sounding app to track what you have picked up and charge you for it.

Asda started adding more staff after discovering that self-service had reached its limit
Asda started adding more staff after discovering that self-service had reached its limit - Kumar Sriskandan / Alamy Stock Photo

But those are very minor examples. The broad trend to eliminate the human element is still in place, and if artificial intelligence gets better, may well accelerate even further.

In the end, we will end up with high streets that are completely dead and an economy that has become completely flat and sterile.

There will be few new ideas, and as restaurants, shops and bars lose their atmosphere, there will be less and less incentive to ever go out for a meal or a drink, creating a vicious cycle that, once started, will be impossible to break out of.

Companies may argue that they are simply following their customers and giving Gen Z what it wants. And of course in the short term they may well save on some costs, although in the medium term, as the supermarkets have found out, silicon-based staff can end up costing more than the carbon-based variety ever did.

And yet, they are also sacrificing the vibrancy of commerce, which eventually will prove a big mistake.