California's New Minimum Wage Causes THOUSANDS of Workers To Get Fired
This is not going to be a gradual change. What is being done in McDonald's in California will be able to be done in every McDonald's around the country. Same goes for every other fast food restaurant or business that has minimum wage workers.
What you are looking at is the "proof of concept". Instead of thinking that California is idiotic, why not think that they are evil geniuses. California has the most to profit from the rest of the country and the rest of the world adopting this technology. It will be like calculators, the more you sell the cheaper they get. In the same way it may take $20 an hour for minimum wage to force the transition in California but then you can justify it for $15 an hour employees.
Also, consider one other thing, this is a global economy. If people in Europe lose their jobs it will impact the US just as people losing jobs in the US will impact Europe. AI is taking jobs from people in India, in China, in Europe, etc. So even if it is 5% in the US, if it is 5% in all these other parts of the world as well it will be a massive change.