AnotherDayAnotherDollar
Banned
I still wonder on the security and how they will do LP on this....
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Introducing Amazon Go and the worlds most advanced shopping technology
- Thread starter Exile20
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If you are scared of people losing cashier jobs, then do that job yourself and then tell us how great the job is. Automation on low-skill jobs is a good thing, it will boost education, people will get better jobs and income will be higher.
And the thing is, this will happen, noone can stop this train.
And the thing is, this will happen, noone can stop this train.
StoppedInTracks
Member
This is incredible.
What's the markup on grocery and food items though?
Also with automated Trucks this will kill jobs in America
Trump will be elected 4 Ever :|
What's the markup on grocery and food items though?
Also with automated Trucks this will kill jobs in America
Trump will be elected 4 Ever :|
This is incredible.
What's the markup on grocery and food items though?
Also with automated Trucks this will kill jobs in America
Trump will be elected 4 Ever :|
Does Trump even have a stance on automated America? I've only heard his stance of taking jobs overseas.
As soon as Amazon rolls out another store or two, Walmart and others will start trying to implement this across rural america, and basically gut those jobs.
RoninChaos
Member
And you think basic income will go through in America? There's going to have to be a violent shift for this to happen. Congress won't even raise minimum wage and our politicians demonize those on welfare. Basic income isn't going to happen in America for a long time, if ever. There would have to be a fundamental shift in how the USA works and the rich aren't going to give that up.
Tag every product with a RFID tag. If you move out the shelf into your basket, it gets scanned. When you move out of the door, scan if you have anything else with you. It would probably be similar to their current shipping system.
Filthy Casual
Member
Potential issues aside, this is pretty amazing tech.
Last_colossi
Member
Ugh... This mentality irks me.
Just because a new technology is introduced that will definitely make the lives of the customer and obviously the company easier doesn't mean there'll be no jobs. Who do you think packs those shelfs, cooks/makes those ready made meals, cleans the isle's (and the restrooms if they have them), shopfits all the new technologies, shelving, fridges, signs, etc., Not to mention the farmers who supply the food to them in the first place.
There will always be jobs, but as technologies improve and things change jobs will change with them.
Amazon may or may not be a prime (heh) example of treating their employees fairly but some company was going to do this eventually and the first company to do so may as well be one of the largest and most successful.
Monocle
Member
Damn, the future is now.
Or, er, soon.
Or, er, soon.
Welfare queens tho.
Reactionary horseshit. The answer isn't to retard progress. It's to adapt and work to help others do the same.
QuantumBro
Banned
Seems like it's at least a year away from being opened to the public. I wonder how they're going to deal with selling alcohol since it seems pretty to buy with this system.
Can't wait until cashiers go the way of the dodo.
Can't wait until cashiers go the way of the dodo.
NullPointer
Member
(full transcript)New York Times interview transcript said:
I think a lot of people missed this bit.
Your age via the app and your credit card.
More like the robots will build the robots.
LUFTRAUSER
Banned
Combine technology like this with a Universal Basic Income and we might be able to make a kind of technocratic Communism.
QuantumBro
Banned
What if you lie on the app and pay with a gift card? They'll probably have to have someone manager a alcohol booth to avoid violating state + federal laws.
UncleSporky
Member
I'm picturing like, going in with an ostensibly "eco friendly" bag that is actually a faraday cage or something.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Far less people are needed to run this than in a regular supermarket. In fact, since Amazon is the leader in automated warehouse shelving, I wouldn't be surprised if they have something like that in place here as well.
In fact, I think it's your stance that's irksome. These kinds of technologies won't create more jobs. They will decimate the low/mid skilled jobs, and people and governments need to start planning for it.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
Yeah, poor people need to hurry up and bite the pillow so that upper-middle class can get their groceries without talking to anyone already. So they go without basic quality of life for a few years minimum? Big deal. I want to live in Star Trek.
Go to a Walmart and tell me how many people are st checkouts vs the rest of the store. Relatively few are sitting at cash registers.
That said. Good luck using SNAP at Amazon go!
demosthenes
Member
This is incredible.
What's the markup on grocery and food items though?
Also with automated Trucks this will kill jobs in America
Trump will be elected 4 Ever :|
You are over estimating how fast fully automated trucks will be wide spread in America.
Ah, but who will build the robots that BUILD the robots!
Realistically, at some point these automated assembly lines will be so bespoke that they WILL be assembled by humans because it doesn't make economic sense to build a robot to build a production run of like 20 machines.
No idea how far up the value chain one needs to go to get to that point.
You have a very different idea of 'easing the transition' than I do, apparently.
I'm not some luddite completely opposed to technology. This is the way forward and nothing will stop the march of progress... But we are clearly headed for a very scary future especially when the fight over UBI inevitably goes the way we know it will.
As always, people will get fucked over, many people will suffer. The economic divide will only become wider. The power and wealth will only continue to flow upward leaving the majority behind to suffer.
As always, people will get fucked over, many people will suffer. The economic divide will only become wider. The power and wealth will only continue to flow upward leaving the majority behind to suffer.
As the saying goes, you cannot stop progress.
We would be better off addressing being a jobs cult than fighting technology. Really, think of it from a macro-scale level: how can we be so fucking stupid to let technological change be seen as chaotic and problematic? The problem isn't in this change, but our thoughts, images, and ideals which fight it.
Thou must work or thou suffers in becoming an increasingly dangerous system to adhere to, with the force we do. I'd argue it's nearly as dangerous as climate change denial in that the ideas held produce conflict, division, and enhance suffering. A have not in a game where everyone must be a have or else doesn't sound very welcoming.
This is an increasingly insoluble situation, for many reasons. Surely you know something about that onion, no? The problem of college costs? The rate of deep learning advancements? The increasing "infection" of technology to sustainable jobs?
What do you suggest we do? I ask because I hope you're not a Spencer "survival of the fittest" in a parasitic socioeconomic sense.
Do understand that the aversion people have to this is very likely the same aversion to that change, directly or otherwise.
What happens when you lack a job in a jobs cult? You suffer.
That alone is the problem, and the central one we're not examining beyond "well, just got a job!" which, if we're being honest, is too loose to be taken sincerely.
CadetMahoney
Member
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
No matter how much "we" focus on easing the transition, it is going to be hell for a lot of people. I don't think anyone should be comfortable with getting over that.
KennyLinder
Member
Not sure what's it's like in the US (probably behind since we've had chip and pin in the UK for many years, for instance) but you can almost do this now in supermarkets. You scan the food item yourself into a handheld machine (that sits in the shopping trolley) and then at the end you put into a pay machine and pay. YOU occasionally get a quick check from a member of staff, although they normally just have a quick look, nothing like taking items out and looking all through bags.
This tech is one date further, very clever.
This tech is one date further, very clever.
You people are fucking crazy. Nobody chooses to do low paying jobs. People do those low skilled jobs because they dont have a choice. They aren't going to get 50k a year jobs just because cashiers are eliminated. They will just be unemployed.
Its really easy for people sitting in a cubicle all day to say, yall should get better jobs. That job is treating you horribly so QUITT!! Society will still have high school drop outs, drug addicts, people that are arent interested in education. Minimum wage, low skilled jobs are the only thing available to them. When thats gone, that leads to unemployment and crime as a last resort.
"Sorry, your age hasn't been confirmed. Please confirm your age at the reception booth to become eligible."
chillybright
Banned
Lmao cashier jobs were created by automation in the first place.
pretty much what i expected. so basically those jobs are probably halved in 10 years, so most of what's left are smaller stores or more service-oriented chains (say restaurants with huge menus or made-to-order food and places like the apple store).
Indeed, which is why we need to be proactive, not reactive.
Unfortunately, look at every country that's suffered from neoliberal ideas as this change happens: they only elect neonationalists and the real problems stay ignored. We risk going from "job creator" myths to "job maintainer" myths as this changes. You've already seen it with Trump and Carrier: we're ignoring the goal is displacement, so we're caught like little children with the illusion of sustainment.
But I hope not. EvenTed Cruz is aware of the changes. He held a panel on AI last week. Even the Republicans, enemies of reason they usually are, realize this could be poised to become a societal bomb ready to blow.
perfectchaos007
Member
We can speed up the shift to having everything automated if we raise the minimum wage to >$12/hr. And no, the "guaranteed income" won't happen in America during our lifetimes.
Obama said we need to really have this conversation in 10 years.
I presume when he gets out of office, he will talk more about this. The last year of his presidency has had huge moments of him talking about the landscape from wage insurance to even admitting income may likely have to be decoupled from personal productivity.
What needs to be gotten over is the idea that we can save all the jobs that are being eliminated due to automation.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
I'm not saying that we should outright refuse progress, but telling people to get over it, stop crying, etc is incredibly selfish.
Especially since we can see the writing on the wall in the form of minimum wage. Socio-economic progress is being fought against much harder than automation is.
True. We should have empathy who suffer because of this change, but this should be our fuel to demand more from those claiming to represent us. I always worried of a problem with the minimum wage in this climate: we rightfully want people to be paid humanely, but then their costs are easier targets for automation, delegation, and displacement to hit. We do one good thing in this climate, and one thing wipes it away. I'm sure most of the states raising minimum wages will be the same ones adopting technologies like Amazon has on offer.
I hold a view similarly to Andrew Ng in that education reform and basic income are essential solutions America needs soon. Then there's the health care problem...
Man, tough times.
Dr. Black Jack
Member
Ask anyone who works at Costco. Self checkouts were tested and scrapped because it was slower than a trained cashier and it would gut Costco's biggest asset, its workforce. People pay for the level of service the cashier provides, giving them good wages/benefits while the cashier gets them through the line as quickly/accurately as possible. It's win/win. Why is this a bad thing?
This idealistic "everyone will go to college and get high-paying, high-skilled jobs" shit is terrible. REAL TALK: Not everyone is college material, and even amongst those that are the job market is so competitive there's barely room for the people working now let alone in the future. Automation isn't going to be used to save the poor, unwashed masses from illiteracy and manual labor; it's going to be used to cut costs and line the pockets of the elite like always and force out the various minorities that don't fit into the white collar economy.
DreadPirateRoberts
Member
Amazon already uses RFID tags to track which truck packages go on, it probably scans all the items you have with you as you exit, using the NFC chip in your phone to track the items to you.
Indeed. It is not really a hard system to make if you compare it to their current system. They're not replacing cashiers, they're replacing their Amazon zombies.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
True. We should have empathy who suffer because of this change, but this should be our fuel to demand more from those claiming to represent us. I always worried of a problem with the minimum wage in this climate: we rightfully want people to be paid humanely, but then their costs are easier targets for automation, delegation, and displacement to hit. We do one good thing in this climate, and one thing wipes it away. I'm sure most of the states raising minimum wages will be the same ones adopting technologies like Amazon has on offer.
I hold a view similarly to Andrew Ng in that education reform and basic income are essential solutions America needs soon. Then there's the health care problem...
Man, tough times.
Seems like all we can really do is wait four years and hope there's a democratic presidential candidate who gives a shit.
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