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Inside Amazon Go

nytimes.com

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Re: Inside Amazon Go

#71

Post by bsbechtel »

threatofrain wrote: post #45
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #41

I know the standard reaction from a lot of HN folk will be to celebrate this progress: it's faster, more efficient, and no one likes to waste time waiting in line. Still, though, I think Amazon's automation of the retail experience is helping to create a society where there is even less real social interaction, and I think it's a factor (if even a small one currently) in the increasing tribalism in American society.…

The marketplace today is hardly the place for meaningful interaction, whether with employees or other shoppers. What it seems like to me is unpaid emotional labor. To have interesting social time, we need less hours at work and more public (non-commercial) spaces to meet. For example, where are children supposed to meet?

Social time with the freedom to choose how you spend it allows individuals to congregate into their own tribes and pursue interests pertinent to them. Forced social interactions that are the byproduct of other necessary transactions are how we learn from others unlike ourselves.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#72

Post by Armisael16 »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #70

Attacks I'd like to try but would get picked up by the cops if I did: - Carry empty bags/containers of cheaper items in the store and place products inside these before pulling them off of the shelf. - Pull products off of the shelf and give them to a friend. Place identical empty bags/containers back to re-credit your account while your friend never has the item debited and walks out. - Drape a blanket over yourself…

I haven’t the foggiest about the first two, but I’m going to guess that one of the workers would notice you cover yourself up with a blanket.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#73

Post by wyager »

dennisdamenace wrote: post #46
threatofrain wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marketplace today is hardly the place for meaningful interaction, whether with employees or other shoppers. What it seems like to me is unpaid emotional labor. To have interesting social time, we need less hours at work and more public (non-commercial) spaces to meet. For example, where are children supposed to meet?

I often learn a lot at the check out lines here in Oregon. People chat, exchange information. Often banal, sometimes valuable. Always nice.

This is a regional cultural thing. I’ve mostly noticed it in ethnically and linguistically homogenous areas. Absolutely not the case in most American urban centers outside of the northern US.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#74

Post by freehunter »

tuna-piano wrote: post #62
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #41

I know the standard reaction from a lot of HN folk will be to celebrate this progress: it's faster, more efficient, and no one likes to waste time waiting in line. Still, though, I think Amazon's automation of the retail experience is helping to create a society where there is even less real social interaction, and I think it's a factor (if even a small one currently) in the increasing tribalism in American society.…

I think you're right, and I haven't seen the answer from our society yet. If you can sit at home and get things delivered (which is easier and addicting), you do miss out on different experiences (some good, some bad). You can imagine a world where many of our storefronts could empty out. If you work from home, get Amazon deliveries, go to school online, etc... what will you do and what storefronts do you need? Are b…

The example is obvious if you actually step outside your door. Anyone can get anything delivered at any time of day or year, so other than going to work, there is no need right now for anyone to leave their house, ever. But funny enough, if you go into any downtown area, any park, any waterfront, any restaurant, they're busy. Abnormally busy, based on the fact that, again, none of them have any need to be there.

Turns out that when you relieve people of the burdens of things they have to do (like grocery shopping, which is oftentimes tedious and boring), they now have more time and energy to do things they want to do. Instead of forced interactions at the grocery store, they'll go to a park and talk to people they actually want to talk to. Instead of spending an entire day going to Costco and shoving their way through the crowds, they visit a boutique store and stop for coffee at a local cafe.

Some of the comments in this thread are quite curious. Bemoaning the death of tedious chores and banal small-talk like these are things the general public actually enjoys doing rather than merely tolerates out of necessity.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#75

Post by Armisael16 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #65
seangrant wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle area here. All my life I remember waiting in lines 10-20 minutes if you go to a store on a busy day (fri/sat/sun). It's just simple math sometimes where there's so many people with $400+ carts trying to check out and cashiers can only scan so fast. Everyone with medium or small sized carts have to wait in this. I've seen great strides in recent years to advance self checkout technology and its user flow. Walm…

> It's just simple math sometimes where there's so many people with $400+ carts trying to check out and cashiers can only scan so fast. Everyone with medium or small sized carts have to wait in this. Why don't the customers scan the items themselves as they put them into their carts while at the shelves, rather than waiting until they get to the checkout? That's what we do where I live in the UK.

Some stores support this; most don’t.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#76

Post by yodon »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #70

Attacks I'd like to try but would get picked up by the cops if I did: - Carry empty bags/containers of cheaper items in the store and place products inside these before pulling them off of the shelf. - Pull products off of the shelf and give them to a friend. Place identical empty bags/containers back to re-credit your account while your friend never has the item debited and walks out. - Drape a blanket over yourself…

Amazon has had this store open for employees to use for some time. Think of that time as a massive bug bash hacking project where really smart people are encouraged to try to find ways to wreak havoc with the system. There are undoubtedly attacks still to find but Amazon is definitely not being clueless about this.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#77

Post by andrewseanryan »

Welllll. Now that idea for a Smart Shopping Cart that I drew up 10 years is completely obsolete hahaha.

Like it or not, this Amazon Go store is a model for all future brick and mortar establishments. In 20 years we will recall the good old days when we waited in line and used cash much like people look back at the time when people sent cards and letters before email.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#78

Post by freehunter »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #70

Attacks I'd like to try but would get picked up by the cops if I did: - Carry empty bags/containers of cheaper items in the store and place products inside these before pulling them off of the shelf. - Pull products off of the shelf and give them to a friend. Place identical empty bags/containers back to re-credit your account while your friend never has the item debited and walks out. - Drape a blanket over yourself…

A similar attack at a normal grocery store is to grab an item off a shelf and walk out the door. Another attack is, if an employee asks you to stop and show your receipt, just keep walking.

But yeah, the cops tend to frown on shoplifting. It's actually a crime in many places, believe it or not.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#79

Post by sAbakumoff »

That is terrible. Not only it takes away jobs, it also gives Amazon the unprecedented access to the sensitive information about customers. I would never go to this store. Fortunately something like this will never happen in our beautiful Europe.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#80

Post by deecewan »

panarky wrote: post #19

There were a little over 3.5 million cashiers in the United States in 2016 — and some of their jobs may be in jeopardy if the technology behind Amazon Go eventually spreads. Why is this the knee-jerk response to technological progress? True progress isn't forcing millions of people into low-wage routine work. True progress would emancipate people from this drudgery entirely. Isaac Asimov questioned why the goal of bo…

Except this only works if we can flip a switch at some point in time to automate everything. Otherwise people will still have to work maintaining robots, building new robots, or working on the technology that powers the robots.

So, now when people are all out there 'playing', the ones enabling the playing still have to work. Good luck encouraging people that is a good idea, when they could just quit and go play themselves.

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