Inside Amazon Go • Hacker News Board

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#131

Post by threatofrain » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

bsbechtel wrote: post #71

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?

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.

Some people here talk about conversations struck up waiting in the check-out line or at the DMV. I think that is the exception rather than the norm. Just the like bus, or airplane are other forced scenarios, but I think people who strike up a conversation are the exception and not the norm, and I would suspect that they have been down-trending for awhile.

What people call "tribalism" I would re-frame as class structuralism. People might segregate themselves by class via Whole Foods vs Walmart, but that doesn't mean people are striking up conversations within-class or between-classes. That doesn't seem very "tribal" versus what American Christians have; rather it seems loosely coherent.

And again, I would ask whether a commercial space is really the best place going forward. I am struck by the number of places a young person wouldn't feel like going without a credit card.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#132

Post by jchw » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

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.…

Technology is not an issue related to this problem. Bigger corporations in general make this inevitable. How meaningful of an interaction do you have with the tired cashier at Walmart or any other big retailer? Even at Trader Joes, the few minutes of interaction are rarely meaningful, even if I try to make them so, and that is the absolute best example. Small talk is not that engaging.

Even more so, technology for not having to interact with cashiers ever already exists: the self-checkout system. If I walk into a chain store like Meijer, people will be piled up at the self-checkout even if there is a completely free human cashier waiting for customers!

But even so, people are not checking out to socialize. Even what they do say isn't so substantial. Things move too fast, there's too many customers and too little time. How often do you remember the name of your cashier? How often are they still working there a year later?

Amazon's store actually represents a potential departure because as they say, they introduce humans in ways they think will improve the customer experience. Quote:

>“We’ve just put associates on different kinds of tasks where we think it adds to the customer experience,” Ms. Puerini said.

So there are people. And those people, with their hopefully less hectic roles, are almost certain to interact with customers in ways that will be more meaningful than the overworked cashier with a line of 10 carts and a full bladder. And perhaps, if the job doesn't suck (unlike many of Amazon's jobs, unfortunately,) they might actually stick around to become a normal you can interact with.

Of course, that's completely just conjecture. I actually believe Amazon's store will be around the same as any other in terms of the social value you get out of it, which is to say minimal at best. If people actually had meaningful value to get out of visiting marketplaces in modern times, they'd look forward to it instead of looking for how to eliminate it.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#133

Post by brandon272 » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #5

"Amazon won’t say much about how the system works, other than to say it involves sophisticated computer vision and machine learning software." Why do I have the feeling this probably actually translates to humans staring at video feeds a lot of the time?

I thought they were going to use some kind of RFID system.

Using cameras and shelf sensors seem a little archaic for tracking retail purchases in real time. I wonder what happens when the store is extremely busy or people are taking things off shelves and putting them back.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#134

Post by heinrichf » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

Techcrunch article with additional technical details: https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/21/inside-amazons-surveillanc...

> ordinary RGB cameras, custom made with boards in the enclosure to do some basic grunt computer vision work, presumably things like motion detection, basic object identification, and so on. They’re augmented by separate depth-sensing cameras (using a time-of-flight technique, or so I understood from Kumar) that blend into the background like the rest, all matte black. The images captured from these cameras are sent to a central processing unit.

> In addition to the cameras, there are weight sensors in the shelves, and the system is aware of every item’s exact weight

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#135

Post by koiz » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

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.…

Retail is not a place where you will find a "real social interaction".

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#136

Post by cm2187 » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

brandon272 wrote: post #133

makomk wrote: post #5

"Amazon won’t say much about how the system works, other than to say it involves sophisticated computer vision and machine learning software." Why do I have the feeling this probably actually translates to humans staring at video feeds a lot of the time?

I thought they were going to use some kind of RFID system. Using cameras and shelf sensors seem a little archaic for tracking retail purchases in real time. I wonder what happens when the store is extremely busy or people are taking things off shelves and putting them back.

I wondered why we were still using barcodes in shops when you could do the checkout in one go with RFIDs. Turns out that the last time I checked, RFIDs are quite expensive, something like 10 cent a piece. A minor cost if you are selling electronics, but too expensive relative to the price of a chocolate bar.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#137

Post by superasn » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

blibble wrote: post #83

not entirely serious, but not entirely joking: in a world where all stores are like this; you drop your phone and it smashes, can you still buy food? (what about people without phones?)

That sounds like a premise for the next black mirror episode.. though they will make it a lot more scarier!

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#138

Post by eli » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

tuna-piano wrote: post #49

I love this - shows why Amazon keeps growing. Seems like the total investment in this store/technology is probably in the single digit digit millions (or maybe low double digit). If it doesn't work? Lose, ~$10 million. But if it works there's likely huge upside. It's just a smart bet for a big company. Sometimes your bets turn into AWS, and sometimes they turn into the Fire phone. Most companies I've worked at are ve…

I always assumed the whole thing was mostly to demo the tech, which they will then sell to other retailers.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#139

Post by pcurve » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #112

Kiro wrote: post #82

Am I the only one living in a country where most stores have self-checkout already? The comments here make it sound like it's either Amazon Go or having to pay through a cashier. Jobs and social interaction have already been elminated by self-checkout. The revolution with Amazon Go is that you don't need to scan anything yourself, not that it removes the cashier.

Many stores in the USA already have self checkout, and have had it for a decade or so. Go just eliminates the checkout process all together.

Maybe I'm weird, but I enjoy self checkout line. Picking up each item, looking for barcode, scanning it, and bagging, is kind of fun activity to do every once in awhile. The only lame part is, "please place the item in the bag" mechanism.

Re: Inside Amazon Go

#140

Post by ballenarosada » Sun, Jan 21, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

pacaro wrote: post #114

Kiro wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The revolution here isn't self-checkout. In my country most stores already have that, which means all social interaction is eliminated already. So your argument is less about Amazon Go and more about self-checkout. The revolution is that you don't need to scan any items yourself or do anything at all. Just pick your items and go out.

The revolution is in how you spend your time. On an ordinary day when you know what you want for lunch, it can take under a minute to pop in and get it, under 10 seconds if you’re in a hurry.

none of these things are a "revolution"