I love when huge corporations end racism for me.
In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing
11–20 of 140 posts
Re: In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say the answer is "yes." Or at least that's how I feel when I shop, and I'm not black.
People should stop talking for others when they are unelected or not nominated. Just because she feels that way, doesn't mean every black person does. Maybe many do, but I don't think it is productive to speak for other people's experience. Of course when speaking for oneself, then it is fine to say anything.
I'm a white person and I'm pretty sure people don't treat me worse for my skin colour when shopping. Is that a controversial statement?
Re: In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing
#13Cool thing is instead of getting profiled by humans, she can get profiled by Rekognition.
Re: In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing
#14I feel horrible for what she went through as a child, and still goes through. But. For this article, if felt she was over-analyzing and extrapolating a bit much. This one felt borderline unnecessary and hyperbolic: "No one cared what I was doing. Is this what it feels like to shop when you're not black? "
Wow, just wow. You have no idea what it is like, if she says it feels like she is always been watched and suspected of stealing then finds shopping at Go to be a refreshing break from that, what exactly is "hyperbolic" about that and how would you know if it is hyperbolic or not anyway??
Re: In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing
#15I feel horrible for what she went through as a child, and still goes through. But. For this article, if felt she was over-analyzing and extrapolating a bit much. This one felt borderline unnecessary and hyperbolic: "No one cared what I was doing. Is this what it feels like to shop when you're not black? "
I don't understand this sentiment. The author describes her lived experience shopping as a black woman throughout her life. She also points to recent publicized examples of black people being subject to poor treatment while engaging in normal activities. If you had lived your entire life being weary of store clerks, having inculcated that lesson in childhood, why wouldn't her observation be both genuine and important…
I empathized with her experience described in the first half of the article fully.
But then she started making connection to Amazon Go by saying:
"The idea of walking into a store, taking an item or several off the shelves and strolling right back out again boggled my mind. It ran counter to everything I had learned about being black and shopping."
I think the idea would run counter to everybody regardless of race.
"I was afraid someone would pop out from behind a display of Amazon-branded merch and scream, "Get your hands off that!"
I also didn't find above statement particularly credible or representative of average person. The article just felt a tad forced, and I stand by this observation despite all the down votes.
Re: In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing
#16This is an interesting topic;
The automation removed a lot of the human interaction, creating a better experience for the customer.
In the short term.
However, by removing a lot of humans from the shopping interactions, it allows the removed humans to never learn from their mistakes, to stay isolated in their own views.
Will this actually make racism better or worse in the long run, as there isn't automation to "fix" these social problems of ours, at least in the US.
Re: In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing
#17This is an interesting topic; The automation removed a lot of the human interaction, creating a better experience for the customer. In the short term. However, by removing a lot of humans from the shopping interactions, it allows the removed humans to never learn from their mistakes, to stay isolated in their own views. Will this actually make racism better or worse in the long run, as there isn't automation to "fix"…
>However, by removing a lot of humans from the shopping interactions, it allows the removed humans to never learn from their mistakes, to stay isolated in their own views.
Relying on shopping interactions to teach these humans places a huge burden on the people they make these mistakes on. Sometimes I'm not looking to be a teachable moment, sometimes I just want to get my shopping done (or get a cab etc).
Re: In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say the answer is "yes." Or at least that's how I feel when I shop, and I'm not black.
People should stop talking for others when they are unelected or not nominated. Just because she feels that way, doesn't mean every black person does. Maybe many do, but I don't think it is productive to speak for other people's experience. Of course when speaking for oneself, then it is fine to say anything.
That seems like a great way to ignore basically any complaint, by dismissing it as a lone outlier.
All other things being equal, it should be pretty clear that a given black person is more qualified to speak about the black experience than a given white person is to refute them. If you have reason to believe that this particular writer is unreliable or not representative, then by all means share them.
Re: In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing
#19This is an interesting topic; The automation removed a lot of the human interaction, creating a better experience for the customer. In the short term. However, by removing a lot of humans from the shopping interactions, it allows the removed humans to never learn from their mistakes, to stay isolated in their own views. Will this actually make racism better or worse in the long run, as there isn't automation to "fix"…
I think we're a lot better off than we were in prior centuries, as far as racism goes. There's still a long way to go, though.
Automation can make racism worse, I think. I look at the intense polarization that seems to be springing out of the Facebook and YouTube recommendation algorithms and I'm filled with dismay. Perhaps a lot of the fringe extremists have been around for a long time but these websites give them tools to connect with and win new recruits.
Re: In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing
#20Profiling sucks. In this case though, I'd say you're simply trading one injustice for another. You go from the ephemeral experience of having a few underpaid lackeys mistrust you, to having an eternal database of everything you buy owned by a third party. Then again, it's getting pretty ridiculous everywhere. The local supermarkets around me - they've gradually stripped real checkout operators away and replaced them…
Not only that but you also raise the requirements for grocery / department store shopping. In principle all you need to shop at most stores is cash and being able to get to the physical location of the store. With Amazon Go you need a smartphone with a data plan, an amazon account, and a bank account. Even in America not everyone has all of those, or even any one of those. I personally spent a few years as an adult without a bank account. These requirements amount to a "you must be this rich to use this store" sign, and there are easily tens of millions of Americans who are not rich enough to use these stores even if they do have the money to buy some of the goods inside.