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Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

arstechnica.com

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Re: Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

#91

Post by ADent »

barbecue_sauce wrote: post #52
crazygringo wrote: post #27

I mean, presumably Wal-Mart has excellent statistics on "shrinkage" from regular inventory checks like any store, as well as recording how often shoplifters are caught, and so they have clear data as to whether or not Everseen is an improvement or not. And I don't understand what this has to do with COVID-19 at all in the article. Finally, what do employees care about theft? It's not coming out of their paycheck. Fal…

Employees are often the ones accused of theft?

When I worked retail, employee theft was the big deal. From pocketing cash to a dock guy bringing up stuff for his buddies during busy times to the Theft Prevention team doing something to all get fired I think the employees did more damage than the shoplifters.

We didn’t have self checkout back then, though.

Re: Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

#92

Post by Cd00d »

SkyBelow wrote: post #11

There is a lot of information in the article but little to draw a conclusion from. They bring up examples where the AI failed, but that alone does not indicate it doesn't work. An AI that fails to recognize some thefts but does recognize others can still be considered to work as long as enough thefts are caught. Imperfect, but given the low cost of a failure relative to not using an AI, imperfection seems quite toler…

I think what people fail to recognize is that AI/ML solutions will _always_ be imperfect.

But, they scale. There's always a threshold for the accuracy/efficiency point. It's not meaningful to identify errors, even if they seem glaring, if overall you're reducing 80% of loss at 10% of the expense.

Re: Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

#93

Post by mattlondon »

ggreer wrote: post #6
49531 wrote: post #2

As someone who has inadvertently stolen from Walmart on more than one occasion, I cant attest that their anti-shoplifting AI does not work.

How does one inadvertently steal?

I've had occasions where the self checkout has had an issue after scanning something and the staff come over and login and do something and you carry on. It might only be when you check the receipt later at home that you realise that those carrots or whatever that caused problems were just voided off the bill/never scanned at all but were allowed to be bagged so actually you didn't pay for them.

Often the staff look like they are on autopilot and aren't reading anything and just going through their shift on muscle memory so I imagine this happens a lot. Is it stealing if you tried to pay but the staff did something on the machine and it didn't charge you? I don't know.

Re: Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

#94

Post by karatestomp »

sukilot wrote: post #87
karatestomp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some around here hassle people for their receipts near the exit. It was already my least-favorite place to shop for a ton of reasons, so that was enough to stop me ever going. It's one thing at Costco where I agreed to it and they're very fast and nice. I'm not standing in line to get permission to leave friggin' Wal-Mart (yes I know you can just ignore them but they sometimes try to stop you and make a big deal of i…

Are you sure? Receipt checking cannot be forced. I'm surprised corporate would allow that, since they know they can't force the issue so they cannot stop shoplifters.

Yep, I'm sure. And they seem to be bad at instructing the folks doing it that they aren't really allowed to do more than ask nicely.

Re: Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

#95

Post by throwawaygh »

pscoutou wrote: post #90
sukilot wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self checkout has 1/2 to 1/8 the staff of full checkout.

In my example, big grocery chains here had 5-6 employees at launch then dropped it to just one. Now they have 2-3 employees monitoring the self checkout. There is a certain point where employers become more focused on reducing shrinkage than headcount.

If they’re open 24/7/365, that’s still six figures in savings. And if one of those employees is watching the self checkouts then losses might not even be that much higher. And that with 90s technology — very little/no CV. I think Cashier as a stand-alone job will probably die off in our lifetime. Maybe you still have a store manager who is up at the front of the store whenever they are not doing something else.

(I’ve been a cashier at a grocery store)

Re: Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

#96

Post by grawprog »

pscoutou wrote: post #75
birdyrooster wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They must have forgotten the name of the game is loss prevention for the business and not about stopping shoplifting. Cutting payroll on your loss prevention is loss prevention in of itself.

I’m not sure. When self-checkouts were introduced here, they had staff supervising to help and educate customers then significantly scaled back that headcount. Fast forward several years, there’s more staff stationed with self-checkout due to theft. I think retailers are going to calculate the cost of headcount and theft and make a decision based on an equilibrium. Of course, the best outcome for Walmart is to have a…

I used to regularly watch staff at a grocery store i used to go to not give even one ounce of fucks as people would walk through the self checkouts with buggies full of groceries, not even pretend to go through and walk straight out of the store. Even the security guards would just shrug and not do anything.

That store must have lost thousands every day from that, but they're an insanely busy store and probably more than make up for it in sales.

Also, I remember when I worked at a grocery store, the policy was if you seen shoplifters you weren't supposed to approach them or do anything other than to just tell the manager. There were a few thefts from that place and this was before the days of self checkouts. I remember I seen a guy once stuff some things in his backpack, I told the assistant manager, he followed him around through the store, but in the end the guy just left and nothing really happened. He kept whatever he took.

Re: Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

#97

Post by yencabulator »

Cd00d wrote: post #92
SkyBelow wrote: post #11

There is a lot of information in the article but little to draw a conclusion from. They bring up examples where the AI failed, but that alone does not indicate it doesn't work. An AI that fails to recognize some thefts but does recognize others can still be considered to work as long as enough thefts are caught. Imperfect, but given the low cost of a failure relative to not using an AI, imperfection seems quite toler…

I think what people fail to recognize is that AI/ML solutions will _always_ be imperfect. But, they scale. There's always a threshold for the accuracy/efficiency point. It's not meaningful to identify errors, even if they seem glaring, if overall you're reducing 80% of loss at 10% of the expense.

Human solutions are _also_ always imperfect.

On top of that, you have to also account for the concept that the employees themselves might steal from the store.

Re: Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

#98

Post by yencabulator »

Walmart self-checkout is the second best working self checkout I've used so far. (The best one is Sam's Club: you scan things with your phone as you put them in the cart, and when you're done you tap checkout and leave the store. Payment happens in the phone app.)

If the cost of having self-checkout machines that actually _work_ and let you complete your purchase is that some items slip by, that might well be worth it.

In contrast, Safeway chain self-checkouts are such a miserable experience that for more than two items, even waiting in a long cashier line is worth it. Their system requires you to place every purchased item on a scale after the scan, and a good fraction of the time the scale fails to read the expected added weight, forcing you to wait for staff to unlock the machine again. For a cart full of purchases, this will happen half a dozen times.

Re: Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

#99

Post by Cd00d »

yencabulator wrote: post #97
Cd00d wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what people fail to recognize is that AI/ML solutions will _always_ be imperfect. But, they scale. There's always a threshold for the accuracy/efficiency point. It's not meaningful to identify errors, even if they seem glaring, if overall you're reducing 80% of loss at 10% of the expense.

Human solutions are _also_ always imperfect. On top of that, you have to also account for the concept that the employees themselves might steal from the store.

Agreed. Which is actually an upside to an automated, but imperfect solution as reinforcement.

I've just been generally surprised at how often I see an ML solution implemented the complaint is "it isn't perfect", when perfection was not the goal metric. I think people just expect robots to do everything exactly right.

Re: Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn’t work

#100

Post by cgriswald »

logfromblammo wrote: post #57
Terretta wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Best Buy, which is particularly annoying as they watch you check out at the register five or ten feet from their post, then "randomly" (almost always) demand the receipt. Who are you checking, the cashier or the buyer? My guess is a deterrent for some kind of collusion.

Change of ownership happens at the point of sale. Toss them a cheery "no, thanks," and walk on by. They have no authority to detain you. Same with Fry's. Not the same with Costco; there, you're subject to the membership agreements.

They do have the authority to prevent you from returning to the store. This is the only reason I ever agreed at Fry’s.

At Best Buy I stopped shopping there for years. I don’t remember why I eventually went in one again, but in the years since I’ve never been asked once. I do wish they’d get rid of the guy at the door entirely. It’s weird. And they always greet you from the side or back.

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