11–20 of 572 posts
Coincidentally(?) they are open their first big box retail store: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/01/09/amazon-plans-first-big-b...
Now it seems Amazon is going to leave us a grocery desert yet again.
They were piloting smart carts at the location. The cart scans your items so checking out you just push the cart through a scanner that weighs it. But this invention was like a microcosm of Amazon’s whole fuckup with groceries. The problem with the store wasn’t that I couldn’t check out fast enough, it’s that it was a shit grocery store. They had popular products but they were missing all the unpopular, low margin products you need to actually cook (baking powder, shortening, tomato paste, soy sauce…). They only hire non-union jobs program people at the registers because Amazon believes that cashier is a sub-human role.
The previous store had an owner who would wander the aisles and chat with customers. The new store has Europeans with clipboards who watch you as you shop.
Their fate seemed sealed when it was revealed a bit back that the “just walk out” technology was more hype than substance. Just lots of people watching what you’re doing on camera vs an actual AI that worked well at mass deployment scale. A good idea, poorly executed. Reports said the “AI” was largely 1000+ people in India watching the cameras. If Amazon actually managed to build AI that worked well at a decent cost…
¹ Individuals manning a labyrinthine system of cameras and sensor fusion, like hawks, logging the precise moment you plop a Twix into your basket! Praise Bezos!
Coincidentally(?) they are open their first big box retail store: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/01/09/amazon-plans-first-big-b...
When I saw the picture at the start of the article, I briefly thought they would do it like IKEA and let people pick the articles directly from the Amazon warehouse...
Their fate seemed sealed when it was revealed a bit back that the “just walk out” technology was more hype than substance. Just lots of people watching what you’re doing on camera vs an actual AI that worked well at mass deployment scale. A good idea, poorly executed. Reports said the “AI” was largely 1000+ people in India watching the cameras. If Amazon actually managed to build AI that worked well at a decent cost…
"Do things that don't scale."
Wonder how much of this is due to economics since computer vision tech never reached the expected performance + outsourced workers got (relatively) much more expensive after COVID.
Their fate seemed sealed when it was revealed a bit back that the “just walk out” technology was more hype than substance. Just lots of people watching what you’re doing on camera vs an actual AI that worked well at mass deployment scale. A good idea, poorly executed. Reports said the “AI” was largely 1000+ people in India watching the cameras. If Amazon actually managed to build AI that worked well at a decent cost…