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Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

nytimes.com

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Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#181

Post by cogman10 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #67
cogman10 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is something Lyft and Uber do, but it's not really possible in retail. It is possible for retail. For example, you can simply not display the price. You can display a price range. You can use EInk displays which auto-update based on who's approaching the item. And of course it's infinitely possible in an online store. One example of how this is being employed is McDonalds trying to push everyone to use the app…

How would that work? The barcode on the item doesn't get rewritten, the checkout counter can't distinguish who picked up which exact item. Even if they did assign unique barcodes to each item, what happens if you take the item off the shelf, and put it in someone else's cart? They'd be charged the wrong price for the item.

> the checkout counter can't distinguish who picked up which exact item.

Sure it can, cameras and facial recognition.

Identify a person when they enter the store. Track them with overhead cameras as they move throughout the store. Set the price for the individual when they get to checkout. It barely requires any extra infrastructure in most stores.

You don't need a unique barcode per item, you simply need to be able to identify the person purchasing the item at checkout.

Barcodes today don't contain price information (except for meat AFAIK. But then you'd mostly just need to change it to be weight instead of price).

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#182

Post by itopaloglu83 »

technothrasher wrote: post #131

Massachusetts has had fair pricing laws for grocery stores for years that I suspect already de-facto ban "dynamic pricing". It requires grocery stores to ring up the item at the lowest marked or advertised price, or the item is free. It also requires all items to be marked (or have scanners available to show the price), so they can't get around it by just not showing prices.

An average store carries around 20,000 SKUs, so I understand that they’re looking for easier solutions to price updates, especially after having relatively high inflation after a couple of decades.

However, they’re already making it impossible for shoppers to track prices, and we all know soon (left to their own devices) they’re going to switch to individual pricing.

I’m surprised that the pricing issue is not being discussed in the context of online shopping already, with home deliveries on the rise.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#183

Post by derektank »

DocTomoe wrote: post #125
clintonb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of pricing zones—shoppers in Zone A pay a different price than those in Zone B. This makes sense, for example, if shipping costs are higher in Zone B. The bill in question is about per-shopper pricing (e.g, you and I pay different prices in the same store). This is something Lyft and Uber do, but it's not really possible in retail.

Just for clarification: Does this affect intraday price changes, and how much if this is AI vs. 'standard database operations'? I'm thinking of scenarios such as 'Oh, we're going to have a heatwave between 14:00 and 19:00, let's make popsicles 9 cent more expensive for everyone' or 'hm, that particular brand of soda sells extremely good today, let's hike the price'/'this noodle soup gets new stock later today, let's…

Yeah, I think time-based algorithmic pricing is good and helps reduce shortages. As long as everyone can get the same price at the same time, I have no issues with how that price was arrived at. What concerns me is different consumers being offered different prices at the same time.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#184

Post by hermannj314 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #167
hermannj314 wrote: post #139

[flagged]

This is coming off as something I would see in r/iamverysmart. I only see this coming from people that self-declared "independents" who try to play the "both sides" card and won't ever stand for anything. Which really just says everything you need to know. (If this isn't you, don't worry! The comment just comes across as an indicator.) That you would bring this up here is odd. This topic is hardly deeply divisive, no…

The topic of AI surveillance pricing is almost exclusively covered by left-leaning media sources according to ground news and party affiliation largely predicted the vote with no 100% of voting Democratic legislators for and 88% of voting republicans against it.

It feels like a partisan issue.

But I guess I don't read the news.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#185

Post by dfxm12 »

geuis wrote: post #15

Doesn't this then open a market for "vpn style" apps that make everyone look broke? Get the lowest prices (ie market/baseline) on every interaction from food delivery to airplane tickets?

With the loopholes, stores can raise the baseline prices and give some people coupons for some products.

To avoid this reliably, shop in person at a supermarket that doesn't have a loyalty program.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#186

Post by derektank »

irishcoffee wrote: post #129
DocTomoe wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for clarification: Does this affect intraday price changes, and how much if this is AI vs. 'standard database operations'? I'm thinking of scenarios such as 'Oh, we're going to have a heatwave between 14:00 and 19:00, let's make popsicles 9 cent more expensive for everyone' or 'hm, that particular brand of soda sells extremely good today, let's hike the price'/'this noodle soup gets new stock later today, let's…

It’s interesting, no matter what the sign says, the cost is determined at the checkout. I think you missed the point. This is about profiling people buying through apps. I guess it’s neat someone is trying to do something about grocery prices, this won’t move the needle. Still nice to have in the books. Now if only the governer could figure out how to get the Key bridge built instead of firing the company and startin…

If you look at the actual text of the bill, it’s much more expansive than simply profiling people. It defines dynamic pricing as, “THE PRACTICE OF VARYING THE PRICES OF CONSUMER GOODS OR SERVICES WITHIN A BUSINESS DAY BASED ON DEMAND OR OTHER FACTORS, INCLUDING THROUGH THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR MODELS THAT RETRAIN OR RECALIBRATE BASED ON RECEIVED INFORMATION IN NEAR REAL–TIME.”[1]

This absolutely would ban changing the price in the middle of the day in response to changes in temperature, as the parent comment suggested.

[1]https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2026RS/bills/hb/hb0895f.pdf

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#187

Post by [deleted] »

PearlRiver wrote: post #154
technothrasher wrote: post #131

Massachusetts has had fair pricing laws for grocery stores for years that I suspect already de-facto ban "dynamic pricing". It requires grocery stores to ring up the item at the lowest marked or advertised price, or the item is free. It also requires all items to be marked (or have scanners available to show the price), so they can't get around it by just not showing prices.

In my country prices are often wrong because supermarkets are run by a small team of literal teenagers (one of the downsides of having decent minimum wages is that nobody wants to hire anyone if they somehow can avoid it).

[deleted]

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#188

Post by skippyboxedhero »

notahacker wrote: post #120
thrance wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US has a bigger public healthcare system than, afaik, every European country In which metric(s)? Afaik, life expectancy is lower in the US than in most of western Europe. And Americans are known to pay much more than Europeans on healthcare, on average.

It's "bigger" in the sense it spends more money per capita. Something very American exceptionalist about the OP suggesting that this is somehow more relevant than it covering fewer people and treatments.

The point is that Europeans seem to believe that the US does not have a public healthcare system, it does.

I am not sure what your point is about covering fewer people either. The point of public healthcare systems is that there are redistributive, correct? The reason the US public healthcare system does not cover everyone is because there are people who can pay for their own healthcare...which is the same in Europe. I live in Europe, in a system with "free healthcare", I pay $100/month for private healthcare because queues for most things are multiple years long AND I pay $1-1.5k/month for other people to use the public healthcare system I can't use.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#189

Post by cogman10 »

clintonb wrote: post #80
cogman10 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is something Lyft and Uber do, but it's not really possible in retail. It is possible for retail. For example, you can simply not display the price. You can display a price range. You can use EInk displays which auto-update based on who's approaching the item. And of course it's infinitely possible in an online store. One example of how this is being employed is McDonalds trying to push everyone to use the app…

Your plan fails in a few ways. Refreshing the content on an electronic shelf label (ESL) takes about 30 seconds, and multiple people can view a product simultaneously. Unless the store is giving everyone AR glasses, people will notice the price discrepancy. This assumes you have sufficient data to actually recognize a shopper such as facial ID or some form of iBeacon for every single product for which you wish to imp…

> Refreshing the content on an electronic shelf label (ESL) takes about 30 seconds

Today's, yes, but that's really not a technology limit. EInk displays have much faster refresh rates. The main limitation is the communication, but that's a solvable problem with a smart enough networking mesh.

> multiple people can view a product simultaneously

You track the people's position. If multiple people are crowded around the same product then you can pick a price for both customers. Might not work well for crowded stores, but in that case you probably can just maximize the prices anyways as a lot of people are currently shopping.

> This assumes you have sufficient data to actually recognize a shopper such as facial ID or some form of iBeacon for every single product.

No, you just need 1 customer ID on entrance to the store. Everything else can be done by tracking their position with overhead cameras. You don't need to put a camera on every product.

Re: Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores

#190

Post by skippyboxedhero »

thrance wrote: post #104
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the US has a bigger public healthcare system than, afaik, every European country. the reason why there aren't pitchforks is also because the US is a much richer country than Europe so people are happy to pay for more healthcare. if you are rich, the marginal value of money vs more time being alive is zero (an example is orthapedics for the elderly, the US spends a huge amount in this area relative to most European co…

> the US has a bigger public healthcare system than, afaik, every European country In which metric(s)? Afaik, life expectancy is lower in the US than in most of western Europe. And Americans are known to pay much more than Europeans on healthcare, on average.

Life expectancy for a country of 300m compared with a subsection of Europe that is most wealthy...seems like a fairly disingenuous comparison.

Are you one of those people that believes most American schools are shooting ranges too?

All of the problems in the US are concentrated in subsections of the population (just as in Europe). America is a wealthy country that has a mix of south American and African problems attached to it. There is no healthcare system that is going to be able to fix this. Europe has the same problem, the difference is that share of the population was typically much smaller than the US.

I didn't say anything about the cost of healthcare on average. The US already has a public healthcare system, it doesn't work well expecting that to magically improve is not smart (again, particularly when you have evidence from other countries, even in magic Europe-land, that private healthcare can work effectively).

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