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Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

businessinsider.com

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Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#291

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

michaelkeenan wrote: post #127
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need those jobs so I want them to exist.

The 18th century version of this was not using an umbrella to preserve demand for coach drivers: "Over the years, Hanway and his umbrella fell victim to all sorts of abuse from Brits he passed on the sidewalk. The most pernicious abuse came from an unlikely source: coach drivers. In England at the time, hansom cabs (two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriages) and sedan chairs were the primary modes of transportation. Busines…

And if I lived back then I might have taken the coach instead of using an umbrella. I don't understand your point.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#292

Post by creaghpatr »

magnetic wrote: post #192
cr0sh wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if you got your wish (actually, at Kohls it is like this, last time I was there). Now imagine thru some method, they could tell which shopper was nearby shelves, looking - and who they were. Do a instant credit check lookup (perhaps with something special with the credit bureaus that don't put a ding on the report), to find out what that nearby shopper is "worth". Then instantly change the prices in that one…

The offline world would then be on par with the online world when it comes to targeted pricing.

Yeah it's not like Amazon doesn't have behavioral-influenced dynamic pricing. It seems we've passively accepted it.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#293

Post by maxerickson »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #184
maxerickson wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment is sassy, but I really was curious about the answer to the question.

My answer is self-evident. I go partway down the rabbit hole. However deep "refusing to use the self-checkout" is.

Sure, I thought you answered it in your other comment, I was just explaining that I hadn't posted just for the sake of being antagonistic or whatever.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#294

Post by ekianjo »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #164
monk_e_boy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does raise the question of what jobs are worth saving? So a robot takes someones job, but it was a crappy job that they hated anyway. But they needed the money. Tough.

That is a generic end-of-work question. Ideally, everyone would have jobs they liked, and all the dull stuff would be automated (Star Trek outcome). Pessimistically, the machines will become better than humans at everything and we will just become obsolete (Terminator outcome). If automation picks up, we will have to deal with these questions sooner rather than later, but it will happen eventually.

Its kind of ridiculous to paint the future as binary. Computer augmented humans, better than robots, are also a clear possibility.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#295

Post by fixermark »

JSONwebtoken wrote: post #72
phyzome wrote: post #66

> The robots are designed to free up store employees' time so they can use it to help customers. ...which is bullshit; Walmart just doesn't want the "robots taking our jobs" angle here. If they consider the current level at which employees help customers in the aisles sufficient, then they'll be cutting jobs to match that level rather than "freeing up" employees to do more of it.

For the foreseable future, robots and chatbots will be poorer UX than speaking to a human. Since it's not adding value to their product it's obviously being done for cost cutting and scale reasons.

Keeping the prices updated and correctly tagged adds value to the product. Walmart in particular seems (from my observation relative to other stores in my town) to have a bad track record of updating their stickers and keeping their shelves sorted.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#296

Post by fixermark »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #164
monk_e_boy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does raise the question of what jobs are worth saving? So a robot takes someones job, but it was a crappy job that they hated anyway. But they needed the money. Tough.

That is a generic end-of-work question. Ideally, everyone would have jobs they liked, and all the dull stuff would be automated (Star Trek outcome). Pessimistically, the machines will become better than humans at everything and we will just become obsolete (Terminator outcome). If automation picks up, we will have to deal with these questions sooner rather than later, but it will happen eventually.

Skynet is just sloppy though. The easiest way to get a practical human extinction is to make entertainment so fun that people forget to have children, then just wait.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#297

Post by lostapathy »

xigency wrote: post #290
monkmartinez wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote time! I bought a water softener at HomeDepot about three weeks ago. Initially went to my local Lowes where I had checked if one was in stock and at the store. Yes and Yes. Get to Lowes and there is no water softener, as the website indicated. Lowe's employee checked the back as well, wasn't there. There are many problems with humans doing this "inventory business" at $10 an hour or so. The professional count…

Home Depot's website can actually show you where items are on a map. I discovered this because my local Home Depot used to be a KMart and has the most bizarre layout I've ever seen.

It's too bad Home Depot doesn't have wifi and LTE reception is often crappy inside their big box. This is amazing when it works, but so frustrating most of the time when you can't actually load the info without going outside.

Re: Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores

#299

Post by kaybe »

empath75 wrote: post #269
mattlondon wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience about a 10-15 years ago when I worked in a super-market there was no "back room" really - it was just a staging-post for getting stuff off the truck, putting it onto trolleys, then taking it out onto the shop floor to put on the shelves as quickly as possible. I dunno if people expect there to be this huge warehouse of stock "out the back" of every supermarket with loads of shelves holding tins of be…

The exception to this is milk and bread. There’s always more bread and milk in the back.

Or somewhere else. Some stores have the same item at multiple locations which one may not know.
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