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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

#41

Post by oceanplexian »

njovin wrote: post #25
MithrilTuxedo wrote: post #23

Isn't the Free Market already a form of AI that does exactly that? How can you ban tools for measuring the value of things?

The ban is specifically on adjusting prices _per-consumer_ based on data known/collected/stolen/assumed about the consumer.

Price controls will screw over the most vulnerable consumers. Small businesses will offer lower prices to price sensitive or low-income consumers or repeat customers. Because despite what you will read about on Reddit, the owners are not cartoon characters, live in the community and care about their neighbors.

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

#42

Post by positr0n »

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?

Most algorithms doing this charge lower prices to the wealthy since they are more valuable customers.

Total spend is higher. And if your $20 tricket breaks you're less likely to bother to return it if $20 doesn't mean that much to you. Plus other reasons I'm sure.

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

#43

Post by Nykon »

bdangubic wrote: post #40
thunderstruck wrote: post #39

I'd like to see fair pricing for airlines tickets too.

use a VPN, like Bulgaria is usually good. everything is on sale if you are Bulgarian (most of the time). you may have to text back Yes your credit card company when you get a fraud alert text - that’s about the only inconvenience. just bought US-EU return ticket for June - 22% lower than lowest price I’ve seen “from US” in the last month

I have residence in Bulgaria and I do not necessarily agree with that statement. Glad it works for you though

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

#45

Post by cogman10 »

clintonb wrote: post #13
amazingamazing wrote: post #9

Why grocery stores only? It’s also unclear how this will change anything - don’t the grocery stores in richer areas already charge more? I’ve noticed Whole Foods prices are not the same across all stores even in the same state.

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.

> 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. They'll give lower prices in app while raising prices on the menu giving a "not using app" tax. That enables them to have flexible per user prices within the app. A store could do the same thing.

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

#46

Post by cogman10 »

amazingamazing wrote: post #14
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.

The article says loyalty programs and https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/H... makes no mention of this store restriction. Just retailer. It’s unclear to me why transportation demand pricing is allowed but not delivery. I expect the outcome of this to be prices raised for everyone and then loyalty discounts per group.

> It’s unclear to me why transportation demand pricing is allowed but not delivery.

I don't think it should be allowed. It's predatory. It allows a company like Uber and Lyft to see things like "Oh, you are going to a hospital, then I'm going to apply a 10% surcharge because you are probably desperate".

It also works against the drivers. Uber/Lyft see things like "This person is logged on for 8 hours, they are desperate, so let's give them lower rates and worse routes."

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

#47

Post by brendoelfrendo »

oceanplexian wrote: post #41
njovin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ban is specifically on adjusting prices _per-consumer_ based on data known/collected/stolen/assumed about the consumer.

Price controls will screw over the most vulnerable consumers. Small businesses will offer lower prices to price sensitive or low-income consumers or repeat customers. Because despite what you will read about on Reddit, the owners are not cartoon characters, live in the community and care about their neighbors.

> Because despite what you will read about on Reddit, the owners are not cartoon characters, live in the community and care about their neighbors.

What? To the best of my knowledge, not a single grocery store chain in my area is owned by someone local to the community. The two biggest chains (that aren't Walmart) are owned by Kroger and by an international retail conglomerate. Both are publicly traded, so there's no single owner to give a shit about the local community.

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

#48

Post by tzs »

WalterBright wrote: post #35
pdonis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't government setting prices. It's just government outlawing a certain form of price discrimination. It's forbidding sellers from transferring consumer surplus to themselves by charging a higher price to customers that would be willing to pay a higher price for the same item. But the item is still available to buyers that wouldn't want to pay the higher price--at the lower price. The grocery stores aren't goi…

> This isn't government setting prices. It's just government outlawing a certain form of price discrimination. I.e. the government is regulating prices, yet another attempt going on for 4,000 years of trying and failing to repeal the Law of Supply and Demand. > The grocery stores aren't going to raise the overall price to compensate for losing the ability to price discriminate: that would result in less profit for th…

> BTW, the article is paywalled. I have no idea how a grocery store is going to adjust prices at checkout, as the prices are marked.

Many stores are rolling out electronic price tags on the shelves, which can be rapidly updated wirelessly [1]. They could probably do the price adjustment there. I'd assume they wouldn't want to make it too blatant, which would be a challenge.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-digital-price-tag-sh...

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

#50

Post by antiframe »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #34
testing22321 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is wild, because things like car dealerships, airline tickets and many more do it already.

Not to mention seniors discounts, active military, and all kinds of things.

Yes, but those are per category not per consumer, which is a meaningful difference here and one you can't just ignore. Imagine a price label with a small camera that sends your facial image to a classifier of moods. Hungry? Pay 15% more. As you remove the item from the shelf, the tag reads the GUID from the item and records the price in the stores DB. Then, when you checkout, you pay that price. Someone else comes in get one price, balks, walks away. Comes back and ponders a while. They only get 5% above the base. Someone runs up and grabs and item without really looking at the tag, they pay 50% more. Now imagine that it gets it wrong half the time.
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