Luddite fallacy.
Amazon Go
541–550 of 1001 posts
Re: Amazon Go
#542Look, I know this might not be a popular view here on HN, but I think this is useless. And bad. I'm not talking about the technology behind it (I think it's an amazing achievement).. I live in Barcelona and I have at least 5 medium-sized supermarkets within 5 minutes walking distance from my home. Plus there are several smaller shops that sell fruits and vegetables. I know all the people who work in these supermarket…
This is awesome.....for a city as awesome and patient as Barcelona. In any major metro in the U.S., if the cashier stops scanning and talks to people there will be rage and quite possibly someone telling the cashier to STFU.
Re: Amazon Go
#543Look, I know this might not be a popular view here on HN, but I think this is useless. And bad. I'm not talking about the technology behind it (I think it's an amazing achievement).. I live in Barcelona and I have at least 5 medium-sized supermarkets within 5 minutes walking distance from my home. Plus there are several smaller shops that sell fruits and vegetables. I know all the people who work in these supermarket…
Yes, and all of the people weaving wool in their house were real people, most decent people, who were negatively affected by mechanized looms. But the Industrial Revolution proceeded apace, and now everyone is much, much wealthier as a result.
There is short term pain in automating jobs that no longer need to be performed by humans, but no sane person would look at the long term result of that automation and say it was a bad thing.
Re: Amazon Go
#544Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social experience at a grocery store feels contrived and not everyone may want it. Maybe you enjoy talking to your cashier but not everyone does, so why should everyone be forced to just because some do? It makes much more sense to keep groceries for grocery shopping, and social places such as bars for socializing.
"Social experience at feels contrived and not everyone may want it." This pretty much sums up _everything_. So, why do we even try to have societies? Edit: You use an example of going to a bar. You realize "... not everyone may want ..." to socialize at a bar? Some just go to drink.
I would hypothesize that wanting shopping to be focused on convenience over the social aspect is a much more common opinion (see: online shopping) than wanting to go to a loud, crowdy, noisy environment where you can pay a premium to drink alcohol and not be social.
I don't think that is a fair comparison at all. Somethings are inherently social, like going to a bar, where as others are much more of a grey area. I would argue that many of these have historically been social experiences out of necessity (no automated machines, no online shopping, etc.), not out of the need for social interaction.
Re: Amazon Go
#545Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might be worthwhile to re-frame it. Rather than say "10 fewer jobs," say "10 people are no longer forced to spend eight hours a day sitting in front of a cash register." That assumes we can find something better for them to do, of course. But man, we have to try! Forcing people to do things a machine can do is inhumane.
I'm a bit worried that most of us here on HN are feverishly working on ways to automate away jobs, and there is quite a strong economic incentive for us to do so, but there is hardly any effort and no incentive for policy makers to catch those affected. Who is building and planning for this new social utopia once people no longer have to bag groceries? Right now it looks like a lot of misery and poverty on the horizo…
I totally agree. Getting rid of wasteful jobs is a good thing if you can somehow handle the people who lose those jobs, whether redirecting them to something more productive or pensioning them off or whatever. And that side of things really doesn't seem to get much attention. There's a lot of hand-wavy talk about basic income, some lip service paid to continuing education and retraining, but not a whole lot really being done to prepare.
Re: Amazon Go
#546This is what people expected when RFID technology came up. They somehow thought its going to be this panacea but quickly realized its not. Amazon might have the solution but I can't say unless I see the implementation.
Re: Amazon Go
#547Look, I know this might not be a popular view here on HN, but I think this is useless. And bad. I'm not talking about the technology behind it (I think it's an amazing achievement).. I live in Barcelona and I have at least 5 medium-sized supermarkets within 5 minutes walking distance from my home. Plus there are several smaller shops that sell fruits and vegetables. I know all the people who work in these supermarket…
Well, I can see lots of issues here. Maybe you are being isolated from what is going on here. These guys might have been ordered by management to smile for customers. That doesn't make them happy. Just a bit more miserable, but you don't see any of it. I can't see why anybody will like to finish their life counting stuff and money for other people. I can hardly see them happy even if they smile to me. And here is ano…
> I can see women being much more happier raising kids than processing mail for the post office.
Men too
Re: Amazon Go
#548[deleted]
Re: Amazon Go
#549Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that's true, then you have nothing to fear. People will pay extra to shop at stores with human cashiers, and the machine-driven stores will not be able to compete. However, I suspect that when presented with the choice, people will take the machine store in exchange for lower prices. And I suspect that you suspect the same thing, otherwise you wouldn't be concerned.
I don't actually think it'll be a difference in monetary value. I suspect machine run markets will feel cold and lifeless, while human run ones will feel warm and welcoming. I've been to restaurants where you order from a terminal and your only human contact is someone who delivers your food without a word. There were a bunch of them at one point and they all closed down, and I don't remember thinking they were cheap…
The self-checkout lines are popular in most of the stores I've been in. (I personally like having both options available.)
Re: Amazon Go
#550Look, I know this might not be a popular view here on HN, but I think this is useless. And bad. I'm not talking about the technology behind it (I think it's an amazing achievement).. I live in Barcelona and I have at least 5 medium-sized supermarkets within 5 minutes walking distance from my home. Plus there are several smaller shops that sell fruits and vegetables. I know all the people who work in these supermarket…
> Where is Amazon Go located?
Our store is located at 2131 7th Ave, Seattle, WA, on the corner of 7th Avenue and Blanchard Street.
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> When can I visit Amazon Go? Amazon Go is currently open to Amazon employees in our Beta program, and will open to the public in early 2017
I think all the discussion here are very pre-mature. It looks like a controlled beta-test at best.