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Amazon Go

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Re: Amazon Go

#611

Post by shawabawa3 »

Jpoliachik wrote: post #256
makecheck wrote: post #219

I wonder how much extra revenue a typical store can expect from the “impulse buy” sections at checkout counters? Unless the entire exit to the store is littered with impulse-buy displays, they might be losing that chunk of revenue and have to make up for it somehow. Also, it already seemed more convenient to not go to the store in the first place (ordering online), especially for the kinds of items in packages that w…

Amazon didn't build this to generate extra revenue on 'impulse buys', they built it to collect a fuckton of data. And while they own the retail space, delivering fresh food isn't easy with their infrastructure. I'm guessing they'll Beta the Amazon Go system for a few years, then offer it as a service to existing Grocery chains. THEN fresh food delivery will be a snooze, since Amazon will have access to the Whole Food…

> delivering fresh food isn't easy with their infrastructure

Don't they already have pretty widespread grocery deliveries?

Re: Amazon Go

#612

Post by zwischenzug »

dazc wrote: post #569
delegate wrote: post #387

Look, 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…

I currently live in Spain and completely understand your point of view. But, I am from the UK and the difference is of many orders of magnitude. Supermarkets are not great places to shop or to work. Most employees are working far less hours then they want to on an income that is dependent on welfare top ups in one form or another. Since there is no chance of UK supermarkets adopting a Spanish philosophy I think these…

'For evidence just look at how many people opt to queue in the self service aisle, even when there is no queue at the human alternative.'

I'd noticed that too here in London. TBH I feel I get better and more 'human' interactions from the people that police the self-service checkouts than behind the counters, because generally they're trying to help me when I need it.

Re: Amazon Go

#613

Post by suresk »

russelluresti wrote: post #551
delegate wrote: post #387

Look, 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…

I get where you're coming from, but I whole-heartedly disagree. People have bound themselves to employment for too long. The entire idea that you need to contribute to someone else getting wealthy to have any value to society is stupid. People need to remember that they have meaning and purpose and value without having a job. And that's where we're heading. Technology like this will make a lot of jobs obsolete. And,…

The problem is that, everyone responds by saying "people don't HAVE to work now", but whenever you talk about people not being able to earn incomes, there isn't much thought put into how they will live. All of the effort is going into things that will eliminate earning opportunities for people, and little or none going into how to support the people who can no longer find work.

I'm not going to argue that we should hold back innovation to preserve jobs, or that we should have people working 40+ hours per week as our goal. The simple fact is, however, that attitudes and government policies are really far away from supporting a 'post-work' society, and are actually getting further and further away.

People who control capital in western societies - and are the primary beneficiaries of automation and other techniques that are causing many jobs to disappear - already feel like they pay too many taxes, and are generally good at finding ways to make sure they pay less. Even a level of basic income that would provide a poverty-level standard of living for people feels politically impossible right now.

I don't fully disagree with you, but I find a lot of these "post-work" responses to be really hand-wavy.

Re: Amazon Go

#614

Post by iainmerrick »

It's amazing how this combines just about every cutting-edge trend and hot topic in technology, both good and bad:

- Elimination of low-level jobs

- Elimination of cash

- Deep surveillance (cameras everywhere, online tracking)

- Assuming it works, it will seem pretty magical!

(edit: formatting)

Re: Amazon Go

#615

Post by LeanderK »

retube wrote: post #441

why is "deep learning" and "computer vision" required here? Surely a RFID tag on each item would suffice?

RFID tags are way to expensive to scale. The margin for one of the products might be just a few cents, so with RFID tags they might have to sell at a loss or rise prices. This would eliminate the cashier, but at least in germany the wage/item scanned is way cheaper then RFID tags.

Re: Amazon Go

#616

Post by icantdrive55 »

rescripting wrote: post #522
mikeash wrote: post #489

Earlier 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…

And let's not forget most tech workers will eventually be let go. There will always be a need for the Rock Star Programmers, but the rest of us are, and will be very expendable.

I find the denial here ironic. Tech workers are very replaceable. I don't care how special you think you are, or how integral you think you are to your team; one day most of you will just reminisce about the good ole days. No real barriers to entry + this information getting easier to learn yearly + no unionization + no real concern to save jobs you feel are beneath you + a generation who quotes Ann Rand = a huge swath of new homeless. Yea, some of you can go home, but many will be holding their battered Mac Book, and their cute tee shirts. I'm not picking on you guys, just watch the smugness. Or, be careful what you wish for?

Re: Amazon Go

#617

Post by zenware »

homerguy69 wrote: post #198
Merad wrote: post #86

I hate it when companies offer a "how this works" section that doesn't actually tell you a damned thing about how it works. * How does my Amazon account get associated with the items I take? * How are items detected when leaving the store? If my friend and I walk out side by side, how does it know (if it does) which items are mine and which are hers? * What happens when someone picks up an item and leaves without fir…

Its probably too creepy in terms of privacy to detail how it works which in turn will give themselves PR. I can only assume it uses arrays of cameras and sensors with deep learning. Glorious amounts of tracking data.

My current best guess is, basically what you've suggested. The Amazon Go page says "Computer Vision" which means "Cameras, Cameras Everywhere!". It also says "Sensor Fusion," I bet that means at the very least "Wifi and Bluetooth," with which they'll use to place your location on a virtual map of the store. That location could then be compared with the computer vision object tracking location to "double check" that you really are at that location. And so on.

Re: Amazon Go

#618

Post by dimino »

dogma1138 wrote: post #319
makecheck wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from putting up the odd sign to discourage certain behavior, no, I do not think that stores have any good reason to bend over backwards to keep individual customers. Retail is far too accommodating already. Some people figure that being a “valued customer” means they can be an unending source of sunken costs in time, effort and stress, among other things. And those costs can be multiplied across the other custo…

Stores bake that into the cost of doing business, it's like dropping something and breaking it, in the vast vast majority of cases you won't be charged for it, just be clean up on aisle 3... Heck I've dropped jars or similar things during bagging after paying for them several times and every time I was offered a replacement. Mistakes happen, it's often considerably more expensive to deal with customer complaints espe…

It'd be nice, for the stores, if they didn't have to bake so much "attrition" into their accounting.

Re: Amazon Go

#619

Post by josephjrobison »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #74
elicash wrote: post #43

I worked at a grocery store for several years, and one thing I recall is customers CONSTANTLY putting items back in a random aisle, rather than where they found it. I wonder how this tech deals with that? Maybe they figured that out, too. But I was amused in the video when I saw the customer putting it back where it belonged, because that's not how I remember that going... All that said, this is fantastic and excitin…

I really wouldn't trust 'picked up off the shelf' detection, not without the whole thing looking like a giant vending machine. RFID tags on products probably works better.

I would assume RFID would be more accurate to begin with. Seems like there's a lot of room for errors with their proposed technology.

BUT what if their goal isn't to make razor thin margins at grocery stores, but to test out their tech on human tracking. You've got to believe that they have a more long term plan than making a better self-checkout.

They can now tie in your Amazon Go app with you as a person. Most likely all the sensors and cameras in the store will be both tracking you via your app with Bluetooth, but also perhaps body heat sensors and the like that track you based on your unique body pattern.

Then they can tie this in with your Amazon Prime account to better improve recommended purchases to you, they can tie this in with your Prime Now account and your home address and more immediate delivery needs. Drones, Kindle, Echo as well.

The goal is deeper analytics and tracking on individual humans. That's how Facebook makes their money, and Amazon can perhaps have deeper data on individuals than any other company tracking browser cookies.

Re: Amazon Go

#620

Post by adamsea »

crazypyro wrote: post #429
delegate wrote: post #387

Look, 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…

Trying to save jobs that are no longer the most efficient way of solving a problem is not the way to promote the value of humanity, in my opinion. People want groceries as cheap and fast as possible. They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction and forcing the majority of people to pay extra for something that only the minority get value out of is not a competitive strategy. If humanity were to take your…

"People want groceries as cheap and fast as possible."

What evidence do you have for this claim? A study of some sort?

It is also obvious from reading the news that some people do not want this.

"They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction and forcing the majority of people to pay extra for something that only the minority get value out of is not a competitive strategy."

Again, this sounds like hearsay or a personal opinion.

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