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Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

gizmodo.com

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Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#701

Post by imperfect_light »

alsodumb wrote: post #273
madeofpalk wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped. Wow - I did not know this. This makes it all a whole lot less impressive and interesting that it was just people off shore watching you.

It's just a tech-illiterate journalist who can't seem to understand the difference between "annotators watching and labeling videos to validate the model" vs "people watching the videos live to remotely decide the cost of every user's purchase". Or maybe they do know the difference, but wanted to bait audience.

If it was just a matter of building up a large enough training set and corresponding model do you really think Amazon would be abandoning a technology they spent so much time, money and resources on, in a somewhat embarassing manner?

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#702

Post by imperfect_light »

ec109685 wrote: post #323
alsodumb wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a tech-illiterate journalist who can't seem to understand the difference between "annotators watching and labeling videos to validate the model" vs "people watching the videos live to remotely decide the cost of every user's purchase". Or maybe they do know the difference, but wanted to bait audience.

I thought so too, but the article says this: > 700 out of 1,000 Just Walk Out sales required human reviewers as of 2022.

Wonder if that 30% include the cases where someone walks in, strolls around, and walks out without buying something? Which I see people do all the time, interested in the concept.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#704

Post by mrangle »

tivert wrote: post #648
mrangle wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Underpaid" and "fair" is a modern political myth, except in the instances when there is a concerted effort to undermine the semi-natural labor market. Pay will never be enough, as a point of fact. It will always be "underpaid" and "unfair" in discussion. As this is an immortal pressure and negotiating tactic. It is incentivized, and therefore we will get more of it. That works both ways, but at some point there has…

> "Underpaid" and "fair" is a modern political myth, except in the instances when there is a concerted effort to undermine the semi-natural labor market. No, and I'm guessing you're just under the spell of market fundamentalism. An unfair wage is something like when the worker either 1. can't achieve a socially-acceptable living standard with the job, 2. when there's too-great of a mismatch between the labor-theory-o…

Your "guess" before your arguments is a pointless jab and ploy to win a point without having yet said anything.

If you think that accusing me of "being under the spell of market fundamentalism" is a succesful rhetorical strategy, then you neither understood my post nor are you worth arguing with.

My comment was made in the context of mentioned complex factors that you are ommitting.

Your 1 and 2 numbered responses are pure nonsense. Response 1 reveals to me who I am dealing with. This is going to go nowhere. Response 2 is ideological hand waving. 3 is true, but I included points that addressed it in my post.

There is zero political (effective) difference in the labor market between being underpaid and wanting more money, if the ask is for more money.

If they are truly underpaid, then they should ask for more money and get it. If they are not underpaid and ask for more money lest penalty x, then the market effect for employers is the same.

A further problem, as illustrated by your definitions of underpayment with which I disagree, is who is to decide what being underpaid means?

The answer to that question is that what constitutes underpayment will always be murky as far as the market is concerned and therefore, again, my point stands. Pay will never be enough, as a point of fact.

>No. I'd never talk about a fortune 500 CEO or a FAANG engineer as being underpaid.

"Never". That's a perfect example of the self-centered view of much of labor advocacy. Not only do they publicly only take the other side of the market into account when it opportunistically suits them (ie: when bucking for asset ownership or when owning assets themsevles), they have trouble comprehending how their own principles might scale to different skill levels in the labor pool.

> I see what you're saying, but the real world is a lot more morally complicated that the single-axis world where your comment here makes sense.

I disagree with your single-axis categorization. I disagree with the implication that this is largely a moral argument.

I disagree with the assumption you would be able to make moral assertions that had any impact on the economic forces that determine pay and job availability, given the mentioned constraint (mass immigration). My original point is that the labor market will not be able to have it all. It has to choose, and clearly it has made its choice.

But in its defense, the pro-labor market was co-opted generations ago by Business. That dissonance that you percieve and interpret as "moral complexity" is exactly their influence.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#705

Post by ska »

kaashif wrote: post #351
ska wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never experienced one reliable enough for this to be true (for me).

I've never experienced any problems with the ones that don't weigh anything. The weighing ones get it wrong often enough to be annoying. If my closest grocery store used weighing self checkouts, I'd be much more annoyed on a regular basis.

Yes this may be the deciding line.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#706

Post by Dylan16807 »

margalabargala wrote: post #645
Dylan16807 wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But where we are now, people don't think it works, so they double check and get nervous. Who does this? This wasn't in the article, do you mean yourself or did you read that somewhere else? I wouldn't get nervous about it. > Ask anyone in the eastern US, would you trust getting your eclipse glasses on Amazon? That's a real issue but it's an entirely different concept. I expect them to handle charging for the eclips…

> Who does this? This wasn't in the article, do you mean yourself or did you read that somewhere else? I wouldn't get nervous about it. Sorry, I thought this was more common knowledge; I guess not. It was sufficiently widespread that SNL did a skit/ad based on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS9U3Gc832Y

I don't interpret that skit as worrying about whether it's going to get the count wrong. It's about the entire concept of grabbing and walking out, in a way that exists even if the system has perfect tracking.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#707

Post by Dylan16807 »

hnbad wrote: post #615
Dylan16807 wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay can never be enough because it is economically necessary to underpay workers relative to what they contribute because profit by definition can only exist from surplus value That's a silly definition of "enough" to label as a fact. I feel like the lifestyle you can buy with the pay matters too, but even if we ignore that aspect, I think most people will agree that the worker getting 90% of the surplus value is "…

> That's a silly definition of "enough" to label as a fact. There's no "factual" definition of "enough" as "enough" is subjective. I'm also not sure what you're trying to argue. I already said that it can't be 100% for practical reasons and that the market actively incentivizes companies to aim for as close to 0% as possible instead. You pick 90% as an arbitrary percentage. So it might be 99% or 50% or 1%. But you're…

> There's no "factual" definition of "enough" as "enough" is subjective.

I agree. Which is why "enough" is not an objective threshold of 100% of surplus value.

> I'm also not sure what you're trying to argue.

I'm arguing that "less than 100% means not enough" is an incorrect statement. That's all. The bulk of your post isn't relevant to what I was saying.

(To be extra clear, that's my paraphrase of this line: "in a very literal sense, pay can never be enough because it is economically necessary to underpay workers relative to what they contribute because profit by definition can only exist from surplus value, i.e. making more money from selling the product of labor than you pay for that labor.")

> But you're still agreeing that the measure for "enough" [...] A better rebuke would be that "enough" is normally about need, not revenue.

But I did address that. "I feel like the lifestyle you can buy with the pay matters too, but even if we ignore that aspect,"

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#708

Post by Dylan16807 »

bombcar wrote: post #654
Dylan16807 wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They likely meant that onboarding takes three days. You can onboard welding in less than 30 days too. > As there is no meaningful metric for competence beyond that (or at least no metric that is measured and used) "good" doesn't apply. Barista quality isn't much harder to measure than weld quality. "and used" is a cop-out.

> You can onboard welding in less than 30 days too. You can be doing useful work as part of a welding group in 30 days, but you will not be a master. Grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't and all that.

I know.

But you won't be a master barista right away either.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#709

Post by Ancalagon »

madeofpalk wrote: post #254
bilalq wrote: post #190

This is pretty sad to read. Before Covid, the Amazon Go store experience was phenomenal. All the convenience of a 7-Eleven but with the pricing of a normal grocery store. The food options were really good and the BlueApron style meal-kits were amazing. The Alexa integration was also nice for being able to just verbally ask what's the next step on a recipe while you're busy stirring or chopping things. When it rolled…

> Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped. Wow - I did not know this. This makes it all a whole lot less impressive and interesting that it was just people off shore watching you.

Agreed and I laughed out loud at that part. It’s honestly embarrassing.
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