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Amazon Go

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Re: Amazon Go

#831

Post by matco11 »

chronic92 wrote: post #774
throwaway98237 wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction..." False. Sometime I go to the grocery store for social interaction. You know, to get out. I generally go to a particular wine shop cause I like chatting with the guy at the counter. The idea that we do all this "stuff" ("processes") to get "stuff" done, and then separately we go somewhere for the express and sole purpose of socializing, is just clearly wron…

You're going to back up your claim with anecdotal evidence? The overwhelming majority of people do not go to the grocery store as a social exercise. People view it as a chore. They want to get in and out as soon as possible.

Well maybe you too should take your turn to back your claim with evidence!

I shop fast too. I get in and out as fast as I can, because - after all - the attendants in the store where I go to would not know a leaf of spinach from a leaf of kale...

The same applies to my electronics shopping...

...at least I can justify the guys there not knowing kale!

Jokes aside: not all stores are like that, and not all people shop like that.

I can think of many elderly people using shopping as a main daily source of social interaction.

Diversity means choice and choice is generally good.

I think the interesting point here is that when you remove social interaction and product advice from physical stores, then really you might as well only buy online... and Amazon is the king of online.

So this looks like a fantastic move by Amazon.

Re: Amazon Go

#832

Post by bhewes »

I can see this being useful by freeing up staff to provide value added services instead of being stuck at the register. I can see stores having category experts.

Re: Amazon Go

#833

Post by edkennedy »

What I like about this is it encourages the European style of grocery shopping. That is, visiting a grocery store daily to make dinner with fresher foods. The longer the lines, wait, and commute, the larger grocery orders will get and the further people are pushed towards Costco style grocery purchasing.

Re: Amazon Go

#834

Post by politician »

karambahh wrote: post #779
jonknee wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is boasting it involves "computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning" so there is definitely quite a bit more going on than the UPC code. It also doesn't appear any UPCs are actually being scanned in the first place.

I think it might be purely rfid based. All major rfid vendors have theft prevention devices which can detect in real-time products crossing a given line. Decathlon, the world largest sport goods retailer already use that technology. They still have checkout lines but technically speaking they would be able to charge you when you leave the store. Last time I spoke with them they were using Embisphere hardware, but any…

The last time I checked, the price of a printable RFID tag was around 10 cents. That's far too expensive for a 15oz can of beans.

What sort of prices are you seeing?

Re: Amazon Go

#835

Post by CephalopodMD »

helipad wrote: post #10

Technology aside, shoppers are going to feel so weird doing this at the beginning. There's already social anxiety when people pay for things and walk past a security guard, or a security barrier. Whether it's an airport, or a clothes store, or a ticket barrier, there's always a nervousness about being called out. It's bad enough in the Apple Store where you can pay and walk out, this will take some real getting used…

I have heard people talk about this as becoming a race issue, and I agree. This is basically an iteration of self-checkout, and if that has issues with people being profiled at the store exit (which it does) then this will too.

Re: Amazon Go

#836

Post by rtkwe »

gohrt wrote: post #279
Shanea93 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but needing to swipe in to enter a store is, I think, a very significant change to how we think of stores as public places. CostCo rule #6: Your membership card must be shown on entering the warehouse and at the tills. I don't think it's really that much of a change, this is already par for the course when it comes to bulk-purchase stores. Another one of CostCo's rules: > Parents are responsible for their children.…

it's unclear how the act of purchasing a product works -- it might require the buyers phone to be near the item when it leaves the shelf

It's not spelled out but it doesn't seem like it'll be a requirement. The only additional thing they could get from the phone without really limiting the number of supported devices is a rough location and that information can be replaced with tracking customers through security cameras.

Re: Amazon Go

#837

Post by sctb »

anonbanker wrote: post #468

Are you saying that someone's homework was incorrect? perhaps you should break out your red pen and correct the mistakes you've found. There are few things more amusing than when people ask for evidence for the sole purpose of discounting it at any cost. Thanks for being that person. Do you think Wal-Mart will pay you for your downvotes? I know CTR paid $0.10 per comment, but that was for an election. What is the goi…

We detached this flagged subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13107392.

Re: Amazon Go

#838

Post by VLM »

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 know all the people who work in these supermarkets."

Perhaps not. I worked at a supermarket as a starving student decades ago and the number of non-cashier employees dwarfed the number of cashiers. Most of the people in a store at any given time are stocking a department or cleaning or providing counter service or rather optimistically all three. We had more people employed at 3am stocking shelves and scrubbing floors than employed serving customers during 2nd shift...

There is an assumption in the comments, that might come from confusing urban convenience stores with supermarkets, that the only employee in a supermarket is the cashier.

You could make something like a quik-trip gas station/convenience store almost staff-less, but an actual supermarket is crawling with non-cash-handling employees.

Re: Amazon Go

#839

Post by mikeash »

jimbokun wrote: post #750
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.

"Forcing people to do things a machine can do is inhumane." It's not clear there's anything a person can do that a machine can never do, in principle. So then what's the point of having people?

Unless you believe in souls or some other form of dualism, then clearly machines will eventually be able to do anything we can do.

But we're far from that point now. Anything machines can currently do is, pretty much by definition, drudgery. I'd be happy to reevaluate that statement if and when this changes.

I have no idea what the ultimate answer to that question would be. Lots of SF authors have tried to address it, coming up with answers varying from humans always having something they can do better, to humans existing to have fun, to humans having no point at all and therefore get wiped out by the machines.

Re: Amazon Go

#840

Post by mcherm »

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…

Here is what I think you might be missing.

You point out that there are a good number of employees in your local stores who have a productive job which they enjoy and from which they get personal meaning. You fear losing all of that if we introduce fully automated stores.

Let's do a thought experiment. Suppose we already HAD fully automated stores, but we also had this same group of 60 people who (in the actual world) work in those 5 supermarkets. What would we invent for them to do which would pay them, give them something productive to do which they enjoyed and from which they could get personal meaning? Scanning groceries for 8 hours a day just wouldn't be my first pick to address this problem.

So I guess what I am trying to get at is that I agree with your sense that there IS a possible problem with eliminating the need for these jobs -- but I don't think it's a problem of "shops need to have people". I think it is a problem of "the benefits of improved automation need to be more widely shared". If all of the benefits go to a few people who happen to own Amazon stock, then what's to happen to the 60 folks in your neighborhood?

Personally, I'm in favor of some sort of universal basic income along with a change in our society to create socially acceptable niches for people to do small, simple projects -- but I certainly don't know all the answers.

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