When self checkout started, it was too dumb. It would panic if you breathed on the scale wrong, frequently double-scan items or just have weird bugs.
Then for a minute, it was perfect. They smoothed out the UX, and everything Just Worked™.
Now self checkout is too smart. The camera sees me grab multiple items to scan back-to-back, or sees my kid playing with the bag carousel, and it sets off a shoplifting alarm that the employee has to come over and clear 2-3 times per trip.
So I’ve caught myself adjusting my behavior, like the Amazon drivers that get penalized for singing while they drive because the face-tracking throws an alarm.
If it were just me, I probably wouldn’t think much of it. But then I wonder: Is my daughter going to have to adjust her hands, her posture, her facial expressions… to be acceptable to an ever-present AI observer, for the rest of her life?
When self checkout started, it was too dumb. It would panic if you breathed on the scale wrong, frequently double-scan items or just have weird bugs.
Then for a minute, it was perfect. They smoothed out the UX, and everything Just Worked™.
Now self checkout is too smart. The camera sees me grab multiple items to scan back-to-back, or sees my kid playing with the bag carousel, and it sets off a shoplifting alarm that the employee has to come over and clear 2-3 times per trip.
So I’ve caught myself adjusting my behavior, like the Amazon drivers that get penalized for singing while they drive because the face-tracking throws an alarm.
If it were just me, I probably wouldn’t think much of it. But then I wonder: Is my daughter going to have to adjust her hands, her posture, her facial expressions… to be acceptable to an ever-present AI observer, for the rest of her life?
That seems to be where we’re headed.
What happens to the misbehavers?