Amazon is phasing out its checkout-less grocery stores with “Just Walk Out” technology, first reported by The Information Tuesday. The company’s senior vice president of grocery stores says they’re moving away from Just Walk Out, which relied on cameras and sensors to track what people were leaving the store with.
The Amazon near me has a “Just Fuck Off” policy. They redecorated the old Toys R Us building a few years ago and then never bothered to open the store.
That immediately reminded me the story of the Mechanical Turk. Check the link for further info - to keep it short both are ways to hide human labour behind alleged automation.
You linked to the original Mechanical Turk. Perhaps you already know this but Amazon actually runs an Mechanical Turk service:
You linked to the original Mechanical Turk.
Yup, that’s intended. The original Mechanical Turk was a con, just like Amazon’s “just walk out” service.
The Amazon’s Mechanical Turk was never a con. It’s been known for a very long time that it’s a way to outsource human tasks on a large scale cheaply. Like, a very long time. I think I first heard about it like 12 years ago?
Unless you mean the way it exploits poor countries for cheap labor. I wouldn’t call that a con, but it is fucked.
By “original Mechanical Turk”, I am clearly referring to the chess player inside a box. It was a con because the system was presented as an automaton, when it is simply human labour.
And I am calling Amazon’s “just walk out” service also a con because it was touted as automatic, even if also being mostly human labour.
I am not calling “Amazon’s Mechanical Turk” a con. It is exploitative, as you said, but it is not a con. People know that it is human labour, and Amazon does not try to hide it.
Is this clear now?
Yep, thanks
The automated walk out service wasn’t a con. It was a shortsighted, honestly s***** idea, that was never able to be brought past the human oversight stage.
Con requires intent. I’m absolutely certain they fully intended to make it a completely humanless system. They failed and drug their feet trying and now they’ve shut it down.
If it’s a con, what’s their long game? What are they gain from having humans watch the store remotely? Is it tech just so neat that they’ll have a lot more shoppers than a regular store? Do they save so much in on-site staff that it’s cheaper to run than a conventional store? There’s no advantage here that would make it a worthwhile con. It’s a failed moonshot that they ended up manning with people to see if they could make it work that’s all.
And I am calling Amazon’s “just walk out” service also a con because it was touted as automatic, even if also being mostly human labour.
That’s not what a con is. A con is a deliberate scam. Amazon’s automated checkout simply didn’t function as effectively as intended. They presumably lost money on the venture because the automation was unreliable. Nothing about this situation was a deliberate attempt to pay over 1,000 employees to check an automated system’s work.
The Mechanical Turk is an interesting story and I’m glad you linked it, but it’s not all that similar.
Just because it was a failure doesn’t make it a con.
No, what makes it a con is that it was purported to be automated, but the automation was a failure and had to be done by humans almost 3/4 of the time.
No, that makes it a failure.
Just because it was a failure doesn’t make it a con.
On its own a failure is not a con. The con is to publicly pretend that the failure is not there.
And Amazon is clearly doing the later - read the quote from the spokesperson in the article, it boils down to “The system is automated! «Chrust us lol». The human labour there is just, for, uh… improvements!” Yeah, sure, and the 1770 machine is totally automated too, the chess player there is just the maintenance worker /s
The Amazon’s Mechanical Turk was never a con.
I wouldn’t go that far. They heavily implied that you could make a decent living doing it, not 20 cents per survey or whatever it is.
I remember when this was going to be the future of physical retail and that it was part of the massive loss of jobs we would supposedly experience due to full automation. It reminds me of the hype surrounding AI and the overestimation of its capabilities and underestimation of its problems.
What is preventing someone from just walking into a random store with no Amazon account and walking out with stuff?
What is preventing someone from doing that at Walmart?…
I don’t know about Walmart but I heard Target will facial recognize you and deliberately wait across multiple trips until you have stolen enough to make it grand theft before taking action.
Is that tracking distributed across stores or do I have license to steal $9999 from each one?
Probably the amount stolen within the same state. But once you’re committing crimes across state lines, you’ve got bigger problems on your hands.
And yes, they definitely share data across their whole company.
Let us know what you find out
I did Target security for a few months. Yes they build cases against people until it’s criminal action. It’s also not subject to one store. Rather I could just type in descriptions of people (apparent age, height, skin tone, etc) and it would search those descriptions. I could then match the person and add it to the running total. When I left I heard that some markets were rolling out an AI to track people. I can answer any questions if there’s anyone who want to know more.
Do you know how long do they keep video for, or is it just eternity?
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How would that be illegal?
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This is a well known thing that Target does: https://www.dailydot.com/news/target-grand-larceny-psa/?amp
Source: Kaitlyn, e.g. tiktok.com/@reddnea
Not saying it’s untrue, I totally believe it could be the case, but also not exactly the most iron-clad source of information lol.
Yea that’s completely wrong, that’s just called building a case and collecting evidence.
The state constables posted at the exit usually lol
I don’t know where you live, but I’ve been in many Walmarts in the U.S. and they have private security who are never posted at the exit that I’ve ever seen. Mostly they just sit in an office and watch security cameras.
I’ve definitely seen actual cops standing at the front of the store. They’re also there every day and park their cars up front in the fire lane.
Maybe you’ve seen it, but it’s not common in my experience.
I just traveled across four states and, because of the bad weather, we stopped at Walmarts along the way so my elderly mother could walk around and stretch her legs.
Not one cop.
Where I live they have cops in cop cars and special ‘law enforcement partner’ parking closer than the nearest handicapped space. Its great.
Posadism looks better every day.
I think it’s something they do or have done around the holidays when it’s very busy. They might be hiring off duty cops and having them wear their uniform.
That’s the thing that gets me where I live, the cops have reserved parking spots but they still choose the fire lane, I guess crossing the traffic lane to the building is a line they wont cross.
The one I went to had a turnstile after you walk though the front door so you needed to scan the code from the app.
There was a video going around on Twitter when they first implemented this where people were just hopping the turnstile a la NYC Subway
“Just walk out” was a cool idea, but I’m not sure the way they tried to implement it would have ever been successful even if they had perfected the technology. The fact that they tried to disguise it as a fully automated system when they had a team of thousands of people overseas analyzing the footage is disturbing. I like the idea of just having the scanner in the basket much better. It’s still more convenient/efficient than a checkout line or a kiosk and it helps you keep track of your total balance.
I’ve never actually been to one of these stores. They seem pretty scarce.
My university just finished replacing one of the on campus convenience stores with a “just walk out” thing. The experience just felt kinda weird overall.
All this complexity and expensive tech just to avoid paying a couple of cashier’s and bagboys. It amazes me
But the guy with the MBA had a graph showing it pays for itself in 38 years! (46 if you add consulting fees.)
Joke’s on them, I was already Just Walking Out without going to the checkout 😎
It worked really smoothly for me…the one time I went cuz it was such a depressing experience. Don’t get me wrong tho. I love self checkout. Amazon store sucks.
What made it depressing for you?
It just feels sad in there. The colors are sad, the products are boring, the cameras all over are dystopian. Even though there were other people there, it felt isolating. Too sterile.
Gotcha. Never seen anything on them except this story (and maybe another at some point that mentioned they were opening some), so was curious.
For sure. It’s an interesting concept but I enjoy going to the grocery store and this didn’t feel right.
Damn… I go to a corner store Amazon Go almost every time I go into the office for a flavored seltzer. They have dog treats and my my dog loves going there every time.
I hope this is one of the convenience stores that it keeps open.
It was weird that last year they reversed the way you pay, making you pay/scan your code on the way out. So backwards to the “just walk out” motto. They went back on it less than 6 months later.
If they lose even a cent doing something new its right back to the old way every time. Can’t let the share holders down I guess.
Could we please stop crossposting to 7 different communities?
?? I didn’t post this anywhere else? Or even see it anywhere else?
I’m not saying you did this, but someone did.
I scroll through to see if things have been posted before. If I don’t see it, I assume it hasn’t. And I use a client so I don’t see if there are cross posts because it doesn’t display them.
