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 en

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.