7 ms·

Amazon Go will be worse. There are a lot more retail workers than drivers. The technology is closer to fruition: Amazon has a working autonomous store, but we a

by srssays 10y ago

Amazon Go will be worse. There are a lot more retail workers than drivers. The technology is closer to fruition: Amazon has a working autonomous store, but we are still a long way from fully autonomous vehicles. The hardware requirements for any store that wants to adopt Amazon's tech are minimal: some cameras, an entry gate and possibly some pressure pads under the shelves. Even if Amazon doesn't license out their tech -- and they would be foolish not to -- you can be sure that Google and Microsoft are working on their own versions. The market is staggeringly big.

electic 10y ago
Good breakdown of numbers in the transportation sector: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/h...
pm90 10y ago
Hmmm...I would respectfully disagree :). While it would most certainly impact stores by reducing cash clerks etc. people would still be required for warehousing/monitoring etc. A lot of high volume retailers/grocers already have a self-checkout station, if they had wanted more automation, they would probably just increase the number of these stations. Also, anything more than a basic grocer would still want real people to help people with purchasing etc.
- notheguyouthink 10y ago
  > A lot of high volume retailers/grocers already have a self-checkout station, if they had wanted more automation, they would probably just increase the number of these stations. I mean, this is a great example against your point (imo). Those self checkout stands, sure they do employ a staffer to monitor, but each of those stands is basically a line that doesn't have to be employed by a dedicated staffer. They managed to potentially drastically reduce the number of required staffers via self checkouts. I say potentially, because 1 self checkout doesn't inherently equal one checkout clerk, but you get where i'm going with this. If my safeway can fire the 6 clerks i regularly see staffing the checkout lines, and hire 1 to monitor.. that's still a drastic layoff. And what about all the manual labor involved? I'm sure it won't be all robots stocking shelves, so mostly stockers can remain employed for the time being, but i'm sure at least a few employees who specialize in managing stock will be laid off as well. Just because it's not 100% layoff doesn't mean it's any less serious, imo. We're slowly decreasing the available job market simply put. Where are these people going to go?
  - gremlinsinc 10y ago
    Not to mention the fact, back in the 80's/90's you go to walmart and every single aisle was open. Now pretty much any store I go to--there's maybe 3-4 open checkouts, and ALL self-checkouts are a go. Lines just are a lot longer, but it's not like people are going to stop shopping because of it. So they've cut a lot of jobs EVEN though there's a need for more workers at the registers
- srssays 10y ago
  I'm not saying that all retail jobs will go... yet. But the number of employees per store will go down, and since there is a large absolute number of retail workers, it will still be bad. Secondly, once people get used to shopping at stores where they don't have to line up to pay, the new experience will become expected by consumers. So there is a double effect whereby stores who adopt the new tech will save money on payroll, and stores that don't will lose some business.
- nickparker 10y ago
  The advice part of a storekeeper's job is the easy one to automate. If we get rid of all the manual labor that humans do, why wouldn't we move the advice-givers to remote offices and improve their utilization? A call center to tell you where the milk is or which wine goes with your recipe might sound bad, but consider that you'd never wait another second to talk to a clerk, and everything would get even cheaper as more and more of the basic questions for the call center get moved onto intelligent bots.
- gremlinsinc 10y ago
  You realize Amazon has an warehouse system run by robots, so there's a major flaw there..why do we need people to stock or work in a warehouse when that too can be automated? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quWFjS3Ci7A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quWFjS3Ci7A
chillydawg 10y ago
Amazon Go is not much of a change from an existing store where there are self-serve checkouts in terms of staffing. The huge staff cuts have already happened in most supermarkets.
- mastax 10y ago
  Yeah, Amazon go seems like more of a boon for customers who don't have to check themselves out anymore. Go in to a CVS in the city and there will be one employee at an empty register and four self checkouts with a short line.
- notheguyouthink 10y ago
  Interesting side note. I overheard staff talking at a local grocery store with a good number of chains. Now, i'm not sure to the extent of this (ie all chains or just those in my state), but they had to actually remove self checkouts. Why? They were being targeted to test stolen credit cards and it was costing the company a pretty penny having to deal with all those fraud checks/etc. Not a detraction from your point - i just found it interesting. "Automation" seemed great there, but they were having difficulty managing how it was being used. I wonder what might happen with the upcoming automation(s) in a similar manner?
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Self-checkout also doesn't work terribly well in grocery stores because there's a lot of slow fumbling around things like weighing produce and bagging. I've also seen self-service discontinued in some grocery stores that put it in. I find it somewhat odd that another category of stores that often aren't a great match for self-checkout--big box home improvement stores--seem to have adopted it so broadly, at least around where I live.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      People at my local supermarket told me it doesn't seem to save the company much money, but there are a lot of customers who prefer self-service.
jghn 10y ago
"Truck driver" is the most common profession in most US states
- philk10 10y ago
  Or not - http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-most-common-job-in-your-state-2015-02-12 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-mo...
  - jghn 10y ago
    Interesting, I'll stop pushing that as ground truth
- the8472 10y ago
  This has been discussed on HN previously, I think nobody was able to show that the categorization (binning of professions) was not arbitrary. So "largest" may simply be an artifact of said binning.
Erik816 10y ago
I think it would be hard to argue that we are a long way from fully autonomous vehicles, since millions of miles have already been driven by autonomous vehicles. What remains is mostly regulatory hurdles, psychological hurdles, and fine tuning.
- stephancoral 10y ago
  > What remains is mostly regulatory hurdles, psychological hurdles, and fine tuning. And driving in non-inclement weather. And driving in places that aren't meticulously mapped by Google. And being able to refuel themselves.... I'm not denying the accomplishments of current autonomous vehicles, but there is still a ways to go technically.
- qyv 10y ago
  Don't underestimate the difficulty of those hurdles. Driverless cars are a technology that will be directly responsible for human deaths. We as a society don't have a legal or ethical framework to deal with that sort of thing yet. Driverless cars could very well be the first deployment of autonomous robots within the general public, that is significant.
- exDM69 10y ago
  > What remains is mostly regulatory hurdles, psychological hurdles, and fine tuning. I think this is too optimistic. Self-driving cars only work because they are in the minority. Can you imagine a city full of current state-of-the-art self driving cars and it not turning into a traffic chaos? In particular, I think that self-driving cars cannot work fully autonomously without communicating with other cars or the road infrastructure. And I am not aware of any effort to create a cross-vendor car-to-car communication protocol. There are trivial cases where pure autonomous following of traffic rules will lead to deadlock (or other issues). Take these two simple examples: 1) 4 cars arrive at the same time in a four-way intersection without signals or yields 2) on a three lane road, two cars from the outer lanes try to switch to the middle lane at the same time. These are by no means difficult problems (I'm sure there are more difficult cases too), but they must be solved and so far they're not being worked on.
closeparen 10y ago
Amazon Go stores still need to be stocked, don't they? As I understand it, grocery stores employ more people back-of-house and in areas like the deli counter, than they do at cash registers.
- srssays 10y ago
  You are still looking at millions and millions of jobs at risk. And stocking shelves is a problem that will be solved eventually anyway.
crdoconnor 10y ago
That store, deviod of clerks, seems like a shoplifter's dream to me. The advert's buzzwordy, bullshitty, vague explanation of the tech hints that they're not super confident themselves about how well it will face up against shoplifters.

by srssays 10y ago

electic 10y ago

Good breakdown of numbers in the transportation sector: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/h...

pm90 10y ago

Hmmm...I would respectfully disagree :). While it would most certainly impact stores by reducing cash clerks etc. people would still be required for warehousing/monitoring etc. A lot of high volume retailers/grocers already have a self-checkout station, if they had wanted more automation, they would probably just increase the number of these stations. Also, anything more than a basic grocer would still want real people to help people with purchasing etc.

notheguyouthink 10y ago
> A lot of high volume retailers/grocers already have a self-checkout station, if they had wanted more automation, they would probably just increase the number of these stations. I mean, this is a great example against your point (imo). Those self checkout stands, sure they do employ a staffer to monitor, but each of those stands is basically a line that doesn't have to be employed by a dedicated staffer. They managed to potentially drastically reduce the number of required staffers via self checkouts. I say potentially, because 1 self checkout doesn't inherently equal one checkout clerk, but you get where i'm going with this. If my safeway can fire the 6 clerks i regularly see staffing the checkout lines, and hire 1 to monitor.. that's still a drastic layoff. And what about all the manual labor involved? I'm sure it won't be all robots stocking shelves, so mostly stockers can remain employed for the time being, but i'm sure at least a few employees who specialize in managing stock will be laid off as well. Just because it's not 100% layoff doesn't mean it's any less serious, imo. We're slowly decreasing the available job market simply put. Where are these people going to go?
- gremlinsinc 10y ago
  Not to mention the fact, back in the 80's/90's you go to walmart and every single aisle was open. Now pretty much any store I go to--there's maybe 3-4 open checkouts, and ALL self-checkouts are a go. Lines just are a lot longer, but it's not like people are going to stop shopping because of it. So they've cut a lot of jobs EVEN though there's a need for more workers at the registers
srssays 10y ago
I'm not saying that all retail jobs will go... yet. But the number of employees per store will go down, and since there is a large absolute number of retail workers, it will still be bad. Secondly, once people get used to shopping at stores where they don't have to line up to pay, the new experience will become expected by consumers. So there is a double effect whereby stores who adopt the new tech will save money on payroll, and stores that don't will lose some business.
nickparker 10y ago
The advice part of a storekeeper's job is the easy one to automate. If we get rid of all the manual labor that humans do, why wouldn't we move the advice-givers to remote offices and improve their utilization? A call center to tell you where the milk is or which wine goes with your recipe might sound bad, but consider that you'd never wait another second to talk to a clerk, and everything would get even cheaper as more and more of the basic questions for the call center get moved onto intelligent bots.
gremlinsinc 10y ago
You realize Amazon has an warehouse system run by robots, so there's a major flaw there..why do we need people to stock or work in a warehouse when that too can be automated? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quWFjS3Ci7A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quWFjS3Ci7A

chillydawg 10y ago

Amazon Go is not much of a change from an existing store where there are self-serve checkouts in terms of staffing. The huge staff cuts have already happened in most supermarkets.

mastax 10y ago
Yeah, Amazon go seems like more of a boon for customers who don't have to check themselves out anymore. Go in to a CVS in the city and there will be one employee at an empty register and four self checkouts with a short line.
notheguyouthink 10y ago
Interesting side note. I overheard staff talking at a local grocery store with a good number of chains. Now, i'm not sure to the extent of this (ie all chains or just those in my state), but they had to actually remove self checkouts. Why? They were being targeted to test stolen credit cards and it was costing the company a pretty penny having to deal with all those fraud checks/etc. Not a detraction from your point - i just found it interesting. "Automation" seemed great there, but they were having difficulty managing how it was being used. I wonder what might happen with the upcoming automation(s) in a similar manner?
- ghaff 10y ago
  Self-checkout also doesn't work terribly well in grocery stores because there's a lot of slow fumbling around things like weighing produce and bagging. I've also seen self-service discontinued in some grocery stores that put it in. I find it somewhat odd that another category of stores that often aren't a great match for self-checkout--big box home improvement stores--seem to have adopted it so broadly, at least around where I live.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    People at my local supermarket told me it doesn't seem to save the company much money, but there are a lot of customers who prefer self-service.

jghn 10y ago

"Truck driver" is the most common profession in most US states

philk10 10y ago
Or not - http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-most-common-job-in-your-state-2015-02-12 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-truck-driver-isnt-the-mo...
- jghn 10y ago
  Interesting, I'll stop pushing that as ground truth
the8472 10y ago
This has been discussed on HN previously, I think nobody was able to show that the categorization (binning of professions) was not arbitrary. So "largest" may simply be an artifact of said binning.

Erik816 10y ago

I think it would be hard to argue that we are a long way from fully autonomous vehicles, since millions of miles have already been driven by autonomous vehicles. What remains is mostly regulatory hurdles, psychological hurdles, and fine tuning.

stephancoral 10y ago
> What remains is mostly regulatory hurdles, psychological hurdles, and fine tuning. And driving in non-inclement weather. And driving in places that aren't meticulously mapped by Google. And being able to refuel themselves.... I'm not denying the accomplishments of current autonomous vehicles, but there is still a ways to go technically.
qyv 10y ago
Don't underestimate the difficulty of those hurdles. Driverless cars are a technology that will be directly responsible for human deaths. We as a society don't have a legal or ethical framework to deal with that sort of thing yet. Driverless cars could very well be the first deployment of autonomous robots within the general public, that is significant.
exDM69 10y ago
> What remains is mostly regulatory hurdles, psychological hurdles, and fine tuning. I think this is too optimistic. Self-driving cars only work because they are in the minority. Can you imagine a city full of current state-of-the-art self driving cars and it not turning into a traffic chaos? In particular, I think that self-driving cars cannot work fully autonomously without communicating with other cars or the road infrastructure. And I am not aware of any effort to create a cross-vendor car-to-car communication protocol. There are trivial cases where pure autonomous following of traffic rules will lead to deadlock (or other issues). Take these two simple examples: 1) 4 cars arrive at the same time in a four-way intersection without signals or yields 2) on a three lane road, two cars from the outer lanes try to switch to the middle lane at the same time. These are by no means difficult problems (I'm sure there are more difficult cases too), but they must be solved and so far they're not being worked on.

closeparen 10y ago

Amazon Go stores still need to be stocked, don't they? As I understand it, grocery stores employ more people back-of-house and in areas like the deli counter, than they do at cash registers.

srssays 10y ago
You are still looking at millions and millions of jobs at risk. And stocking shelves is a problem that will be solved eventually anyway.

crdoconnor 10y ago

That store, deviod of clerks, seems like a shoplifter's dream to me. The advert's buzzwordy, bullshitty, vague explanation of the tech hints that they're not super confident themselves about how well it will face up against shoplifters.