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A robot absolutely replaced my cashier. Now I can scan the barcodes, insert the item into the bagging area, swipe credit card, etc. all without interacting with

by gcr 10y ago

A robot absolutely replaced my cashier. Now I can scan the barcodes, insert the item into the bagging area, swipe credit card, etc. all without interacting with a person. Sure, it's not AI. It's not a deep reinforcement learning neural network trained with Nesterov subgradient momentum. But robots are robots. Whatever it is, my cashier's out of a job.

michaelt 10y ago
A self-checkout machine is only a robot if your definition of "robot" is so broad it includes vending machines and parking garage barriers. The job's just as lost, of course.
stephengillie 10y ago
Last time I used self-check, I had to wait for another human to verify my age, to purchase beer. The time before, I had to wait for a human to verify I had bagged all of my items. I was a grocery store checker in 2007, when these devices were first announced. They are as capable as they were 10 years ago, handle the same edge cases as 10 years ago, and require the same human intervention as 10 years ago. And there are still human checkers at every store - usually they "turn off" the self-check at night, since the human that watches it goes home. All this AI is just a "mechanical Turk" - using AI to perform most of the tasks a human doesn't want to, and keeping a human around for the edge cases that are too expensive to automate. Humans have such a robustness of variety and ability that we can quickly solve most issues. After a certain point, it just makes sense to keep a few humans around for the really rare edge cases, like the when the grocery store is flooding.
- chillacy 10y ago
  > I had to wait for another human to verify my age, to purchase beer. The time before, I had to wait for a human to verify I had bagged all of my items. So instead of 2 people to a register (one to bag, one to scan), you can have one person man 12 self checkouts? Sounds like an amazing reduction in labor. Even if self-checkout were half as fast as traditional checkout, that one employee is effectively serving way more customers per hour than they would be doing traditional checkout.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  At my local Safeway one employee manages 6 self checkouts whereas the traditional checkouts each require 2 - one cashier and one to pack. Also the line moves much faster in the self checkout. Sure there are edge cases but on an average you still save a lot of time/money.
robterrell 10y ago
A robot didn't replace your cashier -- YOU replaced your cashier. You're doing the cashiers job, unpaid, using the exact same equipment.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  I have seen this argument before and can't say whether this is meant as a joke. By the same logic you replaced your secretary (for type writer), your telephone operator, your travel agent and so on. In all these instances the experience is better and faster without another human present.
  - pavlov 10y ago
    But the replacement is not a robot, it's just you using equipment that previously was accessible to specialized professionals only. The grocery store is the same kind of situation.

by gcr 10y ago

michaelt 10y ago

A self-checkout machine is only a robot if your definition of "robot" is so broad it includes vending machines and parking garage barriers. The job's just as lost, of course.

stephengillie 10y ago

Last time I used self-check, I had to wait for another human to verify my age, to purchase beer. The time before, I had to wait for a human to verify I had bagged all of my items. I was a grocery store checker in 2007, when these devices were first announced. They are as capable as they were 10 years ago, handle the same edge cases as 10 years ago, and require the same human intervention as 10 years ago. And there are still human checkers at every store - usually they "turn off" the self-check at night, since the human that watches it goes home. All this AI is just a "mechanical Turk" - using AI to perform most of the tasks a human doesn't want to, and keeping a human around for the edge cases that are too expensive to automate. Humans have such a robustness of variety and ability that we can quickly solve most issues. After a certain point, it just makes sense to keep a few humans around for the really rare edge cases, like the when the grocery store is flooding.

chillacy 10y ago
> I had to wait for another human to verify my age, to purchase beer. The time before, I had to wait for a human to verify I had bagged all of my items. So instead of 2 people to a register (one to bag, one to scan), you can have one person man 12 self checkouts? Sounds like an amazing reduction in labor. Even if self-checkout were half as fast as traditional checkout, that one employee is effectively serving way more customers per hour than they would be doing traditional checkout.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
At my local Safeway one employee manages 6 self checkouts whereas the traditional checkouts each require 2 - one cashier and one to pack. Also the line moves much faster in the self checkout. Sure there are edge cases but on an average you still save a lot of time/money.

robterrell 10y ago

A robot didn't replace your cashier -- YOU replaced your cashier. You're doing the cashiers job, unpaid, using the exact same equipment.

maverick_iceman 10y ago
I have seen this argument before and can't say whether this is meant as a joke. By the same logic you replaced your secretary (for type writer), your telephone operator, your travel agent and so on. In all these instances the experience is better and faster without another human present.
- pavlov 10y ago
  But the replacement is not a robot, it's just you using equipment that previously was accessible to specialized professionals only. The grocery store is the same kind of situation.