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Even the low-touch, mind-numbing jobs seem safe. I was at a 7-11 yesterday and I thought about how bored the clerk looked... but there's no way AI could take o

Even the low-touch, mind-numbing jobs seem safe. I was at a 7-11 yesterday and I thought about how bored the clerk looked... but there's no way AI could take over the job of "being the human who sits in the store and makes sure nothing gets stolen". The task of physically carrying out the checkout and taking the money is pretty much already automated, but there still has to be a human there, for human-related reasons.

mitchdoogle 4y ago
Amazon has its convenience stores in which you scan your phone at the entry and walk out with whatever you want, it charges you for whatever you take. No human necessary
meindnoch 4y ago
>being the human who sits in the store and makes sure nothing gets stolen Automatic gun turrets?
- notahacker 4y ago
  Not gonna lie, I'm shopping at the shop without AI powered gun turrets, even if the food costs more...
  - dllthomas 4y ago
    But it means you don't have to talk to a human...
- simonh 4y ago
  Put down the can of tomatoes. You have ten seconds to comply.
  - commandlinefan 4y ago
    "I think you'd better do what he says..."
nextworddev 4y ago
It’s not about full replacement, it’s about needing less human labor.
BobbyJo 4y ago
The only reason there is a human and the store isn't one big vending machine is the large upfront capital cost of doing it that way. Once AI+Robotics is good enough, those costs will come down significantly. Hard to imagine those humans not being replaced as well.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Humans like to browse. And setup of modern stores is rather space efficient for storing and displaying all the items. I don't think stores will be replaced. Any level of automation is unlikely to drive prices low enough for that to happen.
  - mitchdoogle 4y ago
    Grocery stores, Walmart, Target, Home Depot, CVS and the like have already moved to self-checkout, almost entirely. The cashier jobs are already gone
  - BobbyJo 4y ago
    Isn't that why vending machines have glass displays?
kaba0 4y ago
It’s not about those jobs, but mostly low-skill white-collar jobs. There will be a need for HR, but will a company need all of them, when fewer could do the work with the help of an AI?
pixl97 4y ago
> I was at a 7-11 yesterday Did you ask the cashier if they owned a house and had any children? We're not exactly solving anything at a society level if we replace all the high paying jobs and let corporations pocket that money directly, while only leaving lots of shitty low paid jobs for the starving masses to fight over.
- freeplay 4y ago
  This actually the biggest negative I bring up in these AI conversations. AI will have nothing but negative impacts for society as a whole. It's benefits will be experienced almost exclusively by the corporations and their C suites. If the creators of GPT and it's successors are doing it for profit, I guess I can understand. However, if they are doing it to improve civilization and revolutionize things for the better, they are either extremely idealistic or completely ignorant.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  I didn't say it was a good job, I just said he's not in much danger of being replaced.
jstarfish 4y ago
> there's no way AI could take over the job of "being the human who sits in the store and makes sure nothing gets stolen" Humans aren't there to stop theft, most are specifically trained not to interfere. Everything in a 7-11 could be sold from a vending machine. Service Merchandise was most of the way there. No human was really needed except to pick items and load them onto the conveyor belt at checkout. Robots can do that now. The irony is, in the new world, nobody will have enough money to buy anything from these places to begin with.
Symmetry 4y ago
The way stores used to work, when goods were relatively more expensive than labor, would be that you would go up to the store counter and ask for what you wanted and the clerk would fetch it from in back rather than the customer having to find goods on the shelves. With cheap robots you could go back to that model.
askonomm 4y ago
I'm assuming this is not in Europe, where automated cash registries in grocery stores is more common every day. In Estonia lots of grocery stores have ~10 automatic registries and just 1 real human one. The automated one needs no human at all, and I'm sure soon even that 1 real human will no longer be needed. As for stealing stuff, well, that's cultural. Seems northern Europe has managed to be just fine automating all this stuff away, I'm sure the rest of the world will catch up eventually. We already have food delivery by robots (https://www.starship.xyz https://www.starship.xyz) here in Estonia, currently testing package delivery by robots as well, combine that with automated grocery store experiences, kiosks where buying things is also entirely automated, well, I really don't think low-touch, mind-numbing jobs are safe at all. Unless in places where the culture is holding the advancement back, but it surely isn't technology that does.
reducesuffering 4y ago
Imagine Amazon Go, but with GPT5 rapidly improving the codebase.

mitchdoogle 4y ago

Amazon has its convenience stores in which you scan your phone at the entry and walk out with whatever you want, it charges you for whatever you take. No human necessary

meindnoch 4y ago

>being the human who sits in the store and makes sure nothing gets stolen Automatic gun turrets?

notahacker 4y ago
Not gonna lie, I'm shopping at the shop without AI powered gun turrets, even if the food costs more...
- dllthomas 4y ago
  But it means you don't have to talk to a human...
simonh 4y ago
Put down the can of tomatoes. You have ten seconds to comply.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  "I think you'd better do what he says..."

nextworddev 4y ago

It’s not about full replacement, it’s about needing less human labor.

BobbyJo 4y ago

The only reason there is a human and the store isn't one big vending machine is the large upfront capital cost of doing it that way. Once AI+Robotics is good enough, those costs will come down significantly. Hard to imagine those humans not being replaced as well.

Ekaros 4y ago
Humans like to browse. And setup of modern stores is rather space efficient for storing and displaying all the items. I don't think stores will be replaced. Any level of automation is unlikely to drive prices low enough for that to happen.
- mitchdoogle 4y ago
  Grocery stores, Walmart, Target, Home Depot, CVS and the like have already moved to self-checkout, almost entirely. The cashier jobs are already gone
- BobbyJo 4y ago
  Isn't that why vending machines have glass displays?

kaba0 4y ago

It’s not about those jobs, but mostly low-skill white-collar jobs. There will be a need for HR, but will a company need all of them, when fewer could do the work with the help of an AI?

pixl97 4y ago

> I was at a 7-11 yesterday Did you ask the cashier if they owned a house and had any children? We're not exactly solving anything at a society level if we replace all the high paying jobs and let corporations pocket that money directly, while only leaving lots of shitty low paid jobs for the starving masses to fight over.

freeplay 4y ago
This actually the biggest negative I bring up in these AI conversations. AI will have nothing but negative impacts for society as a whole. It's benefits will be experienced almost exclusively by the corporations and their C suites. If the creators of GPT and it's successors are doing it for profit, I guess I can understand. However, if they are doing it to improve civilization and revolutionize things for the better, they are either extremely idealistic or completely ignorant.
commandlinefan 4y ago
I didn't say it was a good job, I just said he's not in much danger of being replaced.

jstarfish 4y ago

> there's no way AI could take over the job of "being the human who sits in the store and makes sure nothing gets stolen" Humans aren't there to stop theft, most are specifically trained not to interfere. Everything in a 7-11 could be sold from a vending machine. Service Merchandise was most of the way there. No human was really needed except to pick items and load them onto the conveyor belt at checkout. Robots can do that now. The irony is, in the new world, nobody will have enough money to buy anything from these places to begin with.

Symmetry 4y ago

The way stores used to work, when goods were relatively more expensive than labor, would be that you would go up to the store counter and ask for what you wanted and the clerk would fetch it from in back rather than the customer having to find goods on the shelves. With cheap robots you could go back to that model.

askonomm 4y ago

I'm assuming this is not in Europe, where automated cash registries in grocery stores is more common every day. In Estonia lots of grocery stores have ~10 automatic registries and just 1 real human one. The automated one needs no human at all, and I'm sure soon even that 1 real human will no longer be needed. As for stealing stuff, well, that's cultural. Seems northern Europe has managed to be just fine automating all this stuff away, I'm sure the rest of the world will catch up eventually. We already have food delivery by robots (https://www.starship.xyz https://www.starship.xyz) here in Estonia, currently testing package delivery by robots as well, combine that with automated grocery store experiences, kiosks where buying things is also entirely automated, well, I really don't think low-touch, mind-numbing jobs are safe at all. Unless in places where the culture is holding the advancement back, but it surely isn't technology that does.

reducesuffering 4y ago

Imagine Amazon Go, but with GPT5 rapidly improving the codebase.