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If you did some kind of shell game with 5 different people all passing around their items, then you don’t get charged correctly is it theft? Did anyone ever try

If you did some kind of shell game with 5 different people all passing around their items, then you don’t get charged correctly is it theft? Did anyone ever try that?

baumy 3y ago
I worked for Amazon in Seattle when Amazon Go first launched. As you'd expect, lots of SDE teams made games out of trying to fool the thing in various ways. A few attempts were successful early on (passing items back and forth, one person moving something to the wrong shelf and another person picking it up, people dressing in identical outfits, etc), but the success rate in fooling the system was very very low. No method of trying to trick it that I ever heard of worked consistently, and it definitely seemed to get harder to fool the longer the store was open. At the time I thought that whatever algos were being run on the camera feeds were getting better. Knowing that it was basically all manual, I'm not sure what the explanation is for the store seemingly getting harder to fool over time. Possibly just placebo, or people lost interest in trying so hard to fool it.
- burntalmonds 3y ago
  Thomas Crown Affair at the grocery store.
- eyegor 3y ago
  Probably fewer patrons and similar number of employees in the sweatshops. More eyes per patron leads to fewer errors. Or maybe they trained the best grocery cv model around from having a big high quality dataset, and you were fighting it. But then I'd think the tech would've been passed to whole foods instead of packing up shop, so final guess is sweatshop singularity theory.
- throwazr 3y ago
  You underestimated the silicon valley engineers
- ilikecakeandpie 3y ago
  Seems a little cruel in retrospect considering it was humans watching you, but I suppose there wasn't an easy way to gain this information
Terr_ 3y ago
> If you did some kind of shell game with 5 different people all passing around their items, then you don’t get charged correctly is it theft? IANAL but I'm confident the legal answer is "yes", the same as if someone was using sleight-of-hand with objects at a cashier-and-conveyor-belt checkout station. Whether charges are brought and how easily the case can be proved is another matter, but the intent is what makes it a crime.
- pcchristie 3y ago
  I thought one of the marketing lines was that Amazon was so confident/comfortable in their implementation was that they assumed all liability for mistakes (though as I type this I realise they may have worded it to encapsulate only honest mistakes rather than people trying deliberately to break the system).
  - lupire 3y ago
    Being forgiven doesn't make it not a crime, or just reduces the chance of enforcement.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    > they assumed all liability for mistakes To get a little pedantic, assuming such a promise existed, it actually doesn't mean as much as most people think. A merchant saying "we won't sue you in civil court for the missing money" does not prevent the local government from criminally prosecuting that same person for theft. American TV dramas often show the police asking people "Do you want to press charges?", but the idea that the question matters is a myth, since victims of crime don't get to decide that. At best, it's a terribly misleading shortening of: "Just for my own private curiosity, do you plan to lobby or press upon your local government officials into pressing charges?"
  - astura 3y ago
    >though as I type this I realise they may have worded it to encapsulate only honest mistakes rather than people trying deliberately to break the system Exactly. Retailers generally assume liability for honest mistakes made by their system/employees and sometimes even their customers. However, when people knowingly exploit a loophole for financial gain it becomes fraud. Here's a real example - https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/greensboro-woman-pleads-guilty-to-qvc-scam/83-402367135 https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/greensboro-woma...

If you did some kind of shell game with 5 different people all passing around their items, then you don’t get charged correctly is it theft? Did anyone ever try that?

baumy 3y ago

I worked for Amazon in Seattle when Amazon Go first launched. As you'd expect, lots of SDE teams made games out of trying to fool the thing in various ways. A few attempts were successful early on (passing items back and forth, one person moving something to the wrong shelf and another person picking it up, people dressing in identical outfits, etc), but the success rate in fooling the system was very very low. No method of trying to trick it that I ever heard of worked consistently, and it definitely seemed to get harder to fool the longer the store was open. At the time I thought that whatever algos were being run on the camera feeds were getting better. Knowing that it was basically all manual, I'm not sure what the explanation is for the store seemingly getting harder to fool over time. Possibly just placebo, or people lost interest in trying so hard to fool it.

burntalmonds 3y ago
Thomas Crown Affair at the grocery store.
eyegor 3y ago
Probably fewer patrons and similar number of employees in the sweatshops. More eyes per patron leads to fewer errors. Or maybe they trained the best grocery cv model around from having a big high quality dataset, and you were fighting it. But then I'd think the tech would've been passed to whole foods instead of packing up shop, so final guess is sweatshop singularity theory.
throwazr 3y ago
You underestimated the silicon valley engineers
ilikecakeandpie 3y ago
Seems a little cruel in retrospect considering it was humans watching you, but I suppose there wasn't an easy way to gain this information

Terr_ 3y ago

> If you did some kind of shell game with 5 different people all passing around their items, then you don’t get charged correctly is it theft? IANAL but I'm confident the legal answer is "yes", the same as if someone was using sleight-of-hand with objects at a cashier-and-conveyor-belt checkout station. Whether charges are brought and how easily the case can be proved is another matter, but the intent is what makes it a crime.

pcchristie 3y ago
I thought one of the marketing lines was that Amazon was so confident/comfortable in their implementation was that they assumed all liability for mistakes (though as I type this I realise they may have worded it to encapsulate only honest mistakes rather than people trying deliberately to break the system).
- lupire 3y ago
  Being forgiven doesn't make it not a crime, or just reduces the chance of enforcement.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  > they assumed all liability for mistakes To get a little pedantic, assuming such a promise existed, it actually doesn't mean as much as most people think. A merchant saying "we won't sue you in civil court for the missing money" does not prevent the local government from criminally prosecuting that same person for theft. American TV dramas often show the police asking people "Do you want to press charges?", but the idea that the question matters is a myth, since victims of crime don't get to decide that. At best, it's a terribly misleading shortening of: "Just for my own private curiosity, do you plan to lobby or press upon your local government officials into pressing charges?"
- astura 3y ago
  >though as I type this I realise they may have worded it to encapsulate only honest mistakes rather than people trying deliberately to break the system Exactly. Retailers generally assume liability for honest mistakes made by their system/employees and sometimes even their customers. However, when people knowingly exploit a loophole for financial gain it becomes fraud. Here's a real example - https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/greensboro-woman-pleads-guilty-to-qvc-scam/83-402367135 https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/greensboro-woma...