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I've been flagged as a potential shoplifter by the self-checkout at the grocery store based on some video analysis of CCTV footage of my hand motions. (It was w

I've been flagged as a potential shoplifter by the self-checkout at the grocery store based on some video analysis of CCTV footage of my hand motions. (It was wrong, of course.) After leaving the store I wondered if it really was software analysis or just some guy in India or the Philippines watching a live feed of me scanning bananas.

bitwize 2y ago
At the Circle K they have the option of doing self checkout by putting all your items under a camera and the register will automagically count 'em up and assess your total. I keep wondering if it's done by AI -- All Indians. Same with the OCR ATMs do on cheques.
- evbogue 2y ago
  This vibes with my multiyear theory that Tesla self-driving is someone in China driving your car for you like a racing simulator. Perhaps the graphics are even game-ified so the work stays mysterious.
  - thih9 2y ago
    I hope that whoever operates these devices, is aware about it. > So much of “ai” is just figuring ways to offload work onto random strangers. https://xkcd.com/1897/ https://xkcd.com/1897/ (2017)
    - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
      If you have ever manually labeled an image set for ML, it is not far from the truth of the process. =3
      - evbogue 2y ago
        I'm not a data scientist but is that not a hotdog emoji?
        Joel_Mckay 2y ago
        Hotdogs contain just about everything... including c===3 parts... =3
        thih9 2y ago
        A cat face emoji.
    - bitwize 2y ago
      Indeed, even legitimate "AI" is just human intelligence that's been macrodata-refined into a huge matrix of weights.
  - xeromal 2y ago
    There's a car company that runs in vegas that does exactly that. You rent the car for a few hours and it will be driven up to you by a remote driver and then when you're done it'll drive off remotely. No AI needed.
    - AStonesThrow 2y ago
      > driven up to you by a remote driver This is hopefully illegal and not actually what is done, because I have learned from Waymo that it is not permissible or even possible for the CS reps to remotely drive the car. They merely push "suggestion" commands to be considered by the onboard Waymo Driver. Remote human drivers have too much latency and not enough realtime information available to "drive" a vehicle on public roads.
      - xeromal 2y ago
        * https://halo.car/ https://halo.car/ * https://vay.io/ https://vay.io/
        kfarr 2y ago
        Wow thanks for sharing. I genuinely didn’t think this was legal.
        xeromal 2y ago
        Yeah I was surprised too when they handed me a voucher when I left a hotel last time I was there. Really cool concept. I wasn't able to use it because it was only on iPhone
        fc417fc802 2y ago
        From the second link: > In the event of an emergency, the vehicle automatically puts itself into a safe state within milliseconds by coming to a safe stop in the same lane. It sounds to me like the hardware has some amount of autonomy. They just aren't trying to do the high level stuff. Both companies seem like they're trying to hide the implementation details though which immediately makes me suspicious of them.
  - cryptoz 2y ago
    And important.
  - uptown 2y ago
    You didn’t really think you were playing “Crazy Taxi” did you?
  - trhway 2y ago
    > someone in China driving your car for you like a racing simulator. while sleeping and connected by NeuraLink. Before Musk/NeuraLink gets to me though, judging by the content of some of my dreams, i've been driving a space-folding spaceships for some aliens.
  - palmotea 2y ago
    > This vibes with my multiyear theory that Tesla self-driving is someone in China driving your car for you like a racing simulator. Perhaps the graphics are even game-ified so the work stays mysterious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_Simulator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_Simulator
  - codr7 2y ago
    Very Ender's Game.
  - bitwize 2y ago
    There were scenes from Black Panther in which Shuri drives a car in Korea remotely from Wakanda. I thought, wow, she can do that from thousands of km away with zero latency! They must have super advanced tech to have solved the network latency problem.
- tczMUFlmoNk 2y ago
  Relevant: Uniqlo's self checkout, based on RFID tags with a great user experience: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38715111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38715111 - https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/uniqlo-self-checkout-rfid-holiday-shopping-fast-retailing-c4287e2f https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/uniqlo-self-checkout-rfi... - https://archive.is/ms1ke https://archive.is/ms1ke
  - sethhochberg 2y ago
    Those Uniqlo self checkouts really do fall into that “ indistinguishable from magic” territory for me - on a technological level I completely understand how they work, and yet every time I use them I’m a little surprised that it works so well and filled with joy anyways
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    Ah man I remember the RFID hype when the idea was you'd just shop and walk out and the items would all be automatically scanned by an RFID reader and charged. A tough lift in a grocery store but a single source store can build all the tags into their own products.
  - joshvm 2y ago
    Decathlon use a similar system: https://sustainability.decathlon.com/product-traceability-and-rfid-technology-at-decathlon https://sustainability.decathlon.com/product-traceability-an...
    - reddalo 2y ago
      Every time I shop at Decathlon it feels like magic.
Joel_Mckay 2y ago
It is likely a real machine vision system if it was the same system our former company evaluated. It worked by camera tracking the shelves contents, and would adjust the inventory level for a specific customers actions. And finally, tracked the incremental mass change during the checkout process to cross reference label swap scams etc. Thus, people get flagged if their appearance changes while in the store, mass of goods is inconsistent with scanned labels, or the cameras don't see the inventory re-stocked. You would be surprised how much irrational effort some board members put into the self-checkout systems. Personally, I found the whole project incredibly boring.... so found a more entertaining project elsewhere... =3
trissylegs 2y ago
I mean there is precedent: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/10/amazon-ai-cashier-less-shops-humans-technology https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/10/amazon...
imroot 2y ago
Percepta was a company that was doing a lot of CV/ML in this space looking for shoplifting traits. They had a few paying customers before they were completely acquired by ADT Business. A lot of shoplifters use the PLU for bananas when tag swapping higher-ticket items at the self checkout, so, more than likely, they wanted to check that you were actually purchasing bananas.
- chneu 2y ago
  For a while a lot of grocery stores were randomly auditing self checkout. I haven't had it happen to me in a couple years though. It always seemed to be random and coincided with Kroger doing the "scan as you shop" trial thing.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    As long as their losses on self checkout are less than the cost of paying cashiers and baggers they are happy.
    - phonon 2y ago
      Cashiers can steal too (not ring up their friends, shrinkage, etc.)
  - dustincoates 2y ago
    In France at the Monoprix chain, I'm randomly audited about once a month. Which is doubly annoying, because I'm in that line to save time, and now I have to hunt down one of the employees who isn't paying attention or where they're supposed to be.
    - namaria 2y ago
      I noticed that I am often audited when I am unshaven and wear hoodies and almost never when I have a sports jacket on...
  - rcxdude 2y ago
baxtr 2y ago
Sorry to hear. Why would it matter to you if it’s a real human or AI? Wrong in any case.
buu700 2y ago
I've been flagged as a potential shoplifter by the self-checkout at the grocery store based on some video analysis of CCTV footage of my hand motions. Shopping in 2025 must be a frustrating experience for magicians.

bitwize 2y ago

At the Circle K they have the option of doing self checkout by putting all your items under a camera and the register will automagically count 'em up and assess your total. I keep wondering if it's done by AI -- All Indians. Same with the OCR ATMs do on cheques.

evbogue 2y ago
This vibes with my multiyear theory that Tesla self-driving is someone in China driving your car for you like a racing simulator. Perhaps the graphics are even game-ified so the work stays mysterious.
- thih9 2y ago
  I hope that whoever operates these devices, is aware about it. > So much of “ai” is just figuring ways to offload work onto random strangers. https://xkcd.com/1897/ https://xkcd.com/1897/ (2017)
  - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
    If you have ever manually labeled an image set for ML, it is not far from the truth of the process. =3
    - evbogue 2y ago
      I'm not a data scientist but is that not a hotdog emoji?
      - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
        Hotdogs contain just about everything... including c===3 parts... =3
      - thih9 2y ago
        A cat face emoji.
  - bitwize 2y ago
    Indeed, even legitimate "AI" is just human intelligence that's been macrodata-refined into a huge matrix of weights.
- xeromal 2y ago
  There's a car company that runs in vegas that does exactly that. You rent the car for a few hours and it will be driven up to you by a remote driver and then when you're done it'll drive off remotely. No AI needed.
  - AStonesThrow 2y ago
    > driven up to you by a remote driver This is hopefully illegal and not actually what is done, because I have learned from Waymo that it is not permissible or even possible for the CS reps to remotely drive the car. They merely push "suggestion" commands to be considered by the onboard Waymo Driver. Remote human drivers have too much latency and not enough realtime information available to "drive" a vehicle on public roads.
    - xeromal 2y ago
      * https://halo.car/ https://halo.car/ * https://vay.io/ https://vay.io/
      - kfarr 2y ago
        Wow thanks for sharing. I genuinely didn’t think this was legal.
        xeromal 2y ago
        Yeah I was surprised too when they handed me a voucher when I left a hotel last time I was there. Really cool concept. I wasn't able to use it because it was only on iPhone
        fc417fc802 2y ago
        From the second link: > In the event of an emergency, the vehicle automatically puts itself into a safe state within milliseconds by coming to a safe stop in the same lane. It sounds to me like the hardware has some amount of autonomy. They just aren't trying to do the high level stuff. Both companies seem like they're trying to hide the implementation details though which immediately makes me suspicious of them.
- cryptoz 2y ago
  And important.
- uptown 2y ago
  You didn’t really think you were playing “Crazy Taxi” did you?
- trhway 2y ago
  > someone in China driving your car for you like a racing simulator. while sleeping and connected by NeuraLink. Before Musk/NeuraLink gets to me though, judging by the content of some of my dreams, i've been driving a space-folding spaceships for some aliens.
- palmotea 2y ago
  > This vibes with my multiyear theory that Tesla self-driving is someone in China driving your car for you like a racing simulator. Perhaps the graphics are even game-ified so the work stays mysterious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_Simulator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_Simulator
- codr7 2y ago
  Very Ender's Game.
- bitwize 2y ago
  There were scenes from Black Panther in which Shuri drives a car in Korea remotely from Wakanda. I thought, wow, she can do that from thousands of km away with zero latency! They must have super advanced tech to have solved the network latency problem.
tczMUFlmoNk 2y ago
Relevant: Uniqlo's self checkout, based on RFID tags with a great user experience: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38715111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38715111 - https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/uniqlo-self-checkout-rfid-holiday-shopping-fast-retailing-c4287e2f https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/uniqlo-self-checkout-rfi... - https://archive.is/ms1ke https://archive.is/ms1ke
- sethhochberg 2y ago
  Those Uniqlo self checkouts really do fall into that “ indistinguishable from magic” territory for me - on a technological level I completely understand how they work, and yet every time I use them I’m a little surprised that it works so well and filled with joy anyways
- rtkwe 2y ago
  Ah man I remember the RFID hype when the idea was you'd just shop and walk out and the items would all be automatically scanned by an RFID reader and charged. A tough lift in a grocery store but a single source store can build all the tags into their own products.
- joshvm 2y ago
  Decathlon use a similar system: https://sustainability.decathlon.com/product-traceability-and-rfid-technology-at-decathlon https://sustainability.decathlon.com/product-traceability-an...
  - reddalo 2y ago
    Every time I shop at Decathlon it feels like magic.

Joel_Mckay 2y ago

It is likely a real machine vision system if it was the same system our former company evaluated. It worked by camera tracking the shelves contents, and would adjust the inventory level for a specific customers actions. And finally, tracked the incremental mass change during the checkout process to cross reference label swap scams etc. Thus, people get flagged if their appearance changes while in the store, mass of goods is inconsistent with scanned labels, or the cameras don't see the inventory re-stocked. You would be surprised how much irrational effort some board members put into the self-checkout systems. Personally, I found the whole project incredibly boring.... so found a more entertaining project elsewhere... =3

trissylegs 2y ago

I mean there is precedent: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/10/amazon-ai-cashier-less-shops-humans-technology https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/10/amazon...

imroot 2y ago

Percepta was a company that was doing a lot of CV/ML in this space looking for shoplifting traits. They had a few paying customers before they were completely acquired by ADT Business. A lot of shoplifters use the PLU for bananas when tag swapping higher-ticket items at the self checkout, so, more than likely, they wanted to check that you were actually purchasing bananas.

chneu 2y ago
For a while a lot of grocery stores were randomly auditing self checkout. I haven't had it happen to me in a couple years though. It always seemed to be random and coincided with Kroger doing the "scan as you shop" trial thing.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  As long as their losses on self checkout are less than the cost of paying cashiers and baggers they are happy.
  - phonon 2y ago
    Cashiers can steal too (not ring up their friends, shrinkage, etc.)
- dustincoates 2y ago
  In France at the Monoprix chain, I'm randomly audited about once a month. Which is doubly annoying, because I'm in that line to save time, and now I have to hunt down one of the employees who isn't paying attention or where they're supposed to be.
  - namaria 2y ago
    I noticed that I am often audited when I am unshaven and wear hoodies and almost never when I have a sports jacket on...
- rcxdude 2y ago

baxtr 2y ago

Sorry to hear. Why would it matter to you if it’s a real human or AI? Wrong in any case.

buu700 2y ago

I've been flagged as a potential shoplifter by the self-checkout at the grocery store based on some video analysis of CCTV footage of my hand motions. Shopping in 2025 must be a frustrating experience for magicians.