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Every day when I am out in the city, I am amazed by how many jobs we have NOT managed to replace with AI yet. For example, cashiers. There are still many peopl
by ArtTimeInvestor 1y ago
Every day when I am out in the city, I am amazed by how many jobs we have NOT managed to replace with AI yet.
For example, cashiers. There are still many people spending their lives dragging items over a scanner, reading a number from a screen, holding out their hand for the customer to put money in, and then sorting the coins into boxes.
How hard can it be to automate that?
- Spivak 1y agoYou mean ordering kiosks and self-checkout machines? We have automated it, it's just not everywhere has implemented it. The one I'm desperately waiting for is serverless restaurants—food halls already do it but I want it everywhere. Just let me sit down, put an order into the kitchen, pick it up myself. I promise I can walk 20 feet and fill my own drink cup.
- ArtTimeInvestor 1y agoYou seem to like self-checkout processes. I don't. I avoid any place where I have to interact with a screen. Be it a screen installed on-premise or the screen on my phone. It is not a relaxing experience for me.
- Ekaros 1y agoSeems like perfect option for robots (not humanoid). Bring me my food. You can still keep people in kitchen for a bit, but well servers in many restaurants are not really needed.
- slipperydippery 1y agoSelf check-out machines aren't automation.
- Spivak 1y agoThere used to be two humans standing at the cash register, now because of software, automatic change machines, and cameras there is only one. One of those humans' jobs got automated. Call it what you like but replacing the work of humans one for one is difficult and usually not necessary. Reformulating the problem to one that machines can solve is basically the whole game. You don't need a robot front desk worker to greet you, you just need a tablet to do your check in.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- slipperydippery 1y agoI do their work. No work got automated.
- ammojamo 1y agoThis. And I do their work a lot more slowly because it's not my regular job, and I actually already had to do some of the work (getting the items out of my trolley and onto the conveyor). Now I stand there forever fumbling with barcodes, trying to get bags to stay open, switching between getting items out of the trolley and scanning. The old checkout system is so much more efficient when you are buying anything more than a couple of items at a time.
- slipperydippery 1y agoYeah this is like saying Aldi “automated” cart return. They didn’t, they got every shopper to do the work themselves. Automated cart return would be if you just gave the cart a little “giddyup!” when you were done and it found its way home. Or those cart conveyor belts at Ikea, it’s only part of the process but that part is automated. [edit] Aldi did automate the management of getting shoppers to do that work, because there’s not a person standing there taking and handing out quarters, but (very simple) machines. Without those machines they might need a person, so that hypothetical role (the existence of which might make the whole scheme uneconomical) is automated. But they didn’t automate cart return, all that work’s still being done by people.
- jonbiggums22 1y agoMany "productivity improvements" in the modern era are just externalizing the problem. It's like saying I automated recycling by dumping all my unsorted stuff in my neighbors bin.
- Spivak 1y agoDo you consider all forms of "self-service" to not be automation of a job that previously required an additional human? Like checking in at the airport via kiosk/app for example. Do you consider that to be "doing the work" of the desk clerk? Or say ordering at a restaurant by scanning a QR code, in both cases I have to look at the menu, decide what I want, and input my order into a system. But with the QR code there's no longer a human necessary.
- distances 1y agoI don't use self-checkouts at the stores, nor would I eat at automated or self-service restaurants. I have a kitchen for that already. But it's good if both are available, as apparently there will be customers for both.
- freddie_mercury 1y agoServerless restaurants have been common in Australia for decades. You just get a buzzer and then need to go pick up your food when it is ready. There's a single person behind the bar to take orders and pour beer/wine/soda.
- ApolloFortyNine 1y agoJapan does this a lot of places, and it makes the experience much easier. And I think the entire mid and low range restaurants could replace servers with a tablet and people would be happier. I'm not sure how it doesn't make more money for the restaurant too, making it so easy to order more during a meal.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoThe hard part is preventing theft, not adding numbers.
- ArtTimeInvestor 1y agoIs the theft really happening at the checkout? And if so, why can't we detect it via camera + AI?
- Ekaros 1y agoCheckouts are often only egress points. So having pair of eyes over them does have some effect compared to having none at all.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoDetecting theft does not mean theft is prevented. You then need the government to prosecute, and impose sufficient punishment to deter theft. This is not cheap, nor a given that it will happen.
- Lovesong 1y agoYou detect someone leaving your store with a 4€ item. What then?
- Workaccount2 1y agoYou ban them from coming back in after a few warnings. Stores seem really icy about facial recognition right now though. The optics are pretty bad (a play on words pun?)
- lotsofpulp 1y agoWho is going to stop them from coming back in?
- undersuit 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- delfinom 1y ago>How hard can it be to automate that? Self checkout has been a thing for ages. Heck in Japan the 711s have cashiers but you put the money into a machine that counts and distributes change for them. Supermarkets are actually getting rid of self checkouts due to crime. Surprise surprise, having less visible "supervision" in a store results in more shoplifting than having employees who won't stop it anyway.
- anthem2025 1y agoIt’s also just resulting in atrocious customer experience. I can go to Safeway or the smaller chain half a block away. The Safeway went all in on self checkouts. The store is barely staffed, shelves are constantly empty, you have to have your receipt checked by security every time, they closed the second entrance permanently, and for some reason the place smells. Other store has self checkouts but they also have loads of staff. I usually go through the normal checkout because it’s easier and since they have adequate staff and self checkout lines it tends to be about the same speed to. End result is I don’t shop at Safeway if I can avoid it.
- charlieyu1 1y agoI've seen it in Japan, the machine just handles the money. But you still need a human to scan things/check to make sure things are scanned correctly.
- anthem2025 1y agoThey don’t need AI for that, they just cut staff to the bare minimum and put in self checkouts.
- generic92034 1y agoAnd then they hire supervisors, helpers and checkout guards/security. I hope it at least makes sense on paper.
- renewiltord 1y agoPharmacists are my favourite. They're a human vending machine that is bad at counting and reading. But law protects them. Pretty good regulatory capture.
- iamdelirium 1y agoPlease actually understand what pharmacists actually do and _why_ AI is not a good replacement for them yet, unless you want to die of certain drugs interactions.
- renewiltord 1y agoHahaha, this drug interaction nonsense is what online people tell each other. It isn't even real. It's like "nice trigger discipline" or "the postal police don't fuck around" and shit like that. Just something that is not true but for some reason is internet urban legend. Retail pharmacists are human vending machines. You don't need AI. It's a computer prescription written by a far more qualified human which is then provided to a nigh-illiterate half-wit who will then try as hard as possible to misread it. Having then misread it, the patient must then coax them out of their idiocy until they apologize and fulfill what's written. Meanwhile some Internet guy who gets all his information from the Internet will repeat what he's heard on the Internet. I know this because anyone passingly acquainted with this would have at least made the clarification between compounding pharmacists and retail pharmacists or something.
- gm678 1y ago> trigger discipline > In 2011, firearm injuries accounted for ... 851 deaths from the accidental discharge of firearms [in the United States]. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1558455 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
- harshalizee 1y agoMost of the world does pharmacy dispensing of medicine just fine or much better without the byzantine bureaucracy that it is in the States. Pharmacists in the US is the epitome of regulatory captured job security.
- downrightmike 1y agoAmazon could not do it. They claimed they could, but it was just indians watching the video and tabulating totals overseas
- bpye 1y agoNot AI - but businesses have tried offshoring them - https://www.npr.org/2022/09/30/1126167551/would-you-like-a-side-of-offshoring-with-that https://www.npr.org/2022/09/30/1126167551/would-you-like-a-s...