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Cashierless stores are popping up at gas stations, stadiums and even Dunkin':
Pretty soon you might find Amazon Go-like concepts just about everywhere.
Mastercard on Friday said it's joining the effort to create more of these kinds of cashierless stores, unveiling a platform it calls Shop Anywhere. It teamed up with retail tech company Accel Robotics to create a handful of new test concepts that let customers check into a store, grab what they want and walk out.
[...] For instance, the team created a new self-service Dunkin' store that allows people to check in at a kiosk, get doughnuts and coffee, and leave without stopping at a cashier. The store will be staffed with workers to restock items and provide customer service, but there won't be a register.
[...] The payment network pitched these concepts as more flexible than Amazon Go, with Shop Anywhere capable of going into all kinds of locations and being retrofitted into existing stores -- something Amazon Go hasn't yet done. Both Shop Anywhere and Amazon Go are powered by a series of cameras that are kitted with computer vision and AI.
Customers will no longer have to interact with proprietors or employees.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @05:18PM (2 children)
This kinda shit is so concerning on so many levels.
Looking at the way cashflows are moved from the bottom up these days, the costs they're cutting aren't going to the consumer. They'll end up, likely directly as feasible, right in the pockets of the people instituting these systems. They'll destroy the workforce piece by piece, dismantle everything while meanwhile concentrating their wealth (and thus their power) and they'll do it, not unimpeded, but assisted not only by the general public, but the system of law. I just wonder how these developments are going to pan out when you're cutting tens of millions of jobs in retail and transit as these systems become increasingly viable. Looking into available statistics on debt, and incomes, we seem directed evermore into the abyssal realities of a serfdom. Even implementing something like a UBI I wonder how much income one might expect, probably on the order of minimum wage, but with so many job losses compounding moneyflows would be increasingly competed over.
I think there needs to be some sort of balance struck immediately while these advancements are being made.
But beyond the economics, these sort of things are troubling. We've seen a massive erosion of community, and social currency as people become increasingly isolated. It's difficult to pinpoint the root of this unraveling, but it's important to note. No matter what point we find ourselves in the future, humanity has built its strength from social groups. This faculty seems to be rapidly dissolving, and continued stripping of personal interactions will certainly only stand to exacerbate the issue. And I say this as someone who is a hardcoded introvert, I certainly don't mind the idea of dodging people entirely, not at face value, but the impacts of it on the underlying substrate of society I think make a damning argument against it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 29 2020, @07:13PM
I rather think it won't be too long before we render the power elites obsolete, too. If you have the means to make what you need, why buy it? Why buy something when so many companies vie for ever more egregious vendor lock-in? We all should just say no to the stupid control games.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @07:17PM
That's the plan of the Jew World Order. Breakdown of the family, followed by breakdown of all social groups not controlled by the Jews via technology. Take a look at Teletubbies if you want to see the future of mankind unless we wake up. That show was not an accident. Androgynous humanoids wearing biohazard suits, in very small, likely non-family groups, who live underground in a bunker, and only come outside to worship the global religion (the sun with the baby's face) when the computer says they can.