Amazon Go is a go:
The first clue that there's something unusual about Amazon's store of the future hits you right at the front door. It feels as if you are entering a subway station. A row of gates guard the entrance to the store, known as Amazon Go, allowing in only people with the store's smartphone app.
Inside is an 1,800-square foot mini-market packed with shelves of food that you can find in a lot of other convenience stores — soda, potato chips, ketchup. It also has some food usually found at Whole Foods, the supermarket chain that Amazon owns.
But the technology that is also inside, mostly tucked away out of sight, enables a shopping experience like no other. There are no cashiers or registers anywhere. Shoppers leave the store through those same gates, without pausing to pull out a credit card. Their Amazon account automatically gets charged for what they take out the door.
[...] There were a little over 3.5 million cashiers in the United States in 2016 — and some of their jobs may be in jeopardy if the technology behind Amazon Go eventually spreads. For now, Amazon says its technology simply changes the role of employees — the same way it describes the impact of automation on its warehouse workers.
Also at TechCrunch.
Previously: Amazon Go: It's Like Shoplifting
Related Stories
Amazon is testing a brick-and-mortar concept store that would allow shoppers to pick items off the shelf and leave without waiting in a line:
Amazon.com Inc said on Monday it has opened a brick-and-mortar grocery store in Seattle without lines or checkout counters, kicking off new competition with supermarket chains.
Amazon Go, the online shopping giant's new 1,800-square-foot (167-square-meter) store, uses sensors to detect what shoppers have picked off the shelf and bills it to their Amazon account if they do not put it back.
The store marks Amazon's latest push into groceries, one of the biggest retail categories it has yet to master. The company currently delivers produce and groceries to homes through its AmazonFresh service.
"It's a great recognition that their e-commerce model doesn't work for every product," said analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research, noting that physical stores would complement AmazonFresh. "If there were hundreds of these stores around the country, it would be a huge threat" to supermarket chains, he said.
Also at CNBC, Bloomberg, and The Verge:
It'll feel like shoplifting, except you're actually being watched by more cameras than you can imagine.
Amazon Will Consider Opening Up to 3,000 Cashierless Stores by 2021
Amazon.com Inc. is considering a plan to open as many as 3,000 new AmazonGo cashierless stores in the next few years, according to people familiar with matter, an aggressive and costly expansion that would threaten convenience chains like 7-Eleven Inc., quick-service sandwich shops like Subway and Panera Bread, and mom-and-pop pizzerias and taco trucks.
Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos sees eliminating meal-time logjams in busy cities as the best way for Amazon to reinvent the brick-and-mortar shopping experience, where most spending still occurs. But he's still experimenting with the best format: a convenience store that sells fresh prepared foods as well as a limited grocery selection similar to 7-Eleven franchises, or a place to simply pick up a quick bite to eat for people in a rush, similar to the U.K.-based chain Pret a Manger, one of the people said.
An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment. The company unveiled its first cashierless store near its headquarters in Seattle in 2016 and has since announced two additional sites in Seattle and one in Chicago. Two of the new stores offer only a limited selection of salads, sandwiches and snacks, showing that Amazon is experimenting with the concept simply as a meal-on-the-run option. Two other stores, including the original AmazonGo, also have a small selection of groceries, making it more akin to a convenience store.
Can Bezos make the leap from $160 billion to $1 trillion?
See also: Amazon Thinks Big, and That Doesn't Come Cheap
Previously: Amazon Go: It's Like Shoplifting
"Amazon Go" Store Opens in Seattle
Amazon Plans to Open as Many as Six More Cashierless Amazon Go Stores This Year
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday January 22 2018, @03:32PM (15 children)
This has come up in discussion before, its a very "white privilege" type of experience where it'll do great in my rich suburban white suburb demographic but not so practical for the rest of the world. Think of the kind of place where they couldn't keep pay phones working, or they'd be too trashed to use. Or the kind of place where the bus stops can't be used because they're too dangerous and filthy. Kinda like the car sharing apps which assume you and your neighbors are a civilized ultra-monoculture of shared values of respect for property and cleanliness, thats nice, but plenty of places not so much...
Also its very modern app in the built in assumption that people are atomized isolated urban hipsters who have no family other than maybe a dog as a child substitute. Its for those friendless childless PBR drinkers, not 99% of the population. My wife and kid and I walk into a store, each with separate amazon accounts, and we shop together. Amazon bills us how? Its implied built into the DNA of the product itself its only for urban isolated alienated trust fund baby hipsters.
Mostly from the normal death of retail. The nice legacy mall is losing its Sears and JCPenny this year.
I suspect we'll be hiring guards as income inequality increases. Less customer service, more property protection.
My wife was watching some hopelessly progressive hipster travel show on PBS the mythtv had recorded some weeks ago. Apparently there exists a restaurant that bills people based solely on how long they sit there, which is an interesting hack. I'm intrigued by the idea of a literal hardware store (not appliance store, not lunberyard, a place that sells literal hardware aka screws and nuts) where they bill you by the pound carried out the store.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday January 22 2018, @03:51PM (13 children)
We should compare it to ALDI. ALDI does some cheap shit like requiring you to insert a quarter to unlock a shopping cart. And they have streamlined their selection of goods and sell their store brands at rock bottom prices. The cashiers are expected to do any job in the store, like stocking shelves.
Now you have Amazon creating a store where there is no cashier job, only restocking for the most part. Wait times for the customers are less, and there's no wrangling over coupons at customer service (ALDI also has no coupons).
This is an experiment for Amazon, but it could lead to a real reduction in the cost of running a supermarket. Keep in mind that Walmart and Kroger are also experimenting with "Scan & Go" programs [soylentnews.org] that are similar to this one. Those programs use an app on your smartphone, so it is also a way to monetize the customer by tracking their habits and selling the data. Walmart is also experimenting with shelf-scanning robots [soylentnews.org] that could make restocking a little easier.
Will these developments lead to lower prices on items, like ALDI has done (and yes, they do have a security guard at ALDI)? That remains to be seen. But they sure could put some people out of work at least. Walmart now sees Amazon as its biggest competitor and is competing on multiple fronts by offering free two-day shipping [soylentnews.org], grocery shipping, same-day delivery, delivery to the fridge [soylentnews.org], voice ordering [soylentnews.org] (see Alexa), and a similar experience to Amazon Go with the "Scan & Go" app. So Amazon may not have you convinced but Walmart is on board.
(Target is also going to try same-day delivery. [soylentnews.org])
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @04:01PM (1 child)
This store is also a privacy nightmare, where the option of paying cash doesn't even exist. At least I have the option of paying with cash in other stores, even if many fools sell out their privacy for convenience. This 'cashless store' (or worse: cashless society) nonsense needs to be nipped in the bud, because it's every authoritarian's wet dream.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @05:16PM
ID for everything!!! We must punish and abuse all people for the crimes of the few!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Monday January 22 2018, @04:20PM (1 child)
Now, that you bring up ALDI. I read somewhere that the personnel cost is roughly 3-5% in supermarkets. I believe that the amortization cost of the all new amazon go and friends will allow ALDI-like supermarkets to compete for a long time. For some time (maybe 5 years) personnel will also still be cheaper. After that, yes, real competition but it will be high tech vs. very robust low tech at a margin of say 2-3%.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday January 23 2018, @03:18AM
If you look at it purely from a single market sector, then yea. In Amazon's case, the experience extends to complement their other market sector. For those that opt a digital lifestyle, it is an interesting proposition where you a singular seamless experience across various aspects of that digital lifestyle from entertainment, groceries, retail, etc.
Not sure what ALDI/Walmart does besides the supermarket business.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday January 22 2018, @05:35PM (5 children)
Chuckle.
1) Tracking has been going on for decades. A recall on a food item that occurred 8 years ago was followed by an email from Visa (credit card company) because we had purchased that item at a local store. The email told us date and time and store that we purchased from and urged us to return it for a full refund.
2) Nobody cares that you like Caraway Rye read or Ranch dressing. There's no money to be made by selling those facts.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 22 2018, @05:50PM
Not all customer data is created equal. And those smartphone apps sure ask for a lot of permissions...
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday January 22 2018, @06:07PM (2 children)
2) Nobody cares that you like Caraway Rye read or Ranch dressing. There's no money to be made by selling those facts.
Why not? Companies selling rye bread or ranch dressing can use that info for targeted advertising: they can advertise their competing brand of dressing to you in an effort to get you to try it, because they know that you already like ranch dressing, whereas they can *not* advertise to me, because my data shows that I never buy ranch dressing so it's probably a waste of money to show me an ad for it, instead of, say, Earl Grey tea, which I do buy.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday January 22 2018, @06:23PM (1 child)
Or maybe Caraway Rye bread get the idea to make Ranch-flavor Caraway Rye bread because they notice some critical portion of their customers like ranch dressing...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 22 2018, @06:31PM
We have bread, and we have ranch powder [hiddenvalley.com]. We have the technology.
Now I want to dump ranch powder [gimmesomeoven.com] into my next batch of homemade pita.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday January 22 2018, @07:48PM
> Nobody cares that you like Caraway Rye read or Ranch dressing. There's no money to be made by selling those facts.
Yep, I can't see any use for knowing your customers are pregnant before their own families do.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ [forbes.com]
"... we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday January 22 2018, @07:16PM
> ALDI does some cheap shit like requiring you to insert a quarter to unlock a shopping cart.
Reduces the number of teens hired to shuffle carts around, and therefore saves money, and the frustration of customers who find a cart where they need it, not in the middle of the parking row blocking two spots.
Pretty standard fare in France, and probaby in Germany where Aldi is based.
If European labor was cheap, or Europeans were more respectful of property, that wouldn't be worth the annoyance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @12:00PM (1 child)
No you turd. They do it because of assholes that don't return the shit to proper place. So they charge them a quarter if they don't.
Fix society and we don't need to put quarters or dollars or euros into shopping carts.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 23 2018, @12:27PM
I didn't specify why they did it, dumbass.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @03:52PM
Some seem's as if the elites on the grapevine are discussing some sort of rumor about you. Let me check what sort of rumor this is. Wow! It's a dark rumor. To be precise, It's a super ultra mega calooby extremyoly of the whisp dark rumor! I wonder what the contents are, and I wonder why everyone on the grapevine is laughing? Let's see...
Hahahahahahaahhahahahaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! What a revealing rumor indeed! It's from... Komen Bryce himself, the God of Computers! Hahahahahhahahahahaahha! I can't stop laughing whenever I see your name. It says this: "VLM is misign a few gigabits on his puter and he doesnt purposly disable the fan on his GPU to overheat it... bai2u... _>"
Hahahahahahahahahahaha! Such a fuckin' thing! Your true power has been revealed, and it is truly worthless! You are nothing! You are toxic! You need to vanish from existence! The very concept of someone such as yourself existing needs to be erased. Vanish from existence you fuckin' eyesore!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday January 22 2018, @03:45PM (12 children)
Um actually no. Its a stereotypical hipster fetishization of blue collar working life. Once you culturally appropriate their PBR and Old Milwaukee beer, and culturally appropriate their hobbies and clothes, there's not a hell of a lot left aside from culturally appropriating their workplace lifestyle of walking into the stock room and taking whatever you need to complete your work.
Some dysfunctional companies might serial number each machine screw and require forms, but most blue collar workplaces, you need a piece of generic conduit for SCADA or network cabling, or a 6-32 screw or whatever, you walk into a room and take it and walk out. Kinda like the amazon experience.
Another example of blue collar workplace lifestyle being emulated is there's a big ass pile of roof shingles and you need a pack of roof shingles so you walk up to the pile and take one.
Another example is where blue collar people making their kid a bookcase is called "life" but urban hipsters making a bookcase is a fetishized holy worship to tweet about their unique experience of the "maker movement".
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 22 2018, @03:56PM
Let's not be obtuse. Amazon Go is like no other grocery store where a customer walks in, grabs items, gets in line, pays for them, and leaves.
I do however want to see what happens when someone tries to pull a fast one on Amazon. You probably get flagged right at the point of entry if your Amazon account isn't matched to your lumbering meatbag body.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 22 2018, @04:09PM (6 children)
Gods, yes. This ^ Modded up.
Rich hipsters make me fucking sick. They're not quite the same level of evil as their counterparts on the other side of the aisle, but I'm seriously tempted to rob them blind and force them to actually LIVE poor for a while and see how much they like it. It's a local version of "poverty porn tourism," like when they go to Southeast Asia and shit all over it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @04:34AM (4 children)
Thank you for sharing your insights into your criminal mind with the rest of us.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 23 2018, @03:43PM (3 children)
That thought has crossed the mind of anyone who has ever eaten out of a trash can. "Criminal mind" my ass. If I scare you that much, you can always leave the site and pretend the big scary mean lady doesn't exist :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:16PM (2 children)
This is a classic case of projection. You have thoughts that urge you to commit acts beyond those of mere survival and well past the line into criminal behavior and then assume that everyone else entertains those same thoughts. We do not.
You are not scary, as your publicly-proclaimed criminal preferences are not a problem that a can of pepper spray, a pistol, and/or a shotgun cannot be deployed to deter or deny.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:39PM (1 child)
Yeah? My dick is still bigger than yours and it's a clitoris. Come get me, Mr. Internet Tough Guy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:48PM
I wonder what a tangled mess of neural cobwebs allows you to unironically first deny the criminality of robbery (notably outside the bounds of survival) and in the next breath present yourself as a hunted victim when a person who may be someone you publicly designated as a fair-game robbery target denotes a short list of practical tools to deter or deny your criminal behavior preferences.
Then there's the obvious penis envy.
(Score: 2) by lx on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:15AM
Marie Antoinette had a little cottage built on the palace grounds.
She went there to dress up as a milk maid and played being poor.
What happened to her is as they say History.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday January 22 2018, @04:46PM
Um, actually, yes. From this review [geekwire.com], emphasis mine:
To re-emphasize: 23 seconds, and the majority of that accruing to the shopper's own benefit instead of delaying and inconveniencing them.
Looks to me that if they can achieve price parity, or better, that they're got something that can be very successful. There's every reason to think they can, as they will incur reduced costs as compared to an employee-based checkout operation. As to the privacy aspects... the volume of business Amazon does, and the success of the Alexa product, are pretty clear indicators that isn't a major consumer hurdle.
You only get so much time - it's a naturally limited resource, and people don't like to do things that they perceive as "wasting their own time." This makes a significant inroad on that.
No, you're completely missing the human side of this.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday January 22 2018, @06:01PM
It was quite attractive: birch plywood with oak trim
I gave it to my ex when we split up
Someday I'll make another
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday January 22 2018, @06:28PM
Maybe or maybe not related, but I'd expect this to be possible at "club stores" where you have a membership fee. This is stores like Sam's Club or Costco. From experience, those kinds of stores tend to attract a slightly more affluent group of people as clientèle, who might be on board with this for smaller order sizes (larger order sizes I would expect to still be inspected by cashiers for the foreseeable future).
(Score: 2, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Monday January 22 2018, @08:18PM
stereotypical hipster fetishism of blue collar working life
While you can find plenty of jackasses in any group, I think you have your view on most hipsters focused on blue collar activities precisely backwards. It's not always, "I want to pretend to have a lower income job and make a ceremony out of trivial things and show how much I don't confirm by using beer that hoity-toity people snub." That, admittedly, is the case with the popularity of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
But in other cases it's often the exact opposite: "I can't fix a clogged toilet. I don't know how to change a tire. I struggle to boil water. Last year I spent $3,000 on fancy coffee drinks and $5,000 on imported wine and I'm out of money. But my grandfather that never went to college wired his own house and repaired his own cars. My neighbor that works as a plumber cooks the best steaks I've ever had and took $50 from me when I lost our bet over whether he could brew his $2.50 per pound coffee to taste better than anything I ever got at Starbucks." In other words, it's a sign the person is maturing by realizing how helpless and embarrassingly unskilled they are.
Now, the blue collar men and women are often more self-sufficient because they don't have a choice. The low income mom that makes amazing meals could either learn to cook well or give up on tasty eating, because she couldn't afford restaurants. The backyard mechanic started out when his own car broke and he could either fix it cheap or stop owning a vehicle. The best incentive to learn home wiring is wanting electrical service in a room that doesn't have it and having no budget for a contract electrician. But even if there was no noble goal in their motivation beyond basic survival, the result is often - not always, but often - tough, pragmatic, flexible people who learn and adapt. A typical hipster wakes up one day and realizes that he or she can navigate fancy pants society but when it comes to most of the practical aspects of being an adult human they can't find their ass with both hands.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday January 22 2018, @05:58PM (19 children)
I want cashiers to have a job
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 22 2018, @06:07PM
You're voting with your dollar... for now.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 22 2018, @06:12PM (3 children)
By that logic, you should never cut your own hair, clean your own bathroom, cook your own food, change your own oil, or even drive yourself anywhere, shave yourself, or brush your own teeth.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday January 22 2018, @07:07PM
I take a real taxi
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday January 22 2018, @07:20PM (1 child)
By any logic, you should never cut your own hair. Few exceptions exist.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 22 2018, @08:16PM
That's pretty silly. Lots of people have very simple haircuts, or can get their SO to do it. Women with long hair for instance (and no bangs) really don't need a professional at all: just trim an inch or two from the ends every few months.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @07:21PM (11 children)
not me. i always use the automated checkout when avail. i don't want cashiers to have jobs (as cashiers anyways). i don't like to have to leave my house to get anything. i especially don't like waiting in line just because there's a human that has to physically take my money from my hand and put it into a drawer, usually in the slowest and most annoying way possible(privacy invading questions, incompetence, etc). let the food wars begin!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by vux984 on Monday January 22 2018, @08:11PM (10 children)
"i don't want cashiers to have jobs (as cashiers anyways)"
What do you think 57 year old 'Carla' the cashier is going to be retrained as? A robot repair technician? Or the 18 year old 'Steven' working his first job? He's still in high school; and maybe he can be a robot technician, but at this point he's still learning math 12 and saving up to go to robot repair school. Maybe his mom should pay for his education? oh wait... she's a 'Carla'...
Automation and technology is good because it makes human labor more productive, and therefore more valuable. But we need jobs for unskilled humans too, it used to be they benefited from technology -- sure it only took half as many of them to work the farm 3x times efficiently, but we needed them in the factories putting things together.
When you can run a grocery store with a security guard, a robot technician (who himself is outsourced to a maintenance company) and a store manager (who manages 5 stores). And we're working on automating the security guards too.
Where do we need the displaced humans this time? What do we do as a society if the demand for unskilled human labor loses its value? Some people can be trained to higher skill jobs (at some expense), but some just aren't going to be qualified. These days, I'm looking around, and I'd advise kids to get into fixing things... plumbing, electrician, roofing, drywall repair, furnace repair, elevator repair, kitchen counter installation...
Those careers seem to be robot proof for at least the coming generation. No amount of cameras, robots, and drones is going to replace the hot water tank in a rural basement home built in the 1980s anytime soon.
(Score: 1) by bobthecimmerian on Monday January 22 2018, @08:24PM (5 children)
The only problem with your suggestion is that I imagine a lot of people will be moving into the plumbing, electrician, drywall, roofing, and similar areas. So you'll have more competition for work, and that will drive your wages down.
I don't have an economy-wide solution. Supply and demand dictates that if there are fifty million qualified physicians in the US, then physicians will get junk wages. No matter what the skill is, if enough people have it the value goes down. But it seems likely that at least for the next few decades high level medical skill (nurse practitioner, physician's assistant, physician) and robotics-related skill demand will exceed supply. For an individual, that's where I would suggest going. Again, though, that's not a national or international solution. Just an individual one.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 22 2018, @08:33PM (4 children)
At some point, it's going to make more sense to just adopt UBI, so that unskilled people only capable of stuff like scanning groceries can survive and maybe pursue some more productive venture with their time. It's not worth it for the rest of us to subsidize their existence by giving them time-wasting bullshit jobs that just slow the rest of us down; it makes more sense to just have a tax on productivity and give them a living wage from that. Then we'll have more people getting an education and pursuing higher-level jobs, which will expand the economy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 22 2018, @08:38PM (3 children)
The big question is, when is that point, and how many of us working poor will have been effectively genocided by economics before then?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Monday January 22 2018, @08:47PM (2 children)
Then I guess it's time for the working poor to stop voting for the party that pushes policies that hurt the poor.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 22 2018, @09:38PM (1 child)
Agreed, but when neither party really has their interests in mind, and the one that's worse for them is the only one that even pretends to be on their side, what do you expect?
The Democrats owe people like me a 45+-year-long apology. After McGovern lost to that ambulatory shitstain Nixon they gave up on the poor entirely and decided to focus on special interest groups and the highly-educated, cynically believing that the poor would vote for them anyway because "we're not the Republicans."
Theirs was partly a failure of being cynical, and partly a failure of not being cynical ENOUGH about just how dumb a lot of poor folks are. Meanwhile, the GOP, which is cynical to the point it might as well be called sociopathology, decided to court the fear vote, starting from the civil rights act backlash and continuing onward.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 22 2018, @10:54PM
We're getting the government we deserve.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 22 2018, @08:29PM (3 children)
What do you think 57 year old 'Carla' the cashier is going to be retrained as? A robot repair technician?
A stockist (stocker? Whatever you call the person who puts items on the shelves). They still need those, and probably will for quite some time; taking stuff out of boxes and arranging them on shelves is extremely complex from an automation point-of-view, while pretty simple for humans (though they do a much better job at some stores than others).
Or the 18 year old 'Steven' working his first job?
Same thing. Or he can work as a greeter, or the person retrieving the carts from the parking lot (automated checkout isn't going to remove the need to have grocery carts after all). He could also go to a restaurant and work as a server there. For some reason, people seem to still like that, even though it's ridiculously obsolete and can be replaced with self-service, kiosk ordering, etc.
But we need jobs for unskilled humans too
We still have plenty of jobs for unskilled humans, even at the Amazon Go grocery store.
Do you think we should keep buggy whip makers employed too?
When you can run a grocery store with a security guard, a robot technician (who himself is outsourced to a maintenance company) and a store manager (who manages 5 stores). And we're working on automating the security guards too
You're forgetting the stock people and the grocery cart people. Maybe you should at some grocery store in Manhattan where they don't have carts, but in most of America they do because most people can't carry 1-2 weeks' worth of groceries without a cart. That will never change until we have grocery delivery (which we do have in some places and some stores, but it's slow to catch on for various reasons: delivery fees, waiting time, not being able to pick stuff yourself, etc.). And it'll be quite some time before we have robots stocking the shelves. By that time, we really should have UBI.
These days, I'm looking around, and I'd advise kids to get into fixing things... plumbing, electrician, roofing, drywall repair, furnace repair, elevator repair, kitchen counter installation...
Some things are worth fixing, others are not. Stay out of fixing consumer electronics, or any place where the labor rates for repair will be roughly as high as just buying a new one (made by lots of automation usually). Things in buildings are a pretty safe bet though. You can't import a high-rise condo building from China.
Those careers seem to be robot proof for at least the coming generation. No amount of cameras, robots, and drones is going to replace the hot water tank in a rural basement home built in the 1980s anytime soon.
No, but at some point it may be more economical to bulldoze older houses and replace them with manufactured houses. There's manufactured houses now that are built much like, and offer comparable specs to, regular stick-built homes. They build them in modules and bolt them together on-site. And considering how energy-inefficient a lot of older houses are, they really should do more of this.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday January 22 2018, @09:06PM (2 children)
Fair enough, but they already have a stock person, and a shopping cart person.
People displaced from jobs by technology need *new* jobs to go into, they can't all funnel into the existing jobs. When farm workers got displaced by automation, a few got trained on the tractors and the rest moved to the city. There weren't any other jobs on the farm to absorb them.
Same thing here... if a grocery store has a staff of 50... and 20 of them are cashiers, the cashiers just get let go, they don't need 20 more stock people.
Plus, organizing shelves and displays... that may itself disappear. Other than produce or meat you just grab a box or can or jar, maybe you just pick those on an app on your phone or a terminal at the wall, and all the dry goods/canned goods/etc show up on in a box with your name on it at the front of the store for you to pick up on your way out. Your right there will be a produce guy and a deli/meat guy for a while yet, but the bulk of the aisles could be converted to automated warehouse with some terminals... I'm not even against that as a concept. In some ways it's full circle, you used to walk into the general store go up to the counter and list what you want, and they brought it to you. (1/2 lb flour, 1/2 sugar, 24 shotgun shells, 3 cans of beans...)
Some things are worth fixing, others are not. Stay out of fixing consumer electronics
Agreed! I specifically mentioned things that were part of people's homes, expensive, and integrated fairly tightly. Repairing anything small and inexpensive is a complete dead end. Assuming its even worth fixing, it might be cheaper to send it somewhere else and have it fixed there. But something heavy and plumbed in like a natural gas hot water tank, or fully integrated like an elevator that's going to need a local human for a while now. In the same way, network admin is getting outsourced fast, but pulling cable and wiring/rewiring buildings will be around for the foreseeable future.
"No, but at some point it may be more economical to bulldoze older houses and replace them with manufactured houses. There's manufactured houses now that are built much like, and offer comparable specs to, regular stick-built homes. They build them in modules and bolt them together on-site. And considering how energy-inefficient a lot of older houses are, they really should do more of this."
Nobody is going to replace their house because the hot water tank failed. And the hot water tank is going to fail in the new more modular house too, and it won't make sense to replace a whole module when all that's required is swapping out a theromocouple that's preventing it from lighting or fixing a leaking connection, or installing a new trap primer because the old one got gummed up, or replacing a broken window because a pane broke, or the latch broke, or the seal failed...
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Monday January 22 2018, @11:24PM (1 child)
It will be difficult to see what the *new* jobs will be until they arrive. It would be like trying to predict the iPhone; if it could have been done, it would have happened sooner. Of course, some trends can be predicted to continue, such as an increase in healthcare. I don't know what sort of unskilled jobs will become available in that field, but as that segment of the economy grows, there will likely be new jobs at all skill levels.
In tech, we are likely due for society's first generation of telephone sanitizers. Some day, we might look back and declare it a useless field, but until then, I think it's an idea whose arrival is due.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday January 23 2018, @04:07AM
It will be difficult to see what the *new* jobs will be until they arrive.
That's not terribly helpful for the waves of people being displaced right now.
The local McDonalds has order kiosks and reduced human order takers to one from 4, the local grocery store has converted all but one of the express checkouts to self-checkout, replacing 5 cashiers with 1, its happening at walmart, it's happening at home depot. Its just getting started and its already noticeable.
Those people are displaced and looking for work now. If the replacement jobs aren't already showing up, then we have a problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @11:36PM (1 child)
Ok. Now link to cashier jobs on your site.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday January 23 2018, @12:00AM
I have always intended to cover other occupations. I've been doing computer jobs because that is what I know best.
When I start listing them I'm going to focus on entry-level and minimum wage jobs. The URLs will be something like:
http://soggy.jobs/restaurants/fast-food [soggy.jobs]
http://soggy.jobs/retail/cashier [soggy.jobs]
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @07:34PM
"allowing in only people with the store's smartphone app."
yeah, i only side load FOSS apps onto my phone. guess i can't "shop" at your commissary.