this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
189 points (100.0% liked)

TechTakes

1633 readers
100 users here now

Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
dgerard@awful.systems
189
Amazon’s 'Just Walk Out' grocery stores are dead (gizmodo.com)
submitted 10 months ago by self@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
30 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

(via https://hachyderm.io/@jbcrawford/112202942593125987, archive: https://archive.is/VnqRZ)

surprise, Amazon’s godawful surveillance grocery stores were just exploiting hidden labor and calling it innovation, and even that was too expensive

even worse, the few times I’ve seen one of these fucking things in the wild, it still had 1-2 employees hovering near the entrance to make sure nobody did the utterly obvious (fuck with the payment system and get free shit), a job that’s also known as a fucking cashier, but with much worse pay, much harder labor (physically stopping shoplifters), and no counter to lean on or opportunity to even sit down

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] lettruthout@lemmy.world 122 points 10 months ago (3 children)

"Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped."

[–] self@awful.systems 86 points 10 months ago (3 children)

the secret sauce is always hiding labor exploitation behind a thick layer of bad ideas

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

"hey babe.. what if we fucked the entire cashier class.... in two countries?? 🥹👉👈"

- bezos, probably

[–] Hello_there@fedia.io 31 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Lol. This is some.wizard in oz don't look behind the curtain level of shenanigans. I remember the news articles when it released all said it was automation.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 17 points 10 months ago

Pretty much every startup operates like that, they hope to figure out the AI stuff later on and basically never do.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

I was so excited to try one out when I was in San Francisco, but now that's it feels lame :(

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Mechanical Turk.

[–] esc27@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.mturk.com/

Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing marketplace that ...

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 7 points 10 months ago

thatsthejoke.jpeg