this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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Amazon’s 'Just Walk Out' grocery stores are dead (gizmodo.com)
submitted 7 months ago by self@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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(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

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[–] lettruthout@lemmy.world 122 points 7 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 7 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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

- bezos, probably

[–] Hello_there@fedia.io 31 points 7 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 7 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 7 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 7 months ago (1 children)

Mechanical Turk.

[–] esc27@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.mturk.com/

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

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

thatsthejoke.jpeg