Amazon just walked out on its self-checkout technology (finance.yahoo.com)
from MDKAOD@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.ml on 03 Apr 2024 01:43
https://lemmy.ml/post/13992228

#technology

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CCMan1701A@startrek.website on 03 Apr 2024 02:00 next collapse

I’ve been to the Amazon fresh a few times and it’s alright.

Akasazh@feddit.nl on 03 Apr 2024 10:07 next collapse

Great reporting, thnx

franklin@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 2024 13:40 next collapse

Yo, it might not be the right place but that’s not the best way to treat others either.

Akasazh@feddit.nl on 03 Apr 2024 13:50 collapse

I thought I was being mild by skirting the point and use irony. It is a somewhat vapid comment that adds nothing to the discussion. Plus it’s rather self centered and unaware of others. The combination of those factors struck me as rather short sighted, to use a meek term.

I could’ve said nothing, perhaps, and just downvoted. Not sure if that would’ve improved things, though.

Pika@sh.itjust.works on 04 Apr 2024 16:50 collapse

Personally I don’t think you improved things either way. At best it came off as a humorous jab at the person, but honestly it leaned more towards super snarky from my perspective. The only thing you’ve done is potentially discourage the person from commenting period next time. That likely wasn’t your intent but, that’s how it read for me.

Akasazh@feddit.nl on 04 Apr 2024 17:24 collapse

Ok thnx for the feedback, it’s appreciated

CCMan1701A@startrek.website on 04 Apr 2024 17:57 collapse

I would agree that I do not have a degree in journalism.

Akasazh@feddit.nl on 04 Apr 2024 19:12 collapse

Sorry if it came across too snarky/mean

CCMan1701A@startrek.website on 04 Apr 2024 22:45 collapse

It’s fine, I’m totally unfazed by your comment. 👍

Akasazh@feddit.nl on 05 Apr 2024 00:41 collapse

Ty! Have a splendid day/night w/e!

ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org on 03 Apr 2024 11:41 collapse

It’s alright in the way drinking water that contains arsenic or lead. You won’t notice it.

I’m disgusted from stores with automated surveillance.
For clarification, this does not mean digital cameras, but systems where your behavior is analyzed, identified and profiled.

Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca on 03 Apr 2024 13:35 next collapse

So literally everywhere now

helenslunch@feddit.nl on 03 Apr 2024 14:45 collapse

Yep pretty much everyone is using your phone to track your activity around the store.

ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org on 04 Apr 2024 01:10 collapse

The phone is a different thing (still not good), because you can choose to not bring it with you. But when it’s based on the cameras, you cannot say no.

CCMan1701A@startrek.website on 04 Apr 2024 17:58 collapse

It’s interesting that they gather so much information that it takes over an hour for them to report back what you purchased.

MNByChoice@midwest.social on 03 Apr 2024 02:42 next collapse

Here’s where the smoke and mirrors come in. While the stores have no actual cashiers, there are reportedly over 1,000 real people in India scanning the camera feeds to ensure accurate checkouts.

gregorum@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 2024 02:50 next collapse

And there is the what the fuck

davel@lemmy.ml on 03 Apr 2024 02:57 next collapse

The wundertech is just human labor under the hood? <img alt="seen-this-one" src="https://www.hexbear.net/pictrs/image/89911414-d2de-4d35-8bb4-2a9a4267b8c5.png">

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/cc38569b-b756-48e9-a59b-0c3265adab2b.jpeg"> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk

TragicNotCute@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 2024 12:41 collapse

Amazon literally runs a Mechanical Turk service, so it’s pretty on brand.

residentmarchant@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 2024 03:33 collapse

I feel like this section is rather disingenuous for the article author to just drop without mentioning that this is how all machine learning models are trained. The idea is that now (and for the next year or whatever) it’s trained manually until the system is good enough to do it on its own with a good enough accuracy rating to not lose money.

Now, since Amazon is shuttering this, it’s totally possible that they determined they’d need too many years of training data to break even, but at the very least this is standard industry practice for any machine learning model.

notfromhere@lemmy.ml on 03 Apr 2024 03:51 next collapse

I thought so, top, at least initially. However, it sounds like the out sourced cashiers essentially tallied up the orders after the customer left and sent the bill. How much correction had to be applied to the automation remains to be seen. The biggest issue with systems like this is tracking between scenes and angles. It could be the humans in the loop were there to resync the metadata of each tracked object (i.e., customer) as they moved isle to isle or they removed a jacket or whatever.

BearOfaTime@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 2024 04:18 next collapse

It’s been 10 years already (or damn close to it).

Where I used to live, a Whole Foods was converted to Hello Fresh before I moved - that was 9 years ago.

jacksilver@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 2024 15:57 next collapse

It’s possible the article is referring to how they got the training data, but as we’ve been learning from recent reporting, places like cruise were actually hiring people to monitor the “autonomous” systems.

cnbc.com/…/cruise-confirms-robotaxis-rely-on-huma…

erwan@lemmy.ml on 03 Apr 2024 17:08 next collapse

It’s been 8 years. If they still need humans to check they’ll always need them.

Pika@sh.itjust.works on 04 Apr 2024 17:58 collapse

I fully agree that the author is being super disingenuous here. However, I don’t think Amazon is fully shuttering the program because they’ve stated they’re switching it over to a cart-based system which is already been proven to be successful in the trade and doesn’t include the high ceiling requirements, their biggest issue is adoption from other retailers, and switching over to that system will lower the ceiling(no pun intended) for entry

pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de on 03 Apr 2024 07:54 next collapse

I will miss the mistakes they made in my favor. Once I bought like $50 worth of groceries, and they just never charged me for it.

Pika@sh.itjust.works on 04 Apr 2024 17:52 collapse

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like this article isn’t being completely honest with us.

The article is phrasing in a way as if Amazon has given up on the technology altogether, but then the article talks about how they are moving directions to be still based off the camera model just using a closer up cart style camera instead of a camera everywhere Style

These smart carts are equipped with scales and sensors to track spending in real time and, of course, allow consumers to skip the checkout.

This sounds less of a walking out on the technology as a whole as the title implies, and more geared towards we have a better technology available. I think this is either disingenuous reporting or are trying to gear it in a way that makes it look like Amazon is being pro privacy when in reality the same exact system is going to be in place, it’s just the camera is going to be part of the cart instead of cross the entire store, which has proven to be a large bottleneck for them and getting other retailers adopting it due to the high ceiling requirement

This of course is ignoring what other commenters have stated about the fact that this is literally how training models work, you tell it what to look for and then eventually you have a large enough training set to be able to have it do it on its own. It’s not as if those 1,000 people are ringing out the groceries, they are more so assisting the technology by marking what is a product versus what is not a product, a process which that they have already downsized a few times from their initial Staffing requirements