
In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing - crunchiebones
https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-go-avoid-discrimination-shopping-commentary/
======
carbocation
This has echoes for me of the Twitter thread and subsequent NYT article from
last week about how Sears' approach to home sales was a boon to black people
in the Jim Crow-era US.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/us/sears-jim-crow-
racism-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/us/sears-jim-crow-racism-
catalog.html)

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andrew_
Tossing in my own anecdotal experience: I worked in Loss Prevention (plain
clothes security) for a major midwest retail chain, within 10 miles of a major
metropolitan city for several years. We absolutely profiled customers. The
catch is that we profiled teenagers of the Caucasian persuasion. Why? Because
they were the folks most likely to try and lift goods. Folks wearing
unnecessarily baggy clothing (think more than three layers, wildly oversized),
obviously tweaking individuals, and people constantly changing direction or
looking behind them were obvious targets - but far in the minority of people
that were followed or apprehended. For me personally, the people who could be
considered a minority made up maybe 10% of my total apprehensions.

It'll be different everywhere but not every retail store, and not every retail
employee, fits the narrative of the article.

~~~
pentae
Of course, if you'd swapped out the word "Caucasian" for "African American"
your post would be downvoted and you'd be called a racist. But because we're
DEFINITELY not racist mentioning you targeted white people is totally fine in
2018.

~~~
cbg0
As long as this is andrew_'s personal experience, I don't see why I'd call him
a racist regardless of the race he profiled the most. He even goes on to
explain that there's a good reason for targeting white teenagers: they were
the most likely to steal something, so they weren't targeted because they're
white, they were targeted because they proved to be the highest risk.

Now if andrew_ had started generalizing, like you are doing, then I could see
him getting called a racist and getting downvoted.

~~~
nielsole
Racial profiling is being criticized despite being effective.

There is an argument to be made that you shouldn't be treated differently
based on the color of your skin. In fact it is e.g. in the German
constitution.

[http://m.spiegel.de/international/germany/racial-
profiling-g...](http://m.spiegel.de/international/germany/racial-profiling-
german-court-forbids-police-checks-based-on-skin-color-a-864455.html)

~~~
cbg0
> Racial profiling is being criticized despite being effective.

You got anything to back up this blanket statement?

~~~
arrrg
How and why do you have to back it up?

It’s just a type of argument that is actually quite common with its basic idea
being that just because something is effective, doesn’t mean it’s right or
just to do.

Transferred to racial profiling the argument is this: Even if racial profiling
is effective, employing it is still ethically indefensible and plain wrong.

Put another way: Even if we agree on a goal (e.g. catching more criminals)
that doesn’t mean that any effective way to achieve or improve that is then
suddenly appropriate.

The German constitutional court does make this argument explicitly (even
though I’m not sure any police officers actually respect that – but at least
those affected can now somewhat defend themselves).

~~~
cbg0
> How and why do you have to back it up?

With arguments, and to support your point of view.

Maybe I wasn't clear. I wanted some real evidence that racial profiling is
effective (as well as how effective it is), I wasn't looking to get into an
argument about the morality of the issue.

~~~
nielsole
My main message is that racial profiling is unethical whether or not it is
effective.

Especially in the case I cited, it is obvious that racial profiling works
better than random sampling (or based only on other features). People out of
an ethnic minority will always have different rates of citizenships compared
to the general population. So if you pick someone from a minority group that
are less likely to be citizens, your chances are higher to pick someone who
doesn't have the citizenship compared to the general population of citizens.

While the principle is quite simple, I don't have any empirical knowledge and
can only refer you to Google Scholar if you desire more insights ;)

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expathacker
This reminds me somewhat of a non-profit retail store in San Francisco where I
volunteered to pay off a pile of parking tickets. The store itself sold local
artisanal housewares to help support a number of local AIDS/HIV-related
charities.

What really made a lasting impression on me was their loss-prevention training
me was that not everybody is strong enough to carry an item, a bag, or push a
cart while shopping. When seeing somebody place an item in their
pocket/purse/bag we would offer to carry it for them or hold it at the front-
desk.

This enabled a compassionate the benefit of the doubt to a clientele base who
were often too frail from HIV-related illnesses to hold the item in their
hands and offered a gracious, de-escalated escape route for would-be thieves.

~~~
jowsie
Is simply sticking something in your pocket enough reason for them to kick
off? In the UK at least I've been shoving stuff in hoodie pockets if I can't
carry it all in my hands. You might occasionally get funny looks but no one
has said anything to me, or the other people I know that do it.

~~~
DanBC
In England and Wales you haven't completed the offence until you walk out the
store. (And even then you need to have dishonestly appropriated the item, not
just forgotten it's in a pocket).

So you might have a guard following you around but they shouldn't be doing
much more until you leave.

~~~
LyndsySimon
As far as I know, that’s the case in the US as well.

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esotericn
Profiling sucks.

In this case though, I'd say you're simply trading one injustice for another.

You go from the ephemeral experience of having a few underpaid lackeys
mistrust you, to having an eternal database of everything you buy owned by a
third party.

Then again, it's getting pretty ridiculous everywhere. The local supermarkets
around me - they've gradually stripped real checkout operators away and
replaced them with self service booths that each have LCD's beaming a picture
of my own face at myself whilst I shop, with a scary "you're being watched!"
banner across the bottom.

It really bothers me that everyday 'essential' things seem to be full of pain
points like this for no discernible reason. We have private companies
launching rockets, supercomputers in our pockets, and so on and so forth, and
yet the "human experience" seems to be constantly degrading. What can we do
about this?

~~~
InclinedPlane
Not only that but you also raise the requirements for grocery / department
store shopping. In principle all you need to shop at most stores is cash and
being able to get to the physical location of the store. With Amazon Go you
need a smartphone with a data plan, an amazon account, and a bank account.
Even in America not everyone has all of those, or even any one of those. I
personally spent a few years as an adult without a bank account. These
requirements amount to a "you must be this rich to use this store" sign, and
there are easily tens of millions of Americans who are not rich enough to use
these stores even if they do have the money to buy some of the goods inside.

~~~
scarejunba
Dude, Amazon owns Whole Foods. The "you have to have money to use this store"
market already exists.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
There is a difference between "you have to have money to use this store" to
"you have to have money plus these bells and whistles to use this store".

You can be poor and use whole foods once in a while. You can use cash at whole
foods. You don't need a modern cell phone, a data plan, and a credit card on
file to use whole foods. I'm pretty sure you can use food stamps at whole
foods. You don't need a proper bank account. And so on.

Weirdly, you don't really need these things to shop at amazon either. All you
need is a pre-paid card, a gift card, and a bit of internet access (at the
library). You an use someone else's address to ship things to if necessary.

------
bfung
This is an interesting topic;

The automation removed a lot of the human interaction, creating a better
experience for the customer.

In the short term.

However, by removing a lot of humans from the shopping interactions, it allows
the removed humans to never learn from their mistakes, to stay isolated in
their own views.

Will this actually make racism better or worse in the long run, as there isn't
automation to "fix" these social problems of ours, at least in the US.

~~~
moonka
>However, by removing a lot of humans from the shopping interactions, it
allows the removed humans to never learn from their mistakes, to stay isolated
in their own views.

Relying on shopping interactions to teach these humans places a huge burden on
the people they make these mistakes on. Sometimes I'm not looking to be a
teachable moment, sometimes I just want to get my shopping done (or get a cab
etc).

~~~
bfung
Sure, not every moment in life is a teachable or eureka moment. But the more
chances people have to interact, the more chances to gain a better
understanding of each other.

Without even the opportunity to interact, that divide and chance to learn is
zero.

Maybe the 1 out of 100 times, you go to the supermarket, and are feeling good,
and feel like just saying hi and do some small talk to the cashier... while it
may not change the world instantly, incremental progress is better than lack
of it.

~~~
salvar
I agree with the benefits of what you describe in the last paragraph. But for
these opportunities for people to learn by realizing that their unfair
profiling of customers based on the color of their skin is wrong... at what
point do you consider the cost of the profilee in enduring these teachable
moments again and again and again through their life?

------
tyfon
I wonder how long it will take before they employ regression algorithms to
screen those entering the shop and deny those deemed "not safe".

They would probably be like the police crime prevention algorithms in that
they would inherently be biased towards the same prejudices as the humans in
such jobs. Profile a specific group of people and that group will be arrested
more than those not in that group and the algorithms will pick that up.

~~~
sudhirj
Amazon only lets you in if they have your credit card on file - so they know
your purchase history and can guess at your credit limits. It really doesn’t
matter who you are, where you’re from or what you look like.

~~~
tyfon
Yes, for now. I know I'm rather pessimistic, but I don't think it will stop
there.

The credit card part is probably a dream scenario for banks though, to only
let people into shops that have an active credit line and not accept cash.

And then you have the problem of bias towards groups of people in the credit
scoring regressions.

------
JeanMarcS
When I was a teenager, I dressed like a metal fan.

Anytime I get in any shop, I had my own guard following me thinking I didn't
noticed him or her.

So I started playing "How many times can we make the whole shop again and
again" with them. I hade spare times back then !

But seriously, it was not something likable, and I guess when it happens not
because you choosed a look, but because you're born with one tone of skin, it
might be a nightmare.

------
stephengillie
Amazon Go's model is "Extreme Loss Prevention" \- have no checkers, monitor
all customers, and just charge their account for what they "shoplifted".

Amazon Go stores are classist and ageist in a different way than traditional
retail, because they effectively ban customers who don't have an Amazon
account, or don't have a bank account backing the Amazon account, or don't
have a smartphone. My parents couldn't shop there because they don't want to
use smartphones.

Supposedly, the machine-vision and algorithms aren't quite there yet, and the
stores depend on a very large human element behind the cameras.

------
jkestner
Cool thing is instead of getting profiled by humans, she can get profiled by
Rekognition.

------
whorleater
I wonder if minorities shop online more often due to wanting to avoid racial
profiling.

~~~
Qworg
They certainly used the Sears catalog more when it was the Amazon of its time.

------
eksemplar
I’m a white Scandinavian male, well dressed and always looking like I belong
in any higher class setting, but I would love this concept as well.

I have anxiety and even though it’s not really hindering me in any way, I
still double check my damn bag before I enter a store and I always make sure
to get a receipt to be able to prove I paid, even though I’ve never even been
looked over by store security.

Normal people wouldn’t notice, but grocery stores are designed to think some
of their visitors are thieves, and if Amazon Go took that away from the
experience I’d honestly never shop anywhere else.

~~~
Markoff
i have exactly opposite way of thinking, they should prove i stole something,
not me worrying about carrying receipts during multiple shops visits

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barell
Just a bit off topic. Is it possible to steal in Amazon Go?

~~~
rolodato
When you get the receipt back, you can request an item be cancelled because
you "didn't take it". They will pretty much accept it, no questions asked.

------
erikb
I'm not sure if discriminating against super market employees is the right way
to fight discrimination.

The good things I can see with a machine super market:

\- It can be open 24/7 without exploiting its employees

\- It can be almost fully stocked all the time

\- They don't have an excuse to "coicidentally misplace" a $1.50 label at a
product that in the end costs $2.99 (every shop does this in the area where I
live)

~~~
Nasrudith
That isn't discrimination against supermarket employees. Discrimination
against them would be housing that refuses to rent to them. There is no
obligation to hire them except the consequences of not hiring them.

------
Markoff
_two cans of wine?_ can someone enlighten fellow European? is it really wine
in metal can? sounds even worse than putting ketchup on pizza

------
wscott
Instead, Amazon will be profiling and denying access to highly technical
engineers who are most likely to be able to subvert their system. ;-) Perhaps
to just pull back the curtain to the magic.

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pcurve
I feel horrible for what she went through as a child, and still goes through.
But. For this article, if felt she was over-analyzing and extrapolating a bit
much.

This one felt borderline unnecessary and hyperbolic:

"No one cared what I was doing. Is this what it feels like to shop when you're
not black? "

~~~
jtbayly
That's where I stopped reading. The answer is "no."

~~~
stanleydrew
I would say the answer is "yes." Or at least that's how I feel when I shop,
and I'm not black.

~~~
andrewchambers
People should stop talking for others when they are unelected or not
nominated.

Just because she feels that way, doesn't mean every black person does. Maybe
many do, but I don't think it is productive to speak for other people's
experience.

Of course when speaking for oneself, then it is fine to say anything.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
That seems like a great way to ignore basically any complaint, by dismissing
it as a lone outlier.

 _All other things being equal,_ it should be pretty clear that a given black
person is more qualified to speak about the black experience than a given
white person is to refute them. If you have reason to believe that this
particular writer is unreliable or not representative, then by all means share
them.

~~~
andrewchambers
I didn't say the writer is unreliable or wrong, and didn't meant to seem
dismissive.

> it should be pretty clear that a given black person is more qualified to
> speak about the black experience than a given white person is to refute them

I think people are only qualified to speak about their own feelings and
experience, just not for other people unless those people requested that.

~~~
fjsolwmv
Your opinion on what people are qualified to speak about is irrelevant,
according to your own logic.

~~~
andrewchambers
No, its not irrelevant, but it is just my opinion. I'm not saying it is more
than my opinion.

