

Will cashiers continue to exist? - yummyfajitas
http://andrewmcafee.org/2011/12/mcafee-retail-cashier-automation/

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axefrog
This is interesting because it is a great example of how technology is in the
process of automating the world out of jobs. That is not a complaint mind you;
it's simply an important indicator of the change taking place in the world at
the moment. With every passing year, new, more advanced technologies become
available and the ones from the year before get cheaper and with artificial
intelligence and automation technology becoming more and more powerful and
capable, I am 100% certain that most "dumb" jobs - the kind for which low
wages are paid due to the lower skills required, are going to become obsolete
and replaced by technology. This means we'll go through an ever-more-apparent
period of politicians becrying the losses of jobs, the need to create new jobs
and so forth and whatever they try, they will fail because jobs lost due to
automation are going to dwarf those lost due to economic/recession-related
reasons. Personally I think this will eventually bring about something of a
new age where the masses (the 99%) end up forcing in a new paradigm
surrounding how we live and work. I am not sure what that would look like, but
it is certainly inevitable.

~~~
mikepurvis
All automation is predicated on a machine being cheaper and more reliable than
a human. As the cost of energy rises in coming decades, I'm expecting that
we'll discover that some forms of automation only make sense in a world where
conventional petroleum is dirt cheap.

Automatic checkout only takes electricity, so that'll probably be with us for
quite a while. But manufacturing jobs will return to North America once it no
longer makes sense to ship in consumer goods from east Asia. And I expect that
as agriculture becomes more locally-oriented, there will be a lot of labour
jobs associated with that—especially for tasks that might have been automated
at the industrial scale, but are cheaper done by human hands at a farm 1/100th
the size.

~~~
axefrog
That's the wildcard though isn't it? Some, such as yourself, decry this form
of futurism because it is predicated on the assumption that energy will become
more expensive. I personally think it will become cheaper and personally am
open to the possibility of breakthroughs making it negligibly cheap. See
<http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/>, <http://ecat.com>. E-cat may or may
not be real, but I do see interesting possibilities as a lot more time and
research starts to be put into these sorts of technologies as conventional
fuel becomes more expensive.

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recursive
Counterpoint: Automated checkouts suck balls.

A significant portion of the time I attempt to use one of these, the machine
gets stuck in some kind of nonsense about putting merchandise in the bagging
area, or explicitly asks me to see a clerk or something for assistance, or
otherwise basically does not work. I only use these now if there is a big line
at the humans. I'm sure this all sounds like I'm just an incompetent checkout
user. FWIW, I worked for a summer as an actual human cashier at a grocery
store. I think I did a reasonably competent job at it.

~~~
moocow01
They really need to get the near field communications stuff in there -
eventually you should be able just push your basket, yourself and your
wallet/phone through a scanner and everything gets tallied and charged.

~~~
thebigshane
I would like to see how this scanner tells the difference between a plum and a
nectarine. Or stack of DVDs ranging from $9.99 to $19.99. This seems
incredibly complicated with the existing "throw all of your groceries in the
cart" process. I think that it would much easier (and cheaper all around) to
design a warehouse where you give a computer your list and robot goes to the
back and to fulfill your order.

~~~
bdunbar
That would not work very well with fresh vegetables and fruits: what people
like varies a great deal, as does the quality on the shelf.

Case in point: my wife adores green bananas: can't abide them after they begin
ripen. How do you tell a robot picker 'only pick the florescent green ones,
please'?

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RandallBrown
I love using self checkout. I can almost always checkout faster than I would
if I went to a lane with an actual cashier. Most of the time it's an older
person that tries to make painfully awkward conversation with me instead of
just scanning my shit.

This works decently well in a college town where most people are younger and
educated. When I visit my parents and do self checkout it's maddening.
Everyone is constantly setting things down in the bagging area or taking stuff
off early. Or the worst thing happens and they try to pay with a check.
Another problem is when a purchase requires cashier interaction, like buying
alcohol. If lots of people are doing it at once (college town) it can really
slow things down.

Eventually this will totally take over, but it will be awhile before everyone
accepts it.

It also kind of stinks

~~~
hessenwolf
Hmmm... A lot of time I have really appreciated the human contact with a
cashier. Even now, despite being practically physically wired to computers at
all time, I still avoid the self-checkout where possible. (It might help that
the local supermarket is staffed by hot Polish girls)

~~~
justincormack
Maybe especially because you spend time in front of computers? I do like to
avoid computers in my off work time, so prefer human cashiers (as well as film
cameras not digital etc).

~~~
hessenwolf
Maybe indeed.

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ElliotH
As much as I wish we had nice fast automated checkout technology right now,
having a shop like this would drive me mad.

These things have become infamous here in the UK for "Unexpected Item in
Bagging Area" and similar.

What would be really nice is RFID or similar instant scanning of everything in
your basket (a local library has this for piles of books), but that may be a
way off yet.

~~~
axefrog
It's just a case of technological progress. I find these things (I live in the
UK too) work for me 98% of the time and when they don't, you only need one
store assistant amongst 8-10 self-service checkouts in a busy supermarket to
assist customers when these issues crop up. Ultimately the technology will get
good enough to alleviate this for the most part as well.

~~~
viraptor
Not my experience (I shop in Sainsbury's mostly). I get the "unexpected item"
problem almost every single time. Cashiers in my town are so used to it, they
don't even look at the baskets anymore - I actually got confused and packed
one item without scanning one day - approved with no questions asked (I
scanned it later, got another weight error, approved again). Those are
becoming as useful as SSL warnings or UAC - just click ok, because in 99% of
cases, it's bogus. That's pretty much all they do - almost all the time
they're near checkouts, they're busy accepting errors.

There are also products which do change weight. Electronic protection on
clothes or wine bottles weight enough to confuse the scales sometimes. Condoms
are packed in a plastic container which is taken off after purchase, but the
weight is set for the condom pack only. I also get the error quite often
because I'm thirsty/hungry and empty half of the bottle, or half a pack of
brioches while shopping. (yes, that's my fault but I don't see any reasonable
automated solution for it)

Then again, even with all those issues, I can still self checkout faster when
doing small shopping alone (15+ items usually means some repacking so I think
it's faster only when I'm there with my gf).

~~~
axefrog
Maybe you need more practice ;)

Seriously though, every now and again I've noticed some supermarkets upgrading
to newer machines and invariably the newer machines are much less prone to
these sorts of issues. In one supermarket where I sometimes shop, I had
experienced the difference before and after the upgrade and it was
significant.

~~~
viraptor
Ok, maybe that's the difference then. I don't think Bath's Sainsbury's got an
upgrade of checkout machines since ~2005/6 (they look the same, there's just
more of them now).

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sgaither
Counterpoint: Auto-cashiers have been in existence for a decade, and some
chains have decided to replace at least some self-service stations with human
clerks:

[http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/supermarket-self-
checkouts-...](http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/supermarket-self-checkouts-
being-replaced-with-people/)

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moocow01
I would say cashiers will continue to exist for a long time but the number of
cashier jobs will decrease dramatically especially as near field communication
becomes cheaper and cheaper. The reason I say they will still exist in some
form is that there are probably a small number of cashier scenarios that will
be very difficult to automate in the near term.

I don't like to see anyone out of a job but I think eliminating these jobs may
be a good thing for society in the long term. I'm not sure ultimately how
satisfying repetitive, automate-able work actually is to anyone. I'd say the
more we can push society into having to go into creative intellectual
disciplines, the better off we'll be. I'm not arguing that that out of work
cashier is going to start studying to be a scientist but maybe the next
generation of would-be cashiers will realize they need to hit the books and
become something that is more of a satisfying and engaging discipline.

~~~
andyking
There just aren't the 'creative intellectual' jobs, though. Universities can
churn out scientists, journalists, artists, designers, programmers and so on.
But if we're all creating, who is consuming?

We already have a surplus of people with creative industries degrees
(especially media-related, TV, film and so on) who work in call centres,
checkouts and other unrelated jobs because the demand isn't there for their
skills. We don't need thousands of new radio producers every year, but we have
them coming off the end of the university conveyor belt.

I don't know what the answer is, but I see a quite scary future if these jobs
which have provided a low, but livable, income for millions are eliminated. We
can't all be at the top of the tree.

~~~
moocow01
Good points... I think its a social problem that we in the US have been
failing at especially during the last few decades. Right now we have this
dynamic in society where the all the spoils go to the 'winners' even though
everyone is contributing in some form (usually by means of competition). This
ends up encouraging somewhat of a macro-trend where everyone works very very
hard to beat off others to get a piece of the pie but most inevitably end up
failing to get wealthy and live 'luxuriously'. As a result of this feast or
famine attitude, people end up getting over devoted to work and labor while
ignoring many other very important aspects of life (in the sense of actually
living)... culture, child-rearing, fun, relaxation, etc. (- note that these
are the descriptors of 'luxury')

I think as a society we shouldn't be looking at automation as "Oh my god that
machine is going to eat those people's jobs" - we should be looking at it as
"Wow, we collectively don't have to do that crap anymore" Similarly to how
somebody looks at a Roomba and says goodbye to pushing a vacuum around for an
hour. But what fucks this all up - the distribution of money. Because the way
distribution of money works in America, we look at it as those cashiers are
now going to starve and die.

MBA thinking has morphed us into thinking life is about production and
consumption (full stop). Its not (full stop). The majority of the population
is relatively starved of the 'other things' in life and we should be
reevaluating how automation can help us all focus on the things that make real
life a better experience. Unfortunately were too busy all miserably hoarding
money from each other like a bunch of dumb apes.

So back to your question about excess creative production - we shouldn't care
about who consumes it in an idealistic scenario. If people genuinely enjoy the
creative process, they should be doing it because they enjoy it and hopefully
that can be more afforded by automation.

~~~
axefrog
The flow of money is a very important point I think, and I think the global
elite who are somewhat dependent on the existing world economic structure are
going to ultimately see it forcibly evolved into something new over time. If
nearly everything "dumb" can be automated in the future, there will simply not
be the practical requirement for everyone to have a job and that leaves the
existing structure as a relic of an obsolete past. Society will have to come
up with new ways to think about the majority of its citizen's roles within
itself.

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jjm
And then when there are no cashiers and customer service is at an time low
someone will say hey let's put dedicated staff on the line! Customers will be
happier and sales might go up!

Honestly we need to strike a balance.

~~~
RandallBrown
I absolutely hate dealing with cashiers. I'll wait in a longer self checkout
just to avoid them.

It seems like they always try to make small talk with me or they're just slow
at their job. I just want to get in and out as fast as possible.

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devs1010
The only place I've seen this is Fresh and Easy stores, other stores have
automated check out but still have the ones with cashiers too. I think it
works great at Fresh and Easy, they have an attendant who goes around, as
needed, to check Id's for alcohol purchases, etc. I've never had to wait in
line at one of these stores, they aren't all that crowded but I still think it
definitely makes things go faster.

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abruzzi
They built a new Walmart here about 7 yeas ago. Going with the current trend,
it was about 60% self checkout. Same with the three local Albertsons
supermarkets. All of them have now removed their self checkout stations, and
replaced them with cashiers. I've heard it was due to rampant theft.

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jjm
For big business the feed back loop should not be just sales.

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georgieporgie
I like self checkout. I would prefer a checker if they're competent (Costco)
or interesting (crazy old Asian dude at the Rockridge Safeway in Oakland), but
usually they're zoned out and slow, or make inane comments.

What amazes me about self checkout is how creatively awful the kiosks are. For
example, receipts come out on the left, coin change comes out the middle,
while cash change comes out from a black-on-black compartment hidden below the
scanner.

