Amazon Go

Guys this is not good. As much as I love the convenience of pick-and-go, this eventually will prove out to be drastic for a variety of bad socioeconomic reasons, that most of us are already aware of. Small businesses were already suffering at the hands of Amazon Prime. Now Amazon Go wants to not only kick out those businesses out of the block but it also wants to take away jobs of small retail salesperson. Unacceptable. This can perhaps work at Amazon headquarters but I hope, I really hope it does not make its way to major metro cities like NYC and if it does then Amazon should promise to create certain number of jobs and revenue that it intends to displace. Just because an average reader of HN does not do such jobs or had held such jobs for only a brief period in his/her life, this does not mean that lot of people don't rely on such small time jobs for their livelihood.

Places I can see this working are with low footprints such as cafes at hospitals etc.

Amazon Go, please Go away.

Updated: Grammar correction.

Wether we like it or not, automatization is going to eat many, many millions of jobs over the next few years. Taxi/bus/truck drivers (self driving cars), fast food staff[1] and thanks to tech like Amazon Go's, also regular store employees. Trying to stop this from happening is futile. What we need to figure out is how are we going to prevent society from exploding once most people are out of a job forever.

[1] http://newsexaminer.net/food/mcdonalds-to-open-25000-robot-r...

Like it or not, this is the future. If Amazon don't do it then someone else will. People want cheap goods and this will give them cheaper goods.

The solution to your worries is a universal basic income.

I'm not thrilled with the socio-economic impact this will have, but it's inevitable. A big hope I have is that, similar to the automation and efficiency boost of agriculture (once upon a time most humans worked in farming), this will unlock huge sums of money that can be diverted to other hard to automate services that will employ these folks.

Then don't go there.

It's a broken idea to think that technology will not replace jobs – end of story. Trying to legislate for inefficiency is doomed to failure – instead of hand-wringing about the loss of jobs (an almost inevitable side-effect of technological progress) it seems much more sensible to start thinking about about what an economy without these jobs would look like.

It's disappointing to see people downvote this post rather than respond to it.

I'm not going to argue that this sort of technology isn't going to have a decimating effect on employment, small business etc. It will. It will very likely have a huge socioeconomic impact for one simple reason: Most of us aren't planning for the next industrial revolution.

That fact that you're freaking out now tells me you really haven't been thinking deeply about the impact that automation is going to have on our society, nor have you been considering realistic solutions to these potential problems.

Automation will decimate jobs as it allows us to create lot more with less. It might give people more leisure time, or it might widen the income gap. We could send people back to school to learn relevant skills, and we might be able to do it cheaply if we maximized MOOCs and vocational training more and relied less on expensive universities with lavish facilities and football coaches with million dollar salaries.

We could also fuck up our opportunity to move forward by focusing our energy on preserving jobs that we know are going away. It's not if, it's when.

Not moving forward is not a realistic option. Even if had all the political power to get your way in this country, other countries will simply take the lead in automation. The countries that focus on their energy on educating their people to take on the next generation of jobs will be the economic leaders of tomorrow.

It's not a small problem and it's not going to magically work itself out like some laissez faire dipshits would like to tell you. This is going to be tough and painful. Now is the time to start planning for our future.

"this will unlock huge sums of money that can be diverted". Agree. But what guarantee do we have that Amazon or similar large companies such as Apple had ever re-invested their profits back into economies? So far none. Yes Amazon can hire more people for warehouses, but is it fair for a displaced retail person to go and work at warehouses (trust me I have worked at warehouses and it is not a FUN place to work at!)?

Try to become a part of the solution not part of the problem. As an engineer, this is a mesmerizing and a very appreciative tech. Kudos. As a (selfless) neighbor, I can never be happy to see unemployed neighbors. Sure we can create these autonomous technologies, but we also should be active in policy-making for our cities e.g. if 10 jobs are being displaced then collectively what are we doing to create 10 more jobs.

Profits earned from Amazon Go are not going to get reinvested in cities. A small portion of it would be divided as payrolls among engineers and people who would manage these Go stores but a large chunk would go in deep pockets of Bezos' and Amazon investors'.

Get more people (and a greater variety of people) to invest in Amazon, and other companies who displace jobs, perhaps?

Where I live all the grocery stores already have almost no employees, with delivery service so you only interact with a website + delivery agent, or a self checkout kiosk if you show up in person.

The in person shopping primarily happens in specialty grocery stores like Italian delis and the like. They won't be going away.

>Most of us aren't planning for the next industrial revolution.

The value of labour will continue to decline. While your labour has value, saving up as much money as possible and putting it in index funds seems like a really good idea.

Well those warehouse jobs won't exist either...

Have you bothered to ask yourself where the money goes after it's put in the pockets of Bezos' and other Amazon investors? Do you think that money is just sitting in the bank doing nothing?

I am guessing other pet projects, R&D for Amazon. Clearly not in cancer research or funding of infrastructure or investments in other need base communities.

Last time I heard Amazon is struggling with net positive cash flow because it keeps on re-investing profits into various other side projects with eventual goal of dominating retail space e.g. Amazon Go.

Why would Amazon invest its profits in cancer research? Wouldn't you expect a drug or biotechnology company to invest their profits in cancer research?

Amazon is in the business of creating a marketplace that efficiently matches buyers and sellers. It provides a distribution infrastructure for sellers and provides a high level of service for buyers.