Amazon Go

Look, I know this might not be a popular view here on HN, but I think this is useless. And bad.

I'm not talking about the technology behind it (I think it's an amazing achievement)..

I live in Barcelona and I have at least 5 medium-sized supermarkets within 5 minutes walking distance from my home. Plus there are several smaller shops that sell fruits and vegetables.

I know all the people who work in these supermarkets. The cashier in the supermarket downstairs always sings a quiet song while she scans my products, she knows my daughter and she's always nice and friendly.

The cashier in the other store talks to the customers. She stops scanning and starts talking while the line waits. Some customers might join the conversation. I know she has an old cat that eats an unlimited amount of food if allowed to do so...

There are similar stories about other shops in the neighbourhood - they come to work, they serve the people in the neighbourhood, they go home. They do this until they retire.

These people like their jobs because we respect them for what they do, so they feel useful and they work hard.

I don't mind waiting in line for 3 minutes. Or 5. It's never longer than that, even if the cashier discusses the latest news with the old lady.

The humanity of it has value for us here and that value is greater than the time we'd save by removing the people from the shops.

Trying to save jobs that are no longer the most efficient way of solving a problem is not the way to promote the value of humanity, in my opinion. People want groceries as cheap and fast as possible. They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction and forcing the majority of people to pay extra for something that only the minority get value out of is not a competitive strategy.

If humanity were to take your opinion, we'd never evolve as a society, lest we remove a need in society and with it, someones job.

I am unsure we are evolving. We have evolved in many areas that solve real problems, like healthcare and such, but I'm not sure today's society is any better for all the technology that allows us to save a couple of minutes in a queue.

To improve the efficiency of a particular group, we create problems elsewhere. The result may not be net positive. In fact, I think it isn't, since those saved "couple of minutes" will probably be spent browsing Facebook.

The point isn't that we save 2 minutes, it's that there's now 10 less job we need. And that may seem as a negative at first, but the idea is that as more and more job get automated, prices should go down until the point where people will not have to work full weeks anymore, or rather, focus on learning and reaching higher education, rather than doing dummy work all day (aka just scanning items non stop for 8 hours).

It might be worthwhile to re-frame it. Rather than say "10 fewer jobs," say "10 people are no longer forced to spend eight hours a day sitting in front of a cash register."

That assumes we can find something better for them to do, of course. But man, we have to try! Forcing people to do things a machine can do is inhumane.

I'm a bit worried that most of us here on HN are feverishly working on ways to automate away jobs, and there is quite a strong economic incentive for us to do so, but there is hardly any effort and no incentive for policy makers to catch those affected. Who is building and planning for this new social utopia once people no longer have to bag groceries? Right now it looks like a lot of misery and poverty on the horizon before things get better.

> Right now it looks like a lot of misery and poverty on the horizon before things get better.

So what is new? We have been automating jobs out of existence for a long time. Every era has had a lot of people that are redundant, every era has had useless governments get to grips with it.

Recently I automated three jobs out of existence, making the computer do the data entry work with the customer filling in forms. This is great for the customer as they now get what they want done instantly instead of having to wait a week for the human to do what the computer can do. It is great for the company as 3 people don't have to be managed, provided office space and paid. But as for my colleagues?

I obviously have had thoughts about automating my friends on the next desk out of existence, how I see it is that there are actually plenty of vacancies in the company, there are plenty of vacancies outside the company and the writing has been on the wall for the last year regarding the changes we put through. 2 of my 3 former colleagues are now working elsewhere, having moved on fine, but there is the one that did not step up and go for other interviews within the company or look elsewhere. Now I am sure that government handouts are available, however, if someone does not look out for their own job and assumes it will always be there for them, what can you do? Is it always the government's fault in this situation?

My above sentiment is a tad Thatcherite, it was Norman Tebbit who said 'on your bike', i.e. if there isn't a job for you in your home town then you have got to move, the government isn't going to magically create a job for you. The 'on your bike' remark didn't go down too well in the 1980's, but 'on your bike' it has been since then.