I'd seen on some History channel show about supermarkets that this sort of evolution was expected. The store monitors customers' activity and charges you electronically for whatever you take out.
https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011#
On one hand it's very convenient for customers. On the other, it continues down the path of technology eliminating jobs. Just the other day I heard of a project to create self-driving long-haul trucks. Neither field offers especially great jobs, but they are in fact paying jobs (a lot of them at the moment).
Amazon opens a store with no registers
-
Captain Picard's Hair
- Rear Admiral
- Posts: 4042
- Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 3:58 am
- Location: Right here.
Amazon opens a store with no registers
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wonderous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross... but it's not for the timid." Q, Q Who
-
Graham Kennedy
- Site Admin
- Posts: 11561
- Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2007 2:28 pm
- Location: Banbury, UK
- Contact:
Re: Amazon opens a store with no registers
There is a hell of a lot of automation coming down the pipeline right now that is downright scary.
There are apps that can scan legal documents and find flaws in the legal language. Sounds unimpressive until you realise that something like 8 out of 10 lawyers spend their days doing that, without going anywhere near a courtroom. The apps can do it better, faster, and 24 hours a day. So there goes most of the legal profession.
As you say, there are unmanned trucks coming. Ditto unmanned taxi cabs. There goes two whole industries.
There are apps that can diagnose medical symptoms, and do it significantly better than the average GP can.
And so on. It's horrifying really - tens of millions of jobs may be about to go down the tubes, and we have absolutely no plan for what to do about it other than a vague hope that the market will work it all out.
There are apps that can scan legal documents and find flaws in the legal language. Sounds unimpressive until you realise that something like 8 out of 10 lawyers spend their days doing that, without going anywhere near a courtroom. The apps can do it better, faster, and 24 hours a day. So there goes most of the legal profession.
As you say, there are unmanned trucks coming. Ditto unmanned taxi cabs. There goes two whole industries.
There are apps that can diagnose medical symptoms, and do it significantly better than the average GP can.
And so on. It's horrifying really - tens of millions of jobs may be about to go down the tubes, and we have absolutely no plan for what to do about it other than a vague hope that the market will work it all out.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...