Isn't it naive to criticize cashierless stores and automated cars as "stupid areas"? Arguing that those will cost jobs is akin to saying a 100 years back that the "iron horse" will cost jobs. Mankind has to continue to innovate and it is disingenuous to argue that a cashierless store is a "minor convenience".

My current experience with just about any cashierless option at a grocery or department store is far from a minor convenience, it's almost entirely an inconvenience. I now get to do what I did over 20 years ago and bag groceries, except then I was paid for it.

However, it allows the store to place one minimum wage employee over multiple lanes versus having to have one per lane (or even two if it was like the grocery store when I grew up that actually had backers AND checkers).

So, like many innovations, it adds little to no convenience but is a very effective way of cutting labor costs. By Grabthar's Hammer... what a savings.

I despise the cashierless checkouts too, however, the recent advent of scan-as-you-shop options here in UK(Tescos and Sainsburys have it) means that I walk into the store, put items directly into my own bags that I brought with me from home, scanning each as I put it into the bag, and then at the end I walk up to one of many terminals(there's never any queue), return the handset, pay with card and literally walk out. It was transformative to my shopping experience(as in - made it a lot better).

Counterpoint: I've found that using self-checkout lanes lets me get out of the store a lot faster than waiting for a cashier. People use them because, in general, people hate waiting.

Of course, while Walmart has 30 cash registers, there's only ever 4 staffed at any given time, so you could argue that if they just had more staff they could get people in and out at the same speed.

To each his own, I exclusively use the self checkout line whenever I can (especially at costco) and it saves me a ton of time. Besides the point here was about innovation and working towards a better future, which the amazon cashierless stores might be. Just because the current solution for self-checkouts is bad doesn't mean we should stop innovating.

Working towards a better future sounds like an admirable goal, but that's ad-speak on top of actual goals of the innovation, which is more profitable retail.

I don't personally think a robot grocery store is something I'm interested in, but that's entirely subjective.

I wonder if th author uses ATMs or if he still writes checks and interacts with a bank teller.

I don't think the argument is that they are stupid because they cost jobs, any more than the idea that smart speakers are bad because they will cost jobs.

How exactly is Alexa different than Siri on iPhones? Why is one a surveillance speaker but the other isnt? I'm near my phone far more often than I am in my living room.

You need to press a button to activate Siri. Alexa/Google home are listening at all times.

False, "Hey Siri" activates Siri on the iphone (just tried this out). So, it's not different.

Apple has been a leader in security, and has shown to take privacy seriously.

The "Hey Siri" wake is done completely locally, and is opt-in on top of Siri.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/11/apple-addresses-privacy-qu...

Apple also consistently makes the trade-off of privacy above user-experience; in order to offer similar features to Google photos, they train neural networks on-device.

As well as how seriously they take the biometric data from Touch ID and Face ID, I'm much more comfortable around a HomePod than Alexa.