> I hope Amazon comes up with an awesome way to help the cashiers this technology replaces.

They can be retrained to work in fulfillment centers. Amazon will provide the piss bottles.

We're already most of the way there with self checkout. My local Home Depot only has self checkout now, with 1 person managing something like 10-15 registers. They left the person running the "Pro"/lumber checkout area, but that area looks like it's being set up for self checkout too. They also seem to have removed the Garden Center checkout.

I'm not saying it's a great thing, just that the jobs Just Walk Out will be replacing are already being replaced by self checkout.

I frequent Whole Foods, and I digital nomad a bit, so I visit a lot of Whole Foods-es.

Recently came back to the East Bay (SF) and the Whole Foods I'm staying near, more than the others, seems like a staging store for Buy Online & 1) Get Delivered, 2) Pick Up In Store.

There are often more WF employees shopping for pick-up orders than customers walking around the store. Navigating aisles that are full of these WF shoppers gives the store a pretty signficantly different feel than the other stores that I'm a regular at. Plus, the staging/storage area at the front for ready-orders is much bigger than at other stores.

Not as true at SF city WFs, or the ones in Reno, LA, Park City and Phoenix/Scottsdale that I'm familiar with.

I'm guessing this dynamic, plus "Just walk out" is where they're headed, at least in certain densities. And that's where some of the cashiers may be transitioned.

Amazon Go stores have plenty of employees, I'd bet they're not saving anything on labor.

The benefit is a much better customer experience, not labor savings.

Well, it's the option.

Retailers that compete on "experience" like Target etc will reinvest into a better customer experience.

Retailers that compete on price like Aldis will focus solely on driving cost down.

> The benefit is a much better customer experience, not labor savings.

The primary benefit is access to a lot better data about shoppers, not a better customer experience.

I'll choose the store where I can grab what I want and walk out over the store where I have to wait in a dumb ass line while the cashier yells for a price check and the customer in front of me can't remember her PIN so slowly counts out nickels and quarters.

It's a massive competitive advantage far beyond whatever data they get by watching me roam the store.

The third-last FAQ entry speaks precisely to your comment:

> Will people still be working in stores with Just Walk Out technology?

> Yes. Retailers will still employ store associates to greet and answer shoppers' questions, stock the shelves, check IDs for the purchasing of certain goods, and more - their roles have simply shifted to focus on more valuable activities.

I wonder what percentage of people will still have a job there?

Do we need to have people working soul-sucking, unnecessary jobs so they can bring food to the table?

Ideally no, but since Universal Basic Income isn't prevalent, yes.

1/n where n is the current number of cashiers in a given store

> If they released this at Whole Foods, I'd guess they'd fire all the cashiers there

Since Whole Foods sells alcohol, I doubt that. There are things that lots of governments won't let you have customers “just walk out” with.

I did my most recent liquor run at the nearby Amazon Grocery.

They check ID entering the liquor section (and it is a human that checks), but otherwise it is bag it and just walk out.

Wonder what happens if there is a dispute between what you take and what they think you took?

They could keep just a few per store to handle that.

Sounds like a job for Bezos Expeditions: municipal lobbying.

As I wrote that I realized they could even employ cashiers to do that instead.

> I hope Amazon comes up with an awesome way to help the cashiers this technology replaces.

I'm not sure why this should be on Amazon. It's on all of us to better train people to have the jobs of the future. Our education system hasn't really changed in 100+ years. It needs to.

Is it on all of us? Why should Amazon reap the benefit of this innovation while the rest of us pay for the consquences?

Amazon doesn't rip the benefits alone, all of us do. Just like Apple doesn't benefit alone from having invented touch-screen smartphones.

And if these companies profit, they do so as a reward for spending the capital (dollars and manhours) in creating new technologies that improve productivity. Specifically total factor productivity in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobb%E2%80%93Douglas_product...

It's on all of us because it really isn't on anyone in particular, surely not on Amazon.

I can take your statement and flip it around just as easily: why should Amazon bear the costs of paying for many R&D ideas that may or may not pay off? We should all share that cost if we're all going to benefit from those innovations

Are you seriously trying to suggest that everyone benefits from these innovations?

100%. Would you, personally, rather still be plowing with livestock?

Irrelevant, but it’s telling that you have to go back so far to pick something that seems to be universally beneficial.

Are you seriously trying to suggest everyone benefits from Amazon’s innovations?

The thing we need to come up with is a basic income allowing robots to take over our work. Not because it's the right thing to do or a kind thing to do, but because the alternative is civil unrest on a scale few of us are familiar with.

What percentage of cashiers are employed at stores big enough to install this tech?

I would think the majority would be employed at little restaurants, small shops, etc.