I for one absolutely love self-checkout at groceries, self-checkin at airports, etc. The parallel processing benefit is obvious, and ignorance is bliss when it comes to operator errors. And the more such self-service procedures become mainstream, the better we as a species become in reducing those errors. As a frustrated Android user in 2010, I used to think the general population wouldn't be able to figure out smartphones. Boy was I wrong.

It is polarized since people are looking at how it may affect themselves rather than society as a whole. If there a 10% job loss is projected over their working life, they are concerned that they will be in the 10%. Even if their job is secure, they may be concerned that the threat of automation or displaced workers from other fields will force their wages to stagnate or decline. It is difficult to argue these worries away since they affect individuals and no one knows how automation will affect any given person in the long term.

Granted, some of the concerns are about the nature of the job rather than the material loss. Consider something like teaching, where there will be no real substitute for people in the foreseeable future. That being said, what teachers do will change. There will be more emphasis on technical skills and technologically mediated communications. In a profession which attracts people who want to help others, the increasing role of automation will likely be seen as a drawback rather than a benefit.

It feels unproductive to me that a blog sporting such a claim looks at the automation problem, and instead of critiquing our cultural connections of work, wealth, and value, critiques the automation systems trying to improve the future. I think being a luddite is neither critical, radical or a response to anything that is emerging. Its a knee jerk reaction based on fear, like you are saying.

There's no actual automation in grocery store style self-checkout. All they did was take the same laser scanners that the cashiers had been using since the early 1990s and replace the cashier with the customer (after adding a scale to try and cut down on theft). True automation would be something like the Amazon Go grocery stores where you just fill your cart with items and leave and it figures out how much to charge you. It's the same thing with automated airport parking payment systems - some make you stop, insert the ticket, then insert your cash or credit card (not really automation, just replacing the employee with the customer) whereas other read your EZ-Pass or other toll tag as you just drive through the exit (actual automation).

One level up from this is that you take the scanner with you in the store, and so the process of shopping and checking out is combined into one, again here the benefit is time savings.

The best systems I know allow you to just drop your items in a bagging area and it is automatically scanned, and then you pay. Sure, you still pay manually, but paying is a minor part of checkout, and so most of the checkout is automated.

The systems like amazon are another step above that (skipping the presenting and paying of items), but for me checkout is already a much better experience than it was.

The point is not really that we can't do better, the point is that self-checkout is working, and working well, right now.

EDIT: To get back to the question: is anything actually being automated? I would suggest so, yes. Although maybe its not directly clear, previously the cashier was doing the work of validating that you are paying the correct amount for the correct items, and that you have in fact payed, and so are allowed to take the items home with you. Now that work is shared between me and a couple machines, obviously some of the responsibility, and so work, has transferred from the cashier to the machine, because otherwise the responsibility would completely be with me, and I could take the whole store home with me without paying anything!

You don't know me, but I want to provide a counter anecdote. My wife and I are both people that see self-checkout as a net negative. The error rate is just too high. They'd be fine if the error rate was low enough so that delays or required assistance was rare. It's not rare.

The best shopping experience is when there are plenty of human cashiers and plenty of lines open.

For instance, for me to understand your problem I would have to know what you mean with "error rate", which I am sure I would not have to ask you if we shared the same implementation.

It's intellectually dishonest to separate technology from the manner it is used. You introduce a powerful new technology, and people will use it to expand their powers, whether or not it's being used in the way the inventor intended.