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Ellipsis753 | 1 year ago
I used these in London and they were magical and extremely convenient. I would show them to visiting friends as if they were one of London's main tourist attractions!
I knew they relied on some manual labor (bills were delayed), but assumed this was only an intermediate step to collect more real-world training data (until they sorted out the AI).
I still think this is the future though. They could reduce staffing costs and free-up floor space that would otherwise be used for self-checkouts. All the while actually drastically improving the customer experience too.
If someone cracks it, it may make it impossible for other supermarkets to complete economically.
As a fun aside, all the stores were incredibly over-staffed and helpful. If you couldn't install the app they had a browser-based fallback (type "fresh code" into the amazon searchbar on a mobile). They could also lend you a battery bank if you were low on battery. I think they even had phones to lend out to those without smartphones. It was all very optimized around customer experience first and foremost and with no real attempt for the stores to be profitable.
rhapsodic|1 year ago
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