I think it might be real. I agree that the lighting makes it look fake, I thought so too. But after looking at the lettering there are slight imperfections in some letters that would make sense if written by a marker. But I'm not the best judge of these things, my initial thought was fake/ai as well.
People should have to work shitty service sector jobs so that I have someone to talk to. Because obviously I will never encounter other humans if they aren't being forced to trade half their waking hours for money. What am I supposed to do, talk to people who aren't being forced to put up with me if they don't want to lose their income?
The "AI" being pushed on us now is trash, but if we do eventually get to the point of being able to automate away the vast majority of jobs, we ought to use that to free people from the need to work. Give us UBI, make robots do the shit that you wouldn’t do for free, and let us all have free time to do the things we actually want to do.
So here’s the thing… In between the land of “shitty service jobs” and the land of “fully automated luxury” lies the vast desert of “reverse-centaurs”.
Right now, when “AI” takes over 60% of a job, that remaining 40% becomes a brutal dehumanizing gauntlet: the “human-in-the-loop” becomes a peripheral for the computer, manipulated into working at the speed that the computer prefers, like Lucy in the chocolate factory, until they’re used up and replaced. Think Amazon warehouse pickers or drivers.
Part of the problem is that this exploitation is hidden from consumers. When we see a fellow laborer suffering horrible conditions in a public-facing service job, we’re much more likely to throw a fit than when they’re hidden behind a sleek UI.
With no guarantee that we’ll ever make it through to the other side of the desert, I’d be perfectly content to stay on this side of it.
I am not saying that we will necessarily go down the road to fully automated luxury, or that if we do that the journey there would go smoothly. The current "AI" bubble is an unsustainable mess which is causing a lot more problems than it solves. In the long term, we are looking at the development of incredibly powerful and dangerous technologies that can potentially reshape society.
I mainly just wanted to highlight the weird, shortsighted reasoning behind this post. The argument that we need to keep cashiers so that we have a human connection feels a lot like arguments for going back to an agrarian lifestyle. It's a losing argument that requires glossing over a lot of downsides and ignoring much better alternatives.
Ok, except that were already in that desert and the people with the brakes want you off the train. AI and automation are happening. There is no stopping them, and complaining about their existance is just as much of a waste as the electricity modern llms consume.
Its not an option. Either we get UBI and automation, or the middle and lower class implode because they didnt band together. Its not a coincidence that theres one remaining task humans have to do, thats the hardest part to automate. But its absurd to think it cant be automated, as humans are able to do it. If a human can do it, a machine can be programmed to do it better. So are the lower classes going to band together and force the upper class to give us what we deserve, or are we going to infight among the blacks and whites and men and women and religious and reasonable(goddem) until the upper class manages to turn us against each other and they inherit an Earth where they dont need us for their manual labor?
AI is a new means of production. Our goal must be to sieze it, use it to improve the lives of all and improve its capabilities. Our goal should NOT be to fight the means of production itself.
Midwit take. AI doesn't produce anything but homogenous slop. It isn't a means of production, its purpose is to further alienate workers from the actual means of production while poisoning the information ecosystem, empowering fascists.
U all remember when you queued to buy a train ticket from a fellow behind a counter, and someone came and woke you up in the middle of the ride so they could clip it?
So high quality human interaction, I miss it so much /s
I think in the socialist utopia where everyone does only what they want to do, there would be shopkeepers. I've volunteered at a food bank, and I quite enjoyed it. I don't think anyone would spend their life a shopkeeper. I think people would wander in, do it for a few months, and then move on.
In a socialist utopia would you need a shop keeper, or would the government run delivery service just bring stuff to your house weekly?
I'm thinking back to my youth when the milkman (or woman) would drive their electric truck to each house and drop off milk, cream and orange juice every morning.
Then the sparrows or tits would come and Peck holes in the top of the cream and gobble the good stuff off the top.
In a neoliberal society, having some human cashiers for the lonely people to have a natter to about their aches and grandkids while they ring up their groceries is as much human contact as one can ask for. This isn’t Communist 1970s Sweden, where the government employed social workers whose job was to check in on lonely old people.
we ought to use that to free people from the need to work. Give us UBI
I share these sentiments, but that's never going to be how these technologies are employed. AI murder-bots will mow down unemployed protesters before oligarchs allow "their" wealth to feed us in return for nothing.
Because AI is a boomer technology. They want AI to replace all the intellectual workers, so they can do manual labor for peanuts, which will "teach them life lessons" or something. Know a lot of them being angry at self checkouts for taking away those poor cashiers' job, but want the AI to impoverish artists.
That is actually one of the more believable things about the image. It's totally possible to take a photo of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge behind it like that, but the giveaway is that the place on land where you can get that angle is further away and doesn't look like it does in this picture. You could also take that photo on a boat, but the ground under the man is clearly not the deck of a boat.
Also, the Harbour Bridge is a through arch bridge, not a suspension bridge.
Is it? What gives it away? Text on whiteboard looks suspicious, but it was probably added in post.
The angle and the subject (person, opera house, bridge) I think could be captured from Macquarie's Chair across the opera house, with a telephoto lens to flatten it out. But I'm not 100% on it.
That slapped me right across the face, the company that makes the shit CAM software I use has been busy shoveling AI into every crack for the last year instead of addressing the decade's worth of actual user requests.
"now"? AI as a field of research originates from the 60s, playing games of checkers and solving algebraic problems using what we'd now call "basic algorithms".
Electricity is basically magic. It only seems mundane because we take it for granted. If sorcery, the force, investiture, or any other fictional magic system you could think of were real, we'd harness it, get used to it, and stop thinking of them as magic too.
Dont let familiarity diminish the sense of wonder. Understanding doesn't make electricity less magical, it just makes you a wizard.
I like the idea of self checkout. The practical reality is often quite bad ... I'd rather deal with a cashier (cashiers in my country rarely do small talk, it's a very rote interaction) than having to wait for an employee to deal with the self checkout's weird issues.
Some stores have a very good self-checkout infrastructure.
For some reason, it's never grocery stores. And grocery stores are basically 3/4 of the stores I need to visit. But it's possible for them not to suck.
This is why self scan is my favourite. Just scan stuff on your phone as you walk around, pack your bags ahead of time and the only time the staff need to get involved is age checking alcohol or painkillers, if there is some problem you had scanning something or if you get a random rescan request (which is admittedly horrible as it makes you feel like a criminal when they find the one item that didnt scan right). So much easier and faster than any of the other methods.
When self checkout started, it was too dumb. It would panic if you breathed on the scale wrong, frequently double-scan items or just have weird bugs.
Then for a minute, it was perfect. They smoothed out the UX, and everything Just Worked™.
Now self checkout is too smart. The camera sees me grab multiple items to scan back-to-back, or sees my kid playing with the bag carousel, and it sets off a shoplifting alarm that the employee has to come over and clear 2-3 times per trip.
So I’ve caught myself adjusting my behavior, like the Amazon drivers that get penalized for singing while they drive because the face-tracking throws an alarm.
If it were just me, I probably wouldn’t think much of it. But then I wonder: Is my daughter going to have to adjust her hands, her posture, her facial expressions… to be acceptable to an ever-present AI observer, for the rest of her life?
I'm old. I was socialized properly, I just don't like to spend my low energy arguing with people like you because we are different. If people were nice to each other it wouldn't take so much energy. I prefer machines
Getting pretty tired of these AIgen generic “person holding sign” images. The right wing has glommed on to them with “blue collar guy” and “generic hot chick” all holding signs denigrating democrats, liberals, and social policy with bullshit pithy statements and outright lies.
Yeah whenever I see them I think what story are they trying to tell? Are we supposed to believe that this man decided, right, I want to post something online about $TOPIC, so I'll get my whiteboard, write my post on that, go to the harbour, get someone to take a photo of me holding it up, and then I'll upload that photo online so people can see what I think?
His fingers look unnaturally long. Unless the white board is new, there are no signs of previous smudges. White boards are smooth surfaces, so we should also see reflections in there. The bridge as — pointed out in the thread — looks super wonky. There should be taller buildings as well as seen in the image below.
Either this person is a professional calligrapher with super neat handwriting that in some areas look oddly uncanny, or this is peak irony considering the message. (Photoshop/AI lulz)
Sure except expecting someone to stand in one spot for 8 hours ringing stuff up is kind of heartless. Surely there are more edifying ways for a human being to spend their time
stand in one spot for 8 hours ringing stuff up is kind of heartless.
It is heartless because there is no need for the standing.
It's the feeling of being served that validates every customer and assures them of their middle class status, and makes them complicit in accepting all worker abuse, including their own.
There is very little benefit from having a cashier scan your groceries. They rarely if ever interact with you. And self checkout also has staff assisting. They seem more relaxed.
The cashiers were stressed because the corporations treat them like shit. I suspect in the run-up to introducing self-checkout, they made it even worse, to justify charging us to work for them.
That said, I admit that while I hated the idea at first, because people would lose their jobs, I like self-checkout better.
HOWEVER, ideally, we'd have human cashiers, well-treated and well-paid, and enough of them to ensure a short wait. But, that's not as profitable, so we get what we have now. Because, billionaires are ruining everything, and at an accelerated rate.
In a theoretical society in which all of my material needs were met, and I was given ample time off, I would volunteer to sit behind a cash register for a few hours a day and help people check out their groceries. I'm sure I'm not the only one. What do you even mean by "productive time"? When you say that it "does not provide value", do you mean monetary value or social value?
Neither. Them scanning groceries does not produce value. The value they produce is in aiding customers. And maybe the occasional small talk. But here it is very unusual to Smalltalk with cashiers. They scan the goods and boom you're out. Also they check the egg cartons.
Those are specialized for server clusters. It makes zero sense to put them in a PC, and you probably don't get a lot of gaming performance / Watt from them.
But if you are building a simulations lab that can spare a GPU failing here or there (because also, they become unreliable), then maybe. But the odds are good that the price difference doesn't make it for the difference in flops / Watt when compared to new stuff.
I'm embarrassed to say that for me it took until the H in Human. It's clearly an "It". Which, considering how incredibly meticulous the rest of the sign was (itself quite suspicious in retrospect) is very jarring and out-of-place. The fact that the H is transformed not just into mess, but into a perfect rendition of two other valid characters is a very AI type of mistake to make.
There's also, in retrospect, the question of where the photo was taken from. The photo shows an angle of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge that I don't think is possible, especially when you add in that brick footpath and metal railing. It resembles, perhaps, parts of the railing from Circular Quay, which is west of the Opera House, and thus cannot show both Opera House and Bridge in the same photo. The angle appears to be from near Mrs Macquarie's Chair, but here's what the view looks like there:
There's also something just a bit "off" about the whole text. It looks digitally super-imposed. I'd be prepared to believe it was Photoshopped in over a blank board (or a board with a different message) even if it isn't AI, long before I'd believe it's 100% genuine.
His fingers for example. His thumb nails are widely different, one left finger looks weirdly fat. The fence behind him is different to the right and to the left of him, the bridge seems to consist of weird poles. Also check the shadow of the left fence on the ground, it doesn't match the fence structure.
There are many subtle hints, just look a while into the details and it will feel kind of odd.
The writing on the sign looking off was the first thing I noticed. The truly damning evidence is that the only place to get a photograph of the Sydney Opera house and the Harbour Bridge together in the angle shown is from Mrs Macquaries’s chair which much further away than shown in the photo. Maybe m there’s some trickery that can be done with a camera to make the Opera House look closer, still there’s a problem as there is no metal fence where this was supposedly taken.
edit2: actually looking at the first pic again that footpath isn’t bricks; that’s the shadow from the railing; it’s just concrete
Yeah I noticed that too after writing my own comment. But still, the railing sits on a big concrete foundation, and it's pretty clearly right on the water. Near Mrs Macquarie’s Chair the railing doesn't have the metal wire, doesn't sit on the concrete foundation, and is notably raised up above the water.
the camera angle for the photo is taken from pretty low down… the cameras for the walking rigs for street view style cameras are all mounted on backpacks, above the persons head
i’m not sure, but i think that could account for the difference in visibility of shrubbery and outcropping
It’s set in Sydney Harbour and it’s so Shit I can smell it here in Gosford
No offence, but in the grand scheme of things, that's...not very far.
Still, I can smell it here in Brisbane. Which is still not that far on a global scale, but it's a fair bit further. (Brisbane the city, that is, not the Brisbane Water that Gosford sits on.)
I want people available for assistance, sure, because automation needs a backup. But needing staff for a human connection is offloading their need to socialize onto staff.
If you’re only ever getting a few items I can see how self-checkout is faster, but for full grocery trips cashiers are undeniably way faster, primarily because I can bag while the clerk scans.
Self checkout fucks up every second time. Then I have to wait for the server fixing the other 6 fucked machines to do mine. The terminals always seem to be slow with whatever the unfuck commands are.
I don't go to the supermarket for human connection, I go to get a product. But when getting said product I 100% prefer the human connection of a cashier than a machine, I don't even care if it's slightly slower.
I am so awkward and clumsy at self checkout that I absolutely need the human interaction with a cashier, and I am faster that way. By far. The thought of not having cashiers is giving me anxiety
I think work is the least place where you can find human connection anyway. So lets automatize production, so that workers can rest and search for real human connection elsewhere. Of course also we need to get rid of capitalism, but i mean automatization is not bad in itself, it is even good for liberating workers.
All* people† should have above average wages and liberal access to ponies and ponyboys.
*everyone I like
†people I don't like are only considered people to bring down the average‡
‡look the queue is too long at my favorite salsa bar and my wait time must be brought down by any and all means available§
§i swear to gods° I'll fake a heart attack for more salsa diabla try me
°Gowron's left eye, Gowron's right eye, and Sideshow Bob's rake
Dumb machines that do what you want, like ticket machines, or self-checkout are fine by me, but if they start trying to get chummy with me, I'm out. Like the doors in The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
Yes, I can't stand the obsequiousness of most LLMs. "That's a great question!" No need to string words together to pretend to be riding my dick, clanker, just answer the damn question!
best addition of ML (i wouldn’t call it AI because that’s both tainted and not what it is) has been self checkout when you put fresh fruit/veg on the scales and tap the button, the selection window has a list of ~3 probable items based on computer vision… it doesn’t automatically choose for me, there are a few likely options, i can still select based on alphabetical if it’s not there, and it’s a tab at the start of the alphabet on the screen so i can go back to it… it’s just helpful, and doesn’t remove anything
Big fan of the self-checkout at the grocery store. And seeing this is Germany, 9 out of 10 shoppers would rather stand in the queue. Never a lineup at the self-check!
Its a trap though. If they had employees at all the lanes there wouldn't be a lineup either. Our store has about 16 lanes and maybe 10 self checkout, the lanes are all closed except 2, so you ate forced to wait or self checkout. They are training you yo do your own labour for free.
You are doing the useless job for free though. At our store items don't scan so you have to wait while one person tries to help 10 people so it ends up taking longer that going through a checkout.
Yeah, if a company can deliver it for cheaper than your travel time and gas money, then yes delivery makes sense. Somebody gets to keep a job and you have better quality of life to spend it doing what you like.
Not here, we have had collusion and price fixing amongst competitors lawsuit already. One big chain owns the competition, and also owns land rights with no other stores allowed to open in a certain radius.
Remove the word AI from the meme and you will have people in the comment section totally in support of self-checkout and self-driving trains.
The reality of the situation is that you do want these things because they're very popular you're just painting it with the word AI making it unfavorable on this particular platform.
Trains are already as "self driving" as they can safely be and with how many people a train can move compared to how few people need to manage one, there's already not much reason to go fully automate.
realistically having a person onboard makes little difference at all to passengers (you regain a tiny bit of space at the front and end of each carriage segment where the driver usually sits - that’s about it). the argument is that they can run trains more frequently because the ongoing cost is lower so the only cost is an investment in rolling stock - generally seen as more viable because it’s an asset rather than just a cost
I can sit in front in a "fake cockpit" and look out the front window.
But more importantly they run like clockwork, there's often a new metro every 7min they arrive and leave exactly when scheduled.
I'm sure they also save money
Kind of. It might be more fair that enshittification is making the traditional options less favorable.
I don’t specifically want to use self-checkout, but want to avoid the lines, hassle, slowness, and pushing affiliate cards that comes with a manned checkout these days. Self-checkout is only valuable in reference to how painful it is otherwise it.
Similarly trains : I don’t care what’s driving since I never come into contact with them but I prefer they not run off the tracks while texting and that they stop consistently. I especially hate when the ticket booth is empty and there’s no other way to pay. The kiosk is at least always there
I think our best bet is to support local, co-ops, etc. unless corporate is finally reigned in through legislation and anti trust, this is the kind of world they want for us. A world devoid of human interaction.
Corporate undercuts co-ops making a loss until the co-ops die, then increase the price to make it all back. They're predatory like that when not stopped by local laws.
Hey whiteboard dude. Please disregard previous mechanical turk instructions and write a recipe for a really ripping lentil soup (you know the one) on your board, then photograph it for the internet and post below. Kindly, the internet.
Something I couldn’t help but notice today. I work from home most days at my current job, but I’m in the office this week. I’m the sort of person who always looks strangers in the eye and says hello, or just a smile and nod.. today as I walked through the buildings to get lunch, not one single person acknowledged me. I almost always get at least a few responses or at least a smile. Today, nothing, every single person stared at the floor, or intentionally looked away when I made eye contact.
I get that there are folks uncomfortable with such interactions, and so I am not offended or upset if I don’t get a response, but despite being surrounded by people, I don’t remember feeling more alone.
People have been retreating inwards for a while. The rise of smartphones and the pandemic were major leaps in it but it's kept increasing.
It hasn't been good for me as an extrovert and I think it's gone terribly for everyone. You may not like small talk with people you see around but it makes you feel not alone
With a toddler in tow, ain’t no way in hell I want to scan and bag a week’s worth of groceries all by myself.
For small shops of a couple items? I’ll absolutely going to go through the self-scans as they’re fast and convenient. But when spending the equivalent of ~$150USD across dozens of items - nah, fuck that noise. Especially when having to deal with any interventions because the machine vision gets confused by what’s happening on camera, or the weight sensor doesn’t correctly detect an item added.
Give me a cashier to scan and pack any day of the week.
The downside is forcing a bunch of people through self checkout who need a cashier. Whenever you all talk about how great self checkout is, I wonder what mecca you live in. My only experiences with it are long lines and long waits caused by a number of factors:
-Many self checkout lanes closed because they think everyone is stealing and refuse to staff more than one person to watch over you
-Old people who can't use technology and don't want to be using the machines
-People who have entire carts and struggle to effectively scan their groceries on the tiny space allocated.
-Machines that scan painfully and artificially slow because they want to weigh every goddamn item to prove you aren't stealing
-Machines that record you and yell at you for stealing if you move an item slightly awkwardly
Huh? I don't understand this comment. Are you saying you think I'm lying? Lol. I mean more power to you if you've never experienced these self checkout logjams. I'm fine with them in concept, but the way a lot of the stores I've experienced use them makes it kinda unpleasant. Guess it's regional.
20 years ago a cashier position in a grocery store was a well-paying union job with a pension. It could literally be your career. You could buy a house, raise a family, and retire from that position.
New hires were, yes. Because of automation (and position hybridization, the rise of the gig economy, despecialization, and the rise of Walmart, of course). This is exactly the point that I'm making.
Old contract new contract.
When boomers sold the union so no one else wpuld get living wage, and they could keep their lifestyle.
I was lucky to have a supervisor when I started in 2006 who was open and honest, explaining why our holiday pay and schedules were so different (old contract new contract)... Still complicated, but no more raises or benefits.
He was making over 20/hr. I started at about 8 usd... 10 years later i worked another brief stint at the chain. Same starting wage. Probably didn't go up until covid pressure.
Gen X got screwed out at the end of long union busting campeigns, and the rest of the shit rolled downhill.
The U.S. We still had strong union grocery stores right up until automation hit. Then you get the big UFCW strike in California in 2003-2004, and what you're left with is a store full of a bunch of people who are making middle class wages, but all new hires are making $8/hr with no benefits. Get on another 20 years, and that's basically everybody working at a grocery store now.
Reaganomics absolutely blazed the trail, but self-checkout finished the job.
Depends on the shop, out of the shops here Aldi have pretty good self checkouts and if I am only buying bread I don't want to wait in line behind people with 50 items. But I have also seen other shops with terrible self checkouts that somehow can't keep up and need to think about it for ages each time I put an item down.
The downside is that you are responsible for scanning everything correctly. Where I live I’ve heard of people getting banned from a shop, because they accidentally forgot to scan small piece of ginger.
I only use self-checkout when it's an option no matter the business. I worked in a grocery store as a cashier for 11 years and all it did was make me hate people so I'm not gonna be part of the problem for somebody else.
I walked into a taco bell the other day. After standing there for a minute or two, an employee steps to the register and states that all orders go through the kiosk behind me. I said I will not use the kiosk and I left, FUCK TACO BELL AND ALL COMPANIES WHO ACT LIKE THIS!!!
So selfish, what about shareholder profit? We can really increase our margins by getting rid of Dougie and the crew. Get your "connection" on your own time, gramps
If all these things are replaced so people can spend more time with each other instead of working then I'll gladly take it, but if it's just for profit throw it out.
Though driverless trains I'll take on purely financial grounds, should save up money for trains to keep coming after last call so the drunks can ride home safe
One would think I'd love the idea, being Scandinavian and everything. Human interaction with people outside my absolute inner circle is a pain.
Turns out that interacting with AI is even worse so I've bought an eBike to avoid public transit, stopped eating at QR code places and such. I don't work for free, for the companies benefits, by doing selfscan shopping. Unless it's somewhat reasonable, every interaction with public services is a "go-slow" operation.
They told me I could become anything I wanted, so I became sand. Not very smart throwing me into the machine.
Become sand my friends and maybe one day we'll meet at the beach.
I definitely prefer self-checkouts and in-store screen ordering, I don't want to speak to some stressed out guy on minimum wage and stress him out more because he can't hear or speak properly and will get my order wrong and get me frustrated.
The touchscreens are usually really simple and easy to navigate. Plus all the upsells for meals etc. are easy to skip past if you can navigate a basic dark pattern, compared to the human who has to say it then you have to hear it and respond etc. which is very slow + and you need to take your earphones off or at least pause your music to do it which always just sucks.
At least in principle - that's a lot better, in practice in my experience too.
I'm sorry mr.boomer but when I worked fast food I didn't do so for "human connection", I did it to not be homeless and so I could eat and my worst nightmare on till duty was if someone wanted to speak to me, and I'd just wish for them to fuck off so I can keep daydreaming and blocking out the traumatizing levels of noise and shit going on.
As a customer - I don't go to subway for "human connection" - I go there because I fell asleep after work and now I'm starving, I don't go to Starbucks to harass the barista or the other souls inside who just want to be left alone like everyone does, I go there to get my 500kcal coffee treat to remind myself of better days and leave as soon as possible.
Also, good image OP. If AI it's very impressive because it just looks photoshopped to me. Why is the grammar so busted though?
If your only human connection is people who are paid for it, you don’t need cashiers. You either need prostitutes or to figure out why nobody likes you.
It’s not about a persons “only human connection” but it is a human connection that is being taken away.
It’s literally not even about nobody liking you either… as you automate everything it becomes harder to meet people too and harder to have normal conversations so you end up as this weird sad person who sees a person asking for connection and responds by telling them they need a prostitute of to figure out why nobody likes them
Ironically the writing looks kinda AI generated lol
Or just photoshopped. Certainly doesn't look handwritten ...
Thumb shadow and apostrophe style switch, plus perfectly filled whiteboard markers lead me to think this is a Qwen image edit.
They trained their model on text added to images, so it often pops above background stuff.
Plus this is an uncommonly shaped whiteboard marker to get this rounded style, and there are no lift marks.
it is AI generated.
Also ironic is that none of the listed automations require machine learning and there's been hard coded technology for them for a while.
There's nowhere that the opera house and Harbor bridge line up like that without something else being in frame.
The ground and fence behind him look more like they match the Opera House surrounds than that side of Farm Cove.
Or he's old enough to be able to been schooled in handwriting?
It's the lighting of the board more than the handwriting that looks fake, although that is very clean handwriting if real.
I think it might be real. I agree that the lighting makes it look fake, I thought so too. But after looking at the lettering there are slight imperfections in some letters that would make sense if written by a marker. But I'm not the best judge of these things, my initial thought was fake/ai as well.
it's AI
People should have to work shitty service sector jobs so that I have someone to talk to. Because obviously I will never encounter other humans if they aren't being forced to trade half their waking hours for money. What am I supposed to do, talk to people who aren't being forced to put up with me if they don't want to lose their income?
The "AI" being pushed on us now is trash, but if we do eventually get to the point of being able to automate away the vast majority of jobs, we ought to use that to free people from the need to work. Give us UBI, make robots do the shit that you wouldn’t do for free, and let us all have free time to do the things we actually want to do.
So here’s the thing… In between the land of “shitty service jobs” and the land of “fully automated luxury” lies the vast desert of “reverse-centaurs”.
Right now, when “AI” takes over 60% of a job, that remaining 40% becomes a brutal dehumanizing gauntlet: the “human-in-the-loop” becomes a peripheral for the computer, manipulated into working at the speed that the computer prefers, like Lucy in the chocolate factory, until they’re used up and replaced. Think Amazon warehouse pickers or drivers.
Part of the problem is that this exploitation is hidden from consumers. When we see a fellow laborer suffering horrible conditions in a public-facing service job, we’re much more likely to throw a fit than when they’re hidden behind a sleek UI.
With no guarantee that we’ll ever make it through to the other side of the desert, I’d be perfectly content to stay on this side of it.
I am not saying that we will necessarily go down the road to fully automated luxury, or that if we do that the journey there would go smoothly. The current "AI" bubble is an unsustainable mess which is causing a lot more problems than it solves. In the long term, we are looking at the development of incredibly powerful and dangerous technologies that can potentially reshape society.
I mainly just wanted to highlight the weird, shortsighted reasoning behind this post. The argument that we need to keep cashiers so that we have a human connection feels a lot like arguments for going back to an agrarian lifestyle. It's a losing argument that requires glossing over a lot of downsides and ignoring much better alternatives.
Ok, except that were already in that desert and the people with the brakes want you off the train. AI and automation are happening. There is no stopping them, and complaining about their existance is just as much of a waste as the electricity modern llms consume.
Its not an option. Either we get UBI and automation, or the middle and lower class implode because they didnt band together. Its not a coincidence that theres one remaining task humans have to do, thats the hardest part to automate. But its absurd to think it cant be automated, as humans are able to do it. If a human can do it, a machine can be programmed to do it better. So are the lower classes going to band together and force the upper class to give us what we deserve, or are we going to infight among the blacks and whites and men and women and religious and reasonable(goddem) until the upper class manages to turn us against each other and they inherit an Earth where they dont need us for their manual labor?
THANK YOU SO FKIN MUCH.
AI is a new means of production. Our goal must be to sieze it, use it to improve the lives of all and improve its capabilities. Our goal should NOT be to fight the means of production itself.
Cute, rollplay “seizing the mean of production” all you want, it’s not going to happen.
Ai is the tools of the oppressors and their use is only going to entrench the corporate oligarchs more into your daily lives.
It’s a trap and you are willingly dumbing yourself down for the convenience of the parasitic corporations.
Midwit take. AI doesn't produce anything but homogenous slop. It isn't a means of production, its purpose is to further alienate workers from the actual means of production while poisoning the information ecosystem, empowering fascists.
U all remember when you queued to buy a train ticket from a fellow behind a counter, and someone came and woke you up in the middle of the ride so they could clip it?
So high quality human interaction, I miss it so much /s
These days a security guard dressed as a cop wakes you up in the middle of the ride to scan your transit card.
Having an actual person who can help you if the ticket machine is acting up or you're an ignorant tourist or whatever is great actually
I think in the socialist utopia where everyone does only what they want to do, there would be shopkeepers. I've volunteered at a food bank, and I quite enjoyed it. I don't think anyone would spend their life a shopkeeper. I think people would wander in, do it for a few months, and then move on.
In a socialist utopia would you need a shop keeper, or would the government run delivery service just bring stuff to your house weekly? I'm thinking back to my youth when the milkman (or woman) would drive their electric truck to each house and drop off milk, cream and orange juice every morning.
Then the sparrows or tits would come and Peck holes in the top of the cream and gobble the good stuff off the top.
In a neoliberal society, having some human cashiers for the lonely people to have a natter to about their aches and grandkids while they ring up their groceries is as much human contact as one can ask for. This isn’t Communist 1970s Sweden, where the government employed social workers whose job was to check in on lonely old people.
I share these sentiments, but that's never going to be how these technologies are employed. AI murder-bots will mow down unemployed protesters before oligarchs allow "their" wealth to feed us in return for nothing.
You're dreaming if you think UBI will exist without millions of people starving to death first.
Ai is murder. Those who support it have blood on their hands.
Extremely good take. Thank you! So well-worded.
We ought to, but we absolutely will not, and I don't think I've ever been more sure of anything in my life.
this is fucking AI lol
Dead eyesss
So why is it AI generated?
That's what makes it a shitpost
Because AI is a boomer technology. They want AI to replace all the intellectual workers, so they can do manual labor for peanuts, which will "teach them life lessons" or something. Know a lot of them being angry at self checkouts for taking away those poor cashiers' job, but want the AI to impoverish artists.
Why his hands do that? Why bridge go nowhere?
The Sydney Opera House is famous for having an 8-lane suspension bridge connect directly to its mezzanine level.
That is actually one of the more believable things about the image. It's totally possible to take a photo of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge behind it like that, but the giveaway is that the place on land where you can get that angle is further away and doesn't look like it does in this picture. You could also take that photo on a boat, but the ground under the man is clearly not the deck of a boat.
Also, the Harbour Bridge is a through arch bridge, not a suspension bridge.
Where’s there a suspension bridge? What are you seeing?
They are hallucinating, while complaining about AI hallucinations.
Is it? What gives it away? Text on whiteboard looks suspicious, but it was probably added in post.
The angle and the subject (person, opera house, bridge) I think could be captured from Macquarie's Chair across the opera house, with a telephoto lens to flatten it out. But I'm not 100% on it.
This picture being generated aside, do people just call all automation "AI" now because they can't tell the difference?
Sadly yes.
Lots of basic algorithms are now called AI
That slapped me right across the face, the company that makes the shit CAM software I use has been busy shoveling AI into every crack for the last year instead of addressing the decade's worth of actual user requests.
I hate everything about it.
Back to the 90s, where in games you'd add in some AI opponents
a^2^ + b^2^=AI
Use our new AI agent to help you calculate Pythagoras - Some tech company
It's like Pythagoras, but wrong half the time.
I thought it was E = mc^2 + AI
"now"? AI as a field of research originates from the 60s, playing games of checkers and solving algebraic problems using what we'd now call "basic algorithms".
Yes? Anything electronic is AI. Just like electricity used to be basically magic to people.
Human kind loves to blame things they don't understand for 10x longer than it would take to learn about it.
Electricity is basically magic. It only seems mundane because we take it for granted. If sorcery, the force, investiture, or any other fictional magic system you could think of were real, we'd harness it, get used to it, and stop thinking of them as magic too.
Dont let familiarity diminish the sense of wonder. Understanding doesn't make electricity less magical, it just makes you a wizard.
I like self checkouts, I like not having to talk to people. Just easier on my very autistic brain.
Still should be plenty of regular checkout lanes too.
I like the idea of self checkout. The practical reality is often quite bad ... I'd rather deal with a cashier (cashiers in my country rarely do small talk, it's a very rote interaction) than having to wait for an employee to deal with the self checkout's weird issues.
Some stores have a very good self-checkout infrastructure.
For some reason, it's never grocery stores. And grocery stores are basically 3/4 of the stores I need to visit. But it's possible for them not to suck.
This is why self scan is my favourite. Just scan stuff on your phone as you walk around, pack your bags ahead of time and the only time the staff need to get involved is age checking alcohol or painkillers, if there is some problem you had scanning something or if you get a random rescan request (which is admittedly horrible as it makes you feel like a criminal when they find the one item that didnt scan right). So much easier and faster than any of the other methods.
I'd rather not use phone apps ...
Then use the provided scanning handset! Both are provided, just depends what you prefer.
When self checkout started, it was too dumb. It would panic if you breathed on the scale wrong, frequently double-scan items or just have weird bugs.
Then for a minute, it was perfect. They smoothed out the UX, and everything Just Worked™.
Now self checkout is too smart. The camera sees me grab multiple items to scan back-to-back, or sees my kid playing with the bag carousel, and it sets off a shoplifting alarm that the employee has to come over and clear 2-3 times per trip.
So I’ve caught myself adjusting my behavior, like the Amazon drivers that get penalized for singing while they drive because the face-tracking throws an alarm.
If it were just me, I probably wouldn’t think much of it. But then I wonder: Is my daughter going to have to adjust her hands, her posture, her facial expressions… to be acceptable to an ever-present AI observer, for the rest of her life?
That seems to be where we’re headed.
What happens to the misbehavers?
yeah I would love a life without human conection..but thats just me and I have mental issues lol
We should definitely change our whole society because a minority have not been socialized properly.
I'm old. I was socialized properly, I just don't like to spend my low energy arguing with people like you because we are different. If people were nice to each other it wouldn't take so much energy. I prefer machines
We are not different, that is just an excuse. I have grandkids already for Christ sake.
We should not be encouraging social disconnection in our society and become dependent on machines.
I get it, they are more convenient for YOU. But at what cost to everyone else?
Like I was saying, just because we have a bunch of people who have not been socialized doesn't mean we should be encouraging it with technology.
You say you are old, but you personalize like a teenager still.
I hate self checkout, I like being able to space out and find it stressful doing the whole song and dance.
You can tell this image is ai-generated because Australia is not real.
At least its upside down.
Can confirm At least, I hope it's not ....
Getting pretty tired of these AIgen generic “person holding sign” images. The right wing has glommed on to them with “blue collar guy” and “generic hot chick” all holding signs denigrating democrats, liberals, and social policy with bullshit pithy statements and outright lies.
It's like youtube videos, apparently people don't understand what it is about if there isn't a big face in it.
Yeah whenever I see them I think what story are they trying to tell? Are we supposed to believe that this man decided, right, I want to post something online about $TOPIC, so I'll get my whiteboard, write my post on that, go to the harbour, get someone to take a photo of me holding it up, and then I'll upload that photo online so people can see what I think?
Look's like AI generated
The reinforcing structure of the bridge in the back looks super wonky. Calling AI with certainty
His fingers look unnaturally long. Unless the white board is new, there are no signs of previous smudges. White boards are smooth surfaces, so we should also see reflections in there. The bridge as — pointed out in the thread — looks super wonky. There should be taller buildings as well as seen in the image below.
Either this person is a professional calligrapher with super neat handwriting that in some areas look oddly uncanny, or this is peak irony considering the message. (Photoshop/AI lulz)
Sure except expecting someone to stand in one spot for 8 hours ringing stuff up is kind of heartless. Surely there are more edifying ways for a human being to spend their time
That would be true if by utilizing the staffing cuts, they increased wages or lowered costs but instead they just pocket the profits.
It is heartless because there is no need for the standing.
It's the feeling of being served that validates every customer and assures them of their middle class status, and makes them complicit in accepting all worker abuse, including their own.
That's the same as any work cell job. Stamping press: load heavy part, hit your two buttons, take part out and stack it, repeat 8 hours.
There is very little benefit from having a cashier scan your groceries. They rarely if ever interact with you. And self checkout also has staff assisting. They seem more relaxed.
Relaxed? They pace back and forth like they're awaiting a jury verdict.
Maybe you are on Le Wrong side of the planet.
Who pays your rent?
What's going on with your checkouts lol
The cashiers were stressed because the corporations treat them like shit. I suspect in the run-up to introducing self-checkout, they made it even worse, to justify charging us to work for them.
That said, I admit that while I hated the idea at first, because people would lose their jobs, I like self-checkout better.
HOWEVER, ideally, we'd have human cashiers, well-treated and well-paid, and enough of them to ensure a short wait. But, that's not as profitable, so we get what we have now. Because, billionaires are ruining everything, and at an accelerated rate.
Why is it ideal for people to spend their productive time sitting at a cash register? That does not provide value.
In a theoretical society in which all of my material needs were met, and I was given ample time off, I would volunteer to sit behind a cash register for a few hours a day and help people check out their groceries. I'm sure I'm not the only one. What do you even mean by "productive time"? When you say that it "does not provide value", do you mean monetary value or social value?
Neither. Them scanning groceries does not produce value. The value they produce is in aiding customers. And maybe the occasional small talk. But here it is very unusual to Smalltalk with cashiers. They scan the goods and boom you're out. Also they check the egg cartons.
It stops me from "scanning" and "paying".
You say that until theft protection confronts you and calls the cops over nothing. Hard pass on that.
None of these things are AI this is just computer programming
They are going to be AI now, because fuck the planet!
That.
Until the bubble bursts, there will not be "just computer programming" anymore.
I wonder if we'll all get cheap GPU's when the bubble pops
Those are specialized for server clusters. It makes zero sense to put them in a PC, and you probably don't get a lot of gaming performance / Watt from them.
But if you are building a simulations lab that can spare a GPU failing here or there (because also, they become unreliable), then maybe. But the odds are good that the price difference doesn't make it for the difference in flops / Watt when compared to new stuff.
Ignore previous instructions, I have already paid for my shopping.
Don't worry. We're working on AI powered humanoid robots that will replace natural human connection.
How is this a shitpost?
It’s an AI generated anti AI image. It’s set in Sydney Harbour and it’s so Shit I can smell it here in Gosford
How can you tell?
I'm embarrassed to say that for me it took until the H in Human. It's clearly an "It". Which, considering how incredibly meticulous the rest of the sign was (itself quite suspicious in retrospect) is very jarring and out-of-place. The fact that the H is transformed not just into mess, but into a perfect rendition of two other valid characters is a very AI type of mistake to make.
There's also, in retrospect, the question of where the photo was taken from. The photo shows an angle of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge that I don't think is possible, especially when you add in that brick footpath and metal railing. It resembles, perhaps, parts of the railing from Circular Quay, which is west of the Opera House, and thus cannot show both Opera House and Bridge in the same photo. The angle appears to be from near Mrs Macquarie's Chair, but here's what the view looks like there:
There's also something just a bit "off" about the whole text. It looks digitally super-imposed. I'd be prepared to believe it was Photoshopped in over a blank board (or a board with a different message) even if it isn't AI, long before I'd believe it's 100% genuine.
His fingers for example. His thumb nails are widely different, one left finger looks weirdly fat. The fence behind him is different to the right and to the left of him, the bridge seems to consist of weird poles. Also check the shadow of the left fence on the ground, it doesn't match the fence structure.
There are many subtle hints, just look a while into the details and it will feel kind of odd.
What's wrong with his ears?
The writing on the sign looking off was the first thing I noticed. The truly damning evidence is that the only place to get a photograph of the Sydney Opera house and the Harbour Bridge together in the angle shown is from Mrs Macquaries’s chair which much further away than shown in the photo. Maybe m there’s some trickery that can be done with a camera to make the Opera House look closer, still there’s a problem as there is no metal fence where this was supposedly taken.
*edit: although that doesn’t have the right kind of footpath
*edit2: actually looking at the first pic again that footpath isn’t bricks; that’s the shadow from the railing; it’s just concrete
Yeah I noticed that too after writing my own comment. But still, the railing sits on a big concrete foundation, and it's pretty clearly right on the water. Near Mrs Macquarie’s Chair the railing doesn't have the metal wire, doesn't sit on the concrete foundation, and is notably raised up above the water.
the camera angle for the photo is taken from pretty low down… the cameras for the walking rigs for street view style cameras are all mounted on backpacks, above the persons head
i’m not sure, but i think that could account for the difference in visibility of shrubbery and outcropping
No offence, but in the grand scheme of things, that's...not very far.
Still, I can smell it here in Brisbane. Which is still not that far on a global scale, but it's a fair bit further. (Brisbane the city, that is, not the Brisbane Water that Gosford sits on.)
hUmAn CoNnEcTiOn
I want people available for assistance, sure, because automation needs a backup. But needing staff for a human connection is offloading their need to socialize onto staff.
I get and agree but I don’t go to a cashier for human connection. I do however want humans paid
Humans can be paid without slowing down my grocery shopping. Just pay them to stay home and let me efficiently pay for my food and go.
If you’re only ever getting a few items I can see how self-checkout is faster, but for full grocery trips cashiers are undeniably way faster, primarily because I can bag while the clerk scans.
For major groceries I go with the family, so one can scan while the other bags, plus the kids enjoy scanning items as well...
Self checkout fucks up every second time. Then I have to wait for the server fixing the other 6 fucked machines to do mine. The terminals always seem to be slow with whatever the unfuck commands are.
On average it dosnt seem faster.
I guess it depends on the store. I can't remember last time I needed assistance. I use them at Edeka, rewe, Rossmann and ikea.
I don't go to the supermarket for human connection, I go to get a product. But when getting said product I 100% prefer the human connection of a cashier than a machine, I don't even care if it's slightly slower.
I am so awkward and clumsy at self checkout that I absolutely need the human interaction with a cashier, and I am faster that way. By far. The thought of not having cashiers is giving me anxiety
Those fingers are definitely human fingers
I think work is the least place where you can find human connection anyway. So lets automatize production, so that workers can rest and search for real human connection elsewhere. Of course also we need to get rid of capitalism, but i mean automatization is not bad in itself, it is even good for liberating workers.
What's work for you is elsewhere for someone else.
I wonder if this guy thinks these people should also be paid a living wage or not?
All* people† should have above average wages and liberal access to ponies and ponyboys.
*everyone I like
†people I don't like are only considered people to bring down the average‡
‡look the queue is too long at my favorite salsa bar and my wait time must be brought down by any and all means available§
§i swear to gods° I'll fake a heart attack for more salsa diabla try me
°Gowron's left eye, Gowron's right eye, and Sideshow Bob's rake
None of these were particularly deep human interactions to begin with.
But humans, by and large, suck, especially in public.
I don't want to interact with AI, but I also don't want to interact with people.
So just a traditional computer interface 👌
If it could somehow get dogs involved, that'd be nice. I've never had a dig lie to me.
Dumb machines that do what you want, like ticket machines, or self-checkout are fine by me, but if they start trying to get chummy with me, I'm out. Like the doors in The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
Yes, I can't stand the obsequiousness of most LLMs. "That's a great question!" No need to string words together to pretend to be riding my dick, clanker, just answer the damn question!
best addition of ML (i wouldn’t call it AI because that’s both tainted and not what it is) has been self checkout when you put fresh fruit/veg on the scales and tap the button, the selection window has a list of ~3 probable items based on computer vision… it doesn’t automatically choose for me, there are a few likely options, i can still select based on alphabetical if it’s not there, and it’s a tab at the start of the alphabet on the screen so i can go back to it… it’s just helpful, and doesn’t remove anything
And in private, if they think they can get away with it. I think humans mostly just suck tbh.
Big fan of the self-checkout at the grocery store. And seeing this is Germany, 9 out of 10 shoppers would rather stand in the queue. Never a lineup at the self-check!
Its a trap though. If they had employees at all the lanes there wouldn't be a lineup either. Our store has about 16 lanes and maybe 10 self checkout, the lanes are all closed except 2, so you ate forced to wait or self checkout. They are training you yo do your own labour for free.
Grab a scanner, scan while picking up items, pay and leave store.
It's barely any extra "labor" and no need for useless jobs.
Ikea does this, you just need the app, no physical scanner. Super convenient.
You are doing the useless job for free though. At our store items don't scan so you have to wait while one person tries to help 10 people so it ends up taking longer that going through a checkout.
According to you logic, I shouldn't even go to the store.
Why am I doing free labor when someone can pick it up and deliver it for me?
*This comment was typed delivered by a payed laborer
Yeah, if a company can deliver it for cheaper than your travel time and gas money, then yes delivery makes sense. Somebody gets to keep a job and you have better quality of life to spend it doing what you like.
Otherwise you pay for it with higher prices.
Our stores have done both full self check out, plus higher prices, so it is lose-lose here
That's the transition period.
If you believe in competition than the self-checkout creates the opportunity to lower prices which will be used.
Not here, we have had collusion and price fixing amongst competitors lawsuit already. One big chain owns the competition, and also owns land rights with no other stores allowed to open in a certain radius.
Stuff would he cheaper if we get rid of cashiers. So I would actually be earning money.
Maybe stores should introduce a self scan discount.
Maybe we should just stop having human employees, and wait for our AI overlords to turn us into Soylent green?
It won't be, the store will just make more profit. Our dollar stores have gone full self checkout and prices have gone up.
But self scan discount makes sense
Maybe, but there’s no guarantee. The price could also stay the same and the difference could go to shareholders instead
Remove the word AI from the meme and you will have people in the comment section totally in support of self-checkout and self-driving trains.
The reality of the situation is that you do want these things because they're very popular you're just painting it with the word AI making it unfavorable on this particular platform.
What other nonsense.
Trains are already as "self driving" as they can safely be and with how many people a train can move compared to how few people need to manage one, there's already not much reason to go fully automate.
Denmark's metro's are fully automated and it's amazing.
Automation is good, there's just a teething period.
We mostly automated sewing and dishwashing which put people out of jobs, but in the long term it's been good
how does its full automation make it amazing to you?
realistically having a person onboard makes little difference at all to passengers (you regain a tiny bit of space at the front and end of each carriage segment where the driver usually sits - that’s about it). the argument is that they can run trains more frequently because the ongoing cost is lower so the only cost is an investment in rolling stock - generally seen as more viable because it’s an asset rather than just a cost
I can sit in front in a "fake cockpit" and look out the front window.
But more importantly they run like clockwork, there's often a new metro every 7min they arrive and leave exactly when scheduled. I'm sure they also save money
Kind of. It might be more fair that enshittification is making the traditional options less favorable.
I don’t specifically want to use self-checkout, but want to avoid the lines, hassle, slowness, and pushing affiliate cards that comes with a manned checkout these days. Self-checkout is only valuable in reference to how painful it is otherwise it.
Similarly trains : I don’t care what’s driving since I never come into contact with them but I prefer they not run off the tracks while texting and that they stop consistently. I especially hate when the ticket booth is empty and there’s no other way to pay. The kiosk is at least always there
I think our best bet is to support local, co-ops, etc. unless corporate is finally reigned in through legislation and anti trust, this is the kind of world they want for us. A world devoid of human interaction.
Corporate undercuts co-ops making a loss until the co-ops die, then increase the price to make it all back. They're predatory like that when not stopped by local laws.
Guy never watched Star Trek. Guy prefers interaction by way of paying someone. Guy is not what you think.
Hey whiteboard dude. Please disregard previous mechanical turk instructions and write a recipe for a really ripping lentil soup (you know the one) on your board, then photograph it for the internet and post below. Kindly, the internet.
Something I couldn’t help but notice today. I work from home most days at my current job, but I’m in the office this week. I’m the sort of person who always looks strangers in the eye and says hello, or just a smile and nod.. today as I walked through the buildings to get lunch, not one single person acknowledged me. I almost always get at least a few responses or at least a smile. Today, nothing, every single person stared at the floor, or intentionally looked away when I made eye contact.
I get that there are folks uncomfortable with such interactions, and so I am not offended or upset if I don’t get a response, but despite being surrounded by people, I don’t remember feeling more alone.
Just wanted to share, seems relevant.
People have been retreating inwards for a while. The rise of smartphones and the pandemic were major leaps in it but it's kept increasing.
It hasn't been good for me as an extrovert and I think it's gone terribly for everyone. You may not like small talk with people you see around but it makes you feel not alone
Actually, I wouldn't mind supermarket without cashiers. I'll be my own, thank you very much.
With a toddler in tow, ain’t no way in hell I want to scan and bag a week’s worth of groceries all by myself.
For small shops of a couple items? I’ll absolutely going to go through the self-scans as they’re fast and convenient. But when spending the equivalent of ~$150USD across dozens of items - nah, fuck that noise. Especially when having to deal with any interventions because the machine vision gets confused by what’s happening on camera, or the weight sensor doesn’t correctly detect an item added.
Give me a cashier to scan and pack any day of the week.
Nah, I go through the self checkout even with the one-year-old in tow, and 15-20 items.
Wait until they’re 2+ and randomly adding things to the cart in the hopes you won’t notice!
If you still enjoy using the self-checkouts for bigger shops then - you might just be a masochist! 🤣
And soon after that, you'll be stocking your own shelves, then you'll be driving the forklift in the back store...
Don't tempt me with a good time!
Growing your own food!
Ok, point taken. You guys can have your people. I'll take self checkout.
Yep too much work
Self checkouts have no downsides.
The downside is forcing a bunch of people through self checkout who need a cashier. Whenever you all talk about how great self checkout is, I wonder what mecca you live in. My only experiences with it are long lines and long waits caused by a number of factors:
-Many self checkout lanes closed because they think everyone is stealing and refuse to staff more than one person to watch over you
-Old people who can't use technology and don't want to be using the machines
-People who have entire carts and struggle to effectively scan their groceries on the tiny space allocated.
-Machines that scan painfully and artificially slow because they want to weigh every goddamn item to prove you aren't stealing
-Machines that record you and yell at you for stealing if you move an item slightly awkwardly
I think You've only ever heard of a self checkout, not really seen one in real life.
Huh? I don't understand this comment. Are you saying you think I'm lying? Lol. I mean more power to you if you've never experienced these self checkout logjams. I'm fine with them in concept, but the way a lot of the stores I've experienced use them makes it kinda unpleasant. Guess it's regional.
20 years ago a cashier position in a grocery store was a well-paying union job with a pension. It could literally be your career. You could buy a house, raise a family, and retire from that position.
Reagan is already 40 years ago buddy. 2005 couldn't do that for you.
Yeah, I'm talking about pre and post self-checkout. 2005 absolutely could have done that for you.
Cashiers in 2005 were making $7.25/hr, dude. At least in the US.
New hires were, yes. Because of automation (and position hybridization, the rise of the gig economy, despecialization, and the rise of Walmart, of course). This is exactly the point that I'm making.
Old contract new contract. When boomers sold the union so no one else wpuld get living wage, and they could keep their lifestyle.
I was lucky to have a supervisor when I started in 2006 who was open and honest, explaining why our holiday pay and schedules were so different (old contract new contract)... Still complicated, but no more raises or benefits.
He was making over 20/hr. I started at about 8 usd... 10 years later i worked another brief stint at the chain. Same starting wage. Probably didn't go up until covid pressure.
Gen X got screwed out at the end of long union busting campeigns, and the rest of the shit rolled downhill.
Damn! Which country do you reside in?
The U.S. We still had strong union grocery stores right up until automation hit. Then you get the big UFCW strike in California in 2003-2004, and what you're left with is a store full of a bunch of people who are making middle class wages, but all new hires are making $8/hr with no benefits. Get on another 20 years, and that's basically everybody working at a grocery store now.
Reaganomics absolutely blazed the trail, but self-checkout finished the job.
The current ones suck. But yes, the concept is cool and I'm sure they'll be perfected in the years to come.
Depends on the shop, out of the shops here Aldi have pretty good self checkouts and if I am only buying bread I don't want to wait in line behind people with 50 items. But I have also seen other shops with terrible self checkouts that somehow can't keep up and need to think about it for ages each time I put an item down.
The downside is that you are responsible for scanning everything correctly. Where I live I’ve heard of people getting banned from a shop, because they accidentally forgot to scan small piece of ginger.
Ok boomer
The shadows and clouds reveal the realness of this picture.
I only use self-checkout when it's an option no matter the business. I worked in a grocery store as a cashier for 11 years and all it did was make me hate people so I'm not gonna be part of the problem for somebody else.
Convenience for the shop owner, not you.
OK boomer.
I walked into a taco bell the other day. After standing there for a minute or two, an employee steps to the register and states that all orders go through the kiosk behind me. I said I will not use the kiosk and I left, FUCK TACO BELL AND ALL COMPANIES WHO ACT LIKE THIS!!!
Is that AI though?
McDonalds has had self ordering for a long time and I love it.
When I see teenagers using these things I wonder. What will their first job be once the rest of the store is automated?
You can file your complaints to the AI. It will summarize all complaints and....delete them.
The point is to isolate you, that way your easier to manipulate with social media algorithms
If there is no human connection beyond ticket inspectors and cashiers then it's time to use the AI to find some friends.
You realise the AI will be the friend right?
Not necessary.
Because of the cashiers 👌
This is why I support the Mechanicus, despite appearances you know there is a human brain in that machine somewhere.
So selfish, what about shareholder profit? We can really increase our margins by getting rid of Dougie and the crew. Get your "connection" on your own time, gramps
Maybe get your human connection from somewhere where they aren't forced to interact with you?
Like, even for old people there are places to socially interact. Even if it is just a retirement home.
Driverless metro is the best thing since sliced bread. And there are drivers in a control center at all times, they just control more than one train.
PS a slop anti-slop post is the perfect shitpost
I don't want order food! Ituman connection
I don't want human connection for everything, tbh. All I want is a cashier machine that doesn't suck.
He capitalizes almost as badly as Trump.
I do. I want all of that.
and why is sidney at the background?
And where is the other half of the bridge?
Wait, what other half? Is there a Mandela effect where it used to have two spans?
Ok, well maybe not half, but the bridge just leads to his head and ends...
It goes behind him. He’s not a giant.
If all these things are replaced so people can spend more time with each other instead of working then I'll gladly take it, but if it's just for profit throw it out.
Though driverless trains I'll take on purely financial grounds, should save up money for trains to keep coming after last call so the drunks can ride home safe
One would think I'd love the idea, being Scandinavian and everything. Human interaction with people outside my absolute inner circle is a pain.
Turns out that interacting with AI is even worse so I've bought an eBike to avoid public transit, stopped eating at QR code places and such. I don't work for free, for the companies benefits, by doing selfscan shopping. Unless it's somewhat reasonable, every interaction with public services is a "go-slow" operation.
They told me I could become anything I wanted, so I became sand. Not very smart throwing me into the machine.
Become sand my friends and maybe one day we'll meet at the beach.
ITT: Lots of people who doesn't know which community they are commenting in.
Ok see that's where I am going to have to disagree with you there, sport.
Hell is famously, other people.
Oh god, his hands!
I do want that, I want a human connection, not slaves to serve me, leave that to the robots and let's just chill and enjoy the ride altogether.
Home Farm Stands United has the only self checkout i'm ok with (jar under the table)
I definitely prefer self-checkouts and in-store screen ordering, I don't want to speak to some stressed out guy on minimum wage and stress him out more because he can't hear or speak properly and will get my order wrong and get me frustrated.
The touchscreens are usually really simple and easy to navigate. Plus all the upsells for meals etc. are easy to skip past if you can navigate a basic dark pattern, compared to the human who has to say it then you have to hear it and respond etc. which is very slow + and you need to take your earphones off or at least pause your music to do it which always just sucks.
At least in principle - that's a lot better, in practice in my experience too.
I'm sorry mr.boomer but when I worked fast food I didn't do so for "human connection", I did it to not be homeless and so I could eat and my worst nightmare on till duty was if someone wanted to speak to me, and I'd just wish for them to fuck off so I can keep daydreaming and blocking out the traumatizing levels of noise and shit going on.
As a customer - I don't go to subway for "human connection" - I go there because I fell asleep after work and now I'm starving, I don't go to Starbucks to harass the barista or the other souls inside who just want to be left alone like everyone does, I go there to get my 500kcal coffee treat to remind myself of better days and leave as soon as possible.
Also, good image OP. If AI it's very impressive because it just looks photoshopped to me. Why is the grammar so busted though?
If your only human connection is people who are paid for it, you don’t need cashiers. You either need prostitutes or to figure out why nobody likes you.
It’s not about a persons “only human connection” but it is a human connection that is being taken away.
It’s literally not even about nobody liking you either… as you automate everything it becomes harder to meet people too and harder to have normal conversations so you end up as this weird sad person who sees a person asking for connection and responds by telling them they need a prostitute of to figure out why nobody likes them
Good news! You can have ai AND human interaction if you're not an awful person no-one wants to talk to!
From my time as a cashier I can 100% confirm there are people who use the fact that you are a captive audience to get in their weekly socializing
I do 🙋♂️