Amazon is building stores without cashiers and checkout lines. USA Today reports:
Amazon is testing a grocery store in downtown Seattle that lets customers walk in, grab food from the shelves and walk out again, without ever having to stand in a checkout line.
Customers tap their cellphones on a turnstile as they walk into the store, which logs them into the store’s network and connects to their Amazon account through an app.
The service is called Amazon Go. It uses machine learning, sensors and artificial intelligence to track items customers pick up. These are then added to the virtual cart on their app. If they pick up an item they later decide they don’t want, putting it back on the shelf removes it from their cart.
Across the internet, pundits are wringing their hands about what this means for the supply of low-skill jobs. And they’re right to be worried. Amazon already uses robots for inventory management in its warehouses. Soon, both behind-the-scenes and customer-facing retail operations will be automated.
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