Sabri wrote:
>>Today, I went to Home Depot to buy some halogen lamps. After
>>I picked up the lamps, I proceeded to the check out area and
>>came across this automated cashier there: You scan your own
>>items, swipe your credit card and all.
>>
>>What will happen to the human cashiers if one of these days
>>these automated ones replace them?
Seth wrote in reply:
>The Home Depot example you mention is striking. I noticed it
>a month or so ago in Sacramento. We are seeing the rise of
>dead labor (machinery) and the demise of living labor
>(people).
I first saw this last Yule season, at the Loblaws (Ontario grocery
chain) at a downtown Toronto "superstore."
Big open area to scan. The store designers placed it in full view of the
main entrance/exit.
My kids (under 10) were with me -- they gave it a thumbs up. They got to
scan and bag the items.
As we were doing it, there were many perplexed folks arriving/exiting --
and looking on. I would hear them whispering to each other, trying to
figure it out. Then, inevitably, realizing it was "self scanning."
In terms of what will happen to the human element of ringing in and
bagging... I suppose it will replicate what bank machines did to bank
tellers. Reduce their number.
I don't see that as bad, of itself. But, in the context of a world in
which that saving of mundane human labor is usually squandered into
unemployment insurance stints, desperation, and other wastes of life and
energy... it won't help anybody in this lifetime.
But nothing wrong with losing the cashiers and bagboys of the nation.
They can't be relocated to Indonesia.
Ken.
--
It is a principle that shines impartially on the just and the unjust
that once you have a point of view all history will back you up.
-- Van Wyck Brooks
"America's Coming of Age," 1915
