Amazon Go … away
Happy Days! Amazon just opened its first grocery store that functions with basically no humans. Other than the shoppers. You just use the handy dandy app for your cellphone, let them know who you are, then a few hundred cameras track your every move from aisle to aisle, shelf to shelf, vegetables to fruits, meat counter to bathroom, noting what you pick up, what goes in your cart, what you put back, then bills you for what goes out the door. Let history note that this is where retailing started to lay off its human workforce completely. Let it also note that this is where we humans gave free rein to total and constant surveillance. If you’re okay with absolute monitoring in the grocery aisles, count on cameras pretty much everywhere.
Anonymity, thy name is mud. Stamp a number on my forehead and share my digital information, why not? We are a willing populace, I’ll say that. If it makes life easier to shop, what a small price to pay, this loss of privacy. You might even argue those checkout people who will soon be laid off can now look for more meaningful employment. Fat chance. They’ll be in the unemployment line with the taxi drivers, bank tellers, truck drivers, surgeons, CPA’s, fast food workers, half the present workforce. But hey, I won’t have to put down my cellphone and interrupt my conversations at the checkout line to some cheerful clerk who wants me to say hello or asks how my day is going. A little busy here….
The one glitch in Amazon’s master plan toward world hegemony is this: you still need to show your I.D. to a human being if you purchase alcoholic beverages. Yes!! Bubble gum in the gears, Bezos!!
So fellow humans, those of you who haven’t abdicated your gene pool, you may yet save our species from the robots, the Artificial Intelligence advocates, the corporate Big Brothers, the Damn Government. Buy Beer! Everyone buy beer and wine!!! The future of Homo Sapiens is at stake here. So what if the result is epidemic alcoholism? To paraphrase Patrick Henry, Give me beer or give me death. Fight for Humanity. Amazon … go away.
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Tags: Amazon Go stores, Brave New Grocery