Amazon is removing the ‘Just Walk Out’ technology from its Amazon Fresh stores. The technology allowed people to enter a store, grab what they wanted, and leave without checking out. Receipts were sent to the customers afterwards. The Just Walk Out system, which was considered a triumph of technology and AI when it was introduced in 2018, actually relied on manual human labor, and it has now come to light.
Amazon claimed in a report in The Information that it employed a number of cameras and sensors throughout the store to monitor what customers grabbed. However, the e-commerce giant also used hundreds of Indian workers to track customers instead of relying exclusively on AI and technology.
An army of over 1,000 workers, sitting in India, took on the role of remote cashiers to check what customers were leaving the store with, according to The Information. Cashiers’ work was effectively outsourced to India, resulting in the undercutting of local jobs.
Now, after five years, Amazon has decided to stop using the Just Walk Out technology in its Amazon Fresh stores, as it was becoming too time-consuming. The outsourced workers, who are located in India, apparently took hours to compile the data they collected. The data was utilized to create receipts that customers would receive at a later time.
Amazon says that the Just Walk Out technology will now be replaced by smart carts that allow customers to skip the checkout line and also see their spending in real-time.
While redesigning Fresh stores in the past year, Amazon spokesperson Carly Golden said the company heard from customers who enjoy skipping the checkout line but also wanted to view their receipts and savings as they shopped. Golden said that smart carts will provide customers with these benefits as well as the convenience of skipping the checkout line.
Just Walkt Out was billed a self-checkout system powered by cameras and censors, giving the illusion of an automated system.
Amazon had claimed: “The feat is a combination of computer vision, object recognition, advanced sensors, deep machine learning models, and generative AI—a type of artificial intelligence that has recently captured the public’s imagination.”
Jon Jenkins, vice president of Just Walk Out technology had said: “Our tech is able to distinguish shoppers from one another, without collecting or using any of their biometric information. Just Walk Out technology detects when a shopper’s hand interacts with a product on the shelf. When that happens, machine learning algorithms make sure the correct item is added to the virtual cart—all without any specific knowledge about the person.”
The truth however is a little less exciting.
A report in Gizmodo states: “Just over half of Amazon Fresh stores are equipped with Just Walk Out. The technology allows customers to skip checkout altogether by scanning a QR code when they enter the store. Despite its automation, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to guarantee accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped.”
Further reports state that it was a very expensive affair to maintain the equipment, and included a host of issues such as receipts being sent late to completely wrong orders. Basically, instead of having a cashier, a vast array of equipment was needed to do the same thing, and offsite cashiers were needed to do the same thing.
Reports further indicate that Amazon is now considering moving towards Dash Carts, a technology that has an in-built scanner and screen built into the cart.
Gizmodo was informed by an Amazon spokesperson that they are introducing Amazon Dash Cart to replace its Just Walk Out technology.
Just Walk Out was first introduced in 2016. According to a report in The Information, 700 out of the 1000 Just Walk Out sales required human intervention.
X users have a field day
Another user wrote: “Amazon billed its “Just Walk Out” stores as some triumph of AI. In reality, it was powered by thousands of low-paid Indian workers manually adding up items in your cart as you shopped. How insanely dystopian.”
Another pointed out: “It seems that in this case, “A.I.” stands for “Actually, we just relocated the cashier jobs to India”.”
A third said: “We’re gonna see more of this as AI spreads: technologies that promote efficiency by getting rid of superfluous jobs but actually just shuffle people out of view so companies can cut wages for the same position.”
