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I work for a supermarket that's recently rolled out AI chatbots to "help" customers find items in store instead of asking staff. (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world
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[–] 33 points 1 year ago (11 children)

This is another case of really not needing ai 😅

Target literally tells you what aisle everything is on in the app. Just put the data in your website or some shit and then put kiosks around with the website

Or people can just talk to an actual human being and ask them instead. I kinda hate that society is being increasingly designed around people being antisocial. I have social anxiety, I don't need help with not talking to humans, I need help with talking to them more often

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I mean.. this. Supermarkets aren't that big. If you're recording where everything is shelved (and that's a big IF, I doubt it's worth it), then a good old search will do the trick just fine.

    But also, forget even asking. I would assume supermarkets want you to roam around the store looking for things, because... well, that's how you bump into crap you don't need and buy it anyway. Seems like a weird lose/lose.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    About the “wanting” you to roam. I don’t know if it’s practice everywhere, but my old supermarket reshuffled their sections every year or so (not majorly, just a little but) to make you look again for the product you wanted and encourage you to try out new stuff you hadn’t noticed before. While I felt it was a hit manipulative, yes, supermarkets want to you search for items.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    I did this job once long ago... but it has more to do with the companies and how much they paid to have a certain amount of space and at what level, and to add and remove new products... but yeah sometimes they just moved a whole section to another isle that wasn't fun...

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    If you’re recording where everything is shelved (and that’s a big IF, I doubt it’s worth it),

    Last summer my cousin worked the night shift stocking shelves at a local "superstore" and yeah, they have some database that printed out sheets telling them where a given pallet needs to be shelved. Dunno about smaller stores.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    I kinda hate that society is being increasingly designed around people being antisocial.

    I like it in some ways, but in many it's just freaking sad. Every time I go to my local grocery store, people would rather wait 5 minutes to start self checkout rather than zero wait to have a person check them out. I find it really bizarre. I highly doubt most of those people have the levels of legit social anxiety I have. I don't really have an explanation other than they're used to avoiding people. Maybe COVID has a lot to do with it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I think it's just becoming more and more normal for people to find it slightly more stressful, draining, or mentally demanding to interact with other people, and so avoid it kinda reflexively when they can

    And perhaps it's not until that feeling gets to a point of causing impairment (as is the case with social anxiety) that you're forced to grapple with how much is lost when you don't interact with others

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    where are you going that the self checkout lane is longer than in person? a lot of people seem to hate self checkout for no good reason

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    At my supermarket 5 minutes before closing time. Because the glory coin counters take time to clean/close, they close them ahead of time, so the self checkout lane has only one unit to use while all the human cashier are free

    I personally hate the self checkout if it's one of those with the super sensitive scale where if a particle of dust lands on the item shelf, it then complains "put back the item on the shelf" and I'm forced to wait 2 minutes for the operator to unlock it. If I buy deli items It Always fails because it reads from the barcode it's 200 grams but with the package it is actually 210 grams

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Why does it matter where? The grocery store has usually about 4 humans running cash registers yet the several self checkout machines cannot keep up with the demand. There will be a line of 20 people at pretty much all times.

    Also I think people hate self checkout lanes for good reasons but I'm not sure why you bring that up as I'm pointing out that this isn't seen by people's actions in my experience

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