Rise of the Machines

Speaking of which, what I hate are the stupid self service checkout machines you see at CVS, supermarkets and many other places.

They always have pricing issues, need approval from someone on a special deal and constantly require workers in store to code things in.

This was all intended to eliminate workforce and has been a constant disaster.

 

The less people I have to deal with when shopping the happier it makes me. When self checkout starts trying to make random conversation with me then I'll be done with self checkout also.

And at least you get a discount for using self check out.

 

Just wait until the Ai in those robots find out they are making half of what the humans are. We'll have a worldwide robot strike.

 

Where?

 

Anywhere they have self checkout, the stores may not like it if they find out though

 

I have been using self checkout whenever I can for years and do not believe anyone has ever given me a discount for the privilege. I never realized I was supposed to arrange it myself.

 

I always find it very stupid when bank tellers get snotty and would tell someone they can do it at an ATM. Way to buy into your lack of being needed at the company.

 

"You know you can do this with your account online..."
"Yeah, but I'd rather come here (I'm right down the street anyway) and help keep your jobs"
"Oh, it won't effect our jobs"
"REALLY?.... There used to be 5 people working here, now there's 2"

.... awkward pause

 

I look at the robots that roll around Stop and Shop and I think "AI is no threat, no problem at all."

Then I read about the idiot who had her AI write a draft thesis for her (for itself), which got approved after she got the AI's consent to submit it and I think "we are totally fucked and it's just a matter of time before our robot overlords begin the extermination process."

Seriously, life eats life. It's what life does. Creating an artificial life form and gifting it with sentience is just asking to get pushed down the food chain.

The AI manual is a cookbook and it's going to have a lot of idiots enabling it over the next 50 years or so. 51 years from now we will likely all be hiding under rocks.

 

Notice how many fewer manned lines there are at Walmart these days? Every month they add more automated checkout lines.

 

I already try to not patronize WalMart as much as possible, but the last time I had to go out of neccessity, may have been the last.... 1 or 2 "manned" registers, 20 empty ones.... and 20+ customers in multiple lines to use "self-checkout".. FUCK THAT PLACE

 

I hear ya.. Up here, there used to be manned toll booths on the Turnpike. Not anymore as all of those union workers were replaced by lasers that read pods on your dash OR takes a picture of your plates for billing later. AI is the biggest threat to the working man in over a century.

 

The dangerous incidents so far have all involved academia/corporations.

Not to say you are wrong but there are thousands of individual attempts at AI now taking place under academia and the corporate sector and probably just a few in the government sector in the West.

In China and other national programs you probably have many more attempts taking place however the controls and reporting are more centralized and the penalties for making a wrong move are much harsher.

 

The experience at the manned lines has also gotten worse. I can’t stand when they just ring things up at any register and don’t say anything. Tell me what it costs and then I pay for it. Rather than forcing me to assume you’re done ringing it up. I do appreciate self checkout for quick shops though.

It’s also nice that Wegman’s has now completely stopped bagging your groceries with the introduction of the no plastic bag rule in Jersey.

 

You want to know real hell? The town I live in plastic straws are illegal. You can only get paper straws.

Plastic bags are like gold. Need to cross town lines to get those.

 

After an AI bot wrote a scientific paper on itself, the researcher behind the experiment says she hopes she didn't open a 'Pandora's box'
https://www.insider.com/artificial-intelligence-bot-wrote-scientific-paper-on-itself-2-hours-2022-7?am