Automation
October 3, 2021
As of May 2021, there are 250 companies all geared towards self driving cars. Automation is a huge trend in technology that we've seen over the past couple years across so many different industries. We have automation in self driving cars, surgery, and manufacturing. These areas have all been affected by automation, but an area that interests me is automation in food service, specifically AmazonGo.
AmazonGo
Amazon created the first automated grocery store that uses "Just Walk Out" technology. When you enter the store, you scan your AmazonGo app and the technology-filled store automatically knows what items you pick up. As soon as you have everything you need, you just walk out through the turnstiles and your account is automatically charged. No cashier needed!
I was really curious about how exactly this technology works, so I did a little bit of research to see how they automate this complicated system. There are so many factors that come into play that it would take lots of behind the scenes technology to get this to work. For example, what if you come into the store with a sibling or friend and you are shopping together. How does the store know to charge the same account? What if you change your mind about an item and put it back? What if you put it back in the wrong spot? What if you want to return something after you buy it? How does the system know you are you and not someone else?
I was really curious about how exactly this technology works, so I did a little bit of research to see how they automate this complicated system. There are so many factors that come into play that it would take lots of behind the scenes technology to get this to work. For example, what if you come into the store with a sibling or friend and you are shopping together. How does the store know to charge the same account? What if you change your mind about an item and put it back? What if you put it back in the wrong spot? What if you want to return something after you buy it? How does the system know you are you and not someone else?
I found answers to some of these questions in my research, so I wanted to share. The biggest question for me was how does AmazonGo know you are you? With the help of YouTube, I found that Amazon uses something called computer vision to identify people walking in the store and track them as they pick up items. I thought this was facial recognition at first, but it seems like they take a couple different identifying features (hands, tattoo, glasses, hat, etc) and use that to track people around the store. This is also supplemented by deep learning algorithms that learn more about you each time you visit the store and sensor fusion that takes weight and pressure into account.
Ethics
If facial recognition was used, this would be a huge ethical problem. That would mean Amazon can track you, learn your habits, and store that information somewhere. Privacy is a big concern for people, and Amazon hasn't always acted in the public's best interest (ie. Alexa listening and storing information). It's not clear how much information they store from the Go store or how they would use that information if called upon by law enforcement.
Let me know if you've been to an AmazonGo store or if have any thoughts about consumer facing automation.