A couple stand to my right at the self checkouts.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
They scan and then bag what is clearly a handful of tomatoes, but inevitably the screen pauses and a red light flashes.
"The new algorithm wants to make sure they're tomatoes," a polite staffer says, confirming that those red orbs are indeed tomatoes and dismissing the error code.
Eyes are already on the big supermarkets for price gouging, but I can't be the only shopper also frustrated by having our groceries scrutineered by some AI-driven robot overlord?
I was vehemently opposed to the self checkouts when they were brought in, I used to enjoy the five-minute chat with some of the staff that I knew by name as they scanned through my weekly shop.
I've since grown to appreciate the convenience of the self-serve for grabbing the necessities and getting out of the store quickly.
However, I hate when some computer chip decides that I'm trying to be dishonest because it can't decipher human movement.
I get my cat those individual meal tins and it's normally easiest to pick them up three or four at a time to scan them through like a juggling act from one hand to the other. Occasionally the screen will freeze and shows me a photo of myself holding multiple tins in one hand like that's a crime.
And I'm almost certain it would be a similar feeling for that couple innocently weighing their tomatoes when a computer decides they're smuggling apples or bouncy balls or some other red circular product.
So while a series of inquiries works to prove that we can't trust the big two, they're working equally as hard on distrusting us to do the work they thrust upon us.
Either we can scan our own groceries like adults, or maybe the big two should use those exorbitant profits to employ enough staff to run more checkouts again.
Jacob McMaster, Editor