Comment on Local Walmart just installed cameras in the aisles…

Folstar@lemmus.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The cost of AI to do all this will be higher than any profits they could possibly make, but the managers who came up with this shot already committed and in the end they can just put that cost on the consumers anyway

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  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    One man’s cost is another man’s profit.

    At some point, Walmart execs sitting on a pile of NVIDIA stock won’t see this as a loss for them. It will just become an excuse to trim spending - on healthcare, on wages, on wholesale costs, on maintenance of their fleets and facilities - everywhere that isn’t AI.

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  • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You vastly underestimate how cheap and prevalent that sort of AI stuff already is. The upfront costs are high, and there’s usually some sort of ongoing support cost, but it’s been much cheaper than people since ~2020 and it’s only been getting more prevalent and miniaturized.

    I’d encourage you to peruse everseen.com/solutions for some dystopian horrorshow. That is one of the companies that Kroger and Walmart ‘leverage their capabilities from’.

    There’s also the b2b quid pro quo investment schemes already mentioned.

    And also that retail insurers are one of the major ones helping to ‘drive adoption of these innovative ermergent technologies’ as both the retailers and insurance are constantly trying to scam each other for profit ‘maximize the potential earnings from their synergistic, mutually beneficial, relationship’.

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    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      You do understand that many of the claims made about what AI can do ate extremely overstated at best?

      AI companies have an extreme circular investment scheme going on and for the bilkuins invested with only a fraction of the running cost coming in, even investors are starting to get itchy. I give AI a full 6 more months before the entire bubble (or ponzi scheme even, at this point) pops and will come crashing down, taking enyitr economies with it.

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      • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        You do understand that many of the claims made about what AI can do ate extremely overstated at best?

        Yes, and that is arguably the bigger problem. They’re very careful to not mention any hard numbers on the actual reliability, but if we give it a very generous 80% accuracy in detecting “customer shrinkage” and assume that the error is split evenly into false positives and false negatives that’s a 10% of every time you go into a store to buy things getting put into the shoplifter database(assuming the facial recognition is 100% accurate, which again: fucking lol). At which point the retailer’s internal reports show an increase in the amount of customer shrinkage.

        This creates a vicious feedback loop of increased shoplifting reports, increased demand for shoplifting solutions, increased false data, increased shoplifting reports, etc… This resulted in a lot of store closures back in 21-22 and is a crucial part of that “circular investment scheme” you mention.

        Of course the error rate isn’t evenly distributed. It’s heavily concentrated on people that “look like criminals” ie, poor, black, young, hispanic, disabled, etc.

        The entire “western” economy is ~90% ponzi scheme. The “AI bubble” is a bit lazier of one than usual but it’s not to play out any different than the “dot com” bubble.

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