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Storelift Launches Autonomous Convenience Stores Using AI and Computer Vision (venturebeat.com) 25

Posted by BeauHD from the no-humans-required dept.
schwit1 shares a report from VentureBeat: As physical retail struggles amid the global pandemic, storeowners are rapidly trying to adapt to new realities that also include growing competition from Amazon. But a French startup called Storelift believes it can create a new convenience store concept that leans on many of the same AI and computer vision tools used in Amazon Go stores to reinvent the shopping and checkout experience. This week, Storelift announced that it has launched its first two stores under the name "Boxy." The Boxy stores are repurposed shipping containers that can be plopped down in various urban neighborhoods that lack good shopping options. The founders believe their approach demonstrates how businesses can exploit new shopping niches with the help of sensors, data, and AI that allows them to optimize their inventory and reduce costs.

To shop at Boxy, a customer downloads the Boxy app on their smartphone and then scans the QR code to enter the store. When customers take a product, it is identified through the computer vision algorithms and the weight sensors on the shelves. When the customer leaves, they scan their QR code again and checkout happens automatically. The key to improving efficiency is the data the company is collecting as people shop. The shelves that detect weight, along with computer vision cameras, know when a product is picked up, looked at, and then either put in the basket or back on the shelf. In some cases, because the company knows a customer is possibly interested in a product, they can offer a discount on the spot to nudge them along. Internally, the company's machine learning system is analyzing gestures and decisions made by the customer to suggest improvements in product selection, pricing, and placement.
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Storelift Launches Autonomous Convenience Stores Using AI and Computer Vision More

Storelift Launches Autonomous Convenience Stores Using AI and Computer Vision

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  • So, the more you automate, the more you put low-skilled workers out of work but they still need to eat and they still need to make money to pay for all the things that now come with monthly fees and they still reproduce. So you'll eventually end up with a whole lot of people who can't support themselves.

    • We're soon coming to a point where a license/permit will be required to have a child* and approval will depend on your education, income/debt, etc.

      * limit of one child per couple.

    • Nah, they'll just pop into the automated convenience store and rob it blind. xD

    • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by Gravis Zero ( 934156 )

      So, the more you automate, the more you put low-skilled workers out of work but they still need to eat and they still need to make money to pay for all the things that now come with monthly fees and they still reproduce. So you'll eventually end up with a whole lot of people who can't support themselves.

      This was always going to be the endgame for capitalism. Capitalism is a system that rewards cost optimization and automation is the most cost effective method of production. Optimizing large amounts of people out of jobs was never a question of 'if' but 'when'. The only real question has been if we will tell them to die in the streets for not being able to integrate into a heavily automated world or if will we provide for them.

  • The shelves that detect weight, along with computer vision cameras, know when a product is picked up, looked at, and then either put in the basket or back on the shelf. In some cases, because the company knows a customer is possibly interested in a product, they can offer a discount on the spot to nudge them along. Internally, the company's machine learning system is analyzing gestures and decisions made by the customer to suggest improvements in product selection, pricing, and placement.

    In that case, I'll take a product off the shelf, put it in my cart, continue shopping, then pick up that same product again, look at it, frown, shrug, and put it back on the shelf. Then wait for the algorithms to give me a discount on it to nudge me along.

    • I'm already doing this with Amazon but with mixed results. I added something in my shopping cart two days ago, it was was 20 dollars. The next day, it went up to 25. I pushed it down to my "buy later" list and today it went down to 22. It's like they think I don't remember it was at 20 when I first added it.

      • So basically in reality we are headed for more automated hell, where it's our responsibility to prove we have been charged for something we did not buy. Because the company has no person there, there will be no witness to the fact that we did not actually walk out with said product. Something like back in the mail order CD and DVD days, where they would blindly mail you a 'sample' and then insist you got it and you owe them... full retail price.

        Yeah, sounds way more convenient. Sounds like the future.

    • I'll take a product off the shelf, put it in my cart, continue shopping, then pick up that same product again, look at it, frown, shrug, and put it back on the shelf. Then wait for the algorithms to give me a discount on it to nudge me along.

      If they come to Britain, this is what's going to happen:

      'Storelift' will soon become known as 'Shoplift' among the nation's youth.

      Kids (from 'various urban neighborhoods that lack good shopping options', and armed with an encylopedic knowledge of product weights) will take the product off the shelf, put it in their cart, continue shopping, then take that product out of the box, replace it with garbage of equivalent weight, and put it back on the shelf. Then wait for the algorithms to give them a 100%

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        Amazon opened their first 'Go' store a block from our office, and for the first several months it was opened for Amazon employees only.. Since we work in physical security several of my co-workers decided to see if they could cheat the system (this was expected by management). In two weeks of trying, alone and in groups, they never managed it.

        Don't know how well Storelift works, but I think you'll be surprised.

  • Good news: You all get $15/hour
    Bad news: You're all fired

  • Pretty much Day One someone will be walking in there and walking out with half the inventory and nothing will stop them, no one will be able to figure out who it is.
    • And you, the customer, will be paying for it forever more.
      • No. They'll close it down. Or defeat the whole purpose of it by having someone sit there and monitor things.
        I'm not going to be a customer of something like that anyway. I don't even own a smartphone, how could I?

  • I hope Shoplift...err,sorry - Storelift's AI systems are top notch.

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