Amazon made a splash launching automated grocery shops in 2020, but behind the curtain of the hyped-up automation appears to be standard capitalist cost-cutting and exploitation.
You could go to Amazon Fresh shops, put your shopping in your trolley and cameras tracking your every move would use AI to detect what items you buy. Amazon wouldn’t have to pay ‘expensive’ shop workers who demand things like breaks and decent pay.
But in the majority of cases, it turns out, instead of computers working out what you were buying, it was outsourced workers in India. The over 1,000 workers, likely paid lower wages than Amazon would have to pay in Britain, have turned out too costly themselves. Amazon is ending this scheme, to be replaced by making shoppers scan their own items!
This is how technology is used by capitalism; to drive down costs, generate buzz to raise share prices, and increase exploitation to generate greater profits for a few.
