QR codes are good aren’t they? Little weird black and white things that look like nothing, but stick your phone camera over one and bang - website. The modern barcode - black and white, scannable, and to the innocent human eye they all look the same. Although saying you think all QR codes or barcodes look the same to a computer is probably the same as saying to a devout sheep farmer ‘how do you know which ones which’. To you they might all look black, white and symmetrical but the trained eye can tell wooly from dolly or a cut price lasagne for 1 from a packet of crisps.
Scanning machines are probably not far off being able to reply to us if we were to speak to them. I mean they already have a voice. Admittedly most of the time it’s telling you about unexpected this or that. Or worse still, that you need to get your age approved for tonights lucky dip or, god forbid, some off-the-shelf paracetamol. This age checking ritual now requires you stand there like a hapless 4 year old waiting on his mummy to tie his shoes as you wait for approval.
I imagine the next stage of scanner chit chat will be snarky comments about the volume of Wensleydale you’re purchasing. ‘You have now purchased 2kg of dairy related cheese products, are you sure you’ve scanned correctly?’. Yes I have thank you very much, I’m not some yobo trying to scan through a PS5 as a bunch of bananas - the Wensleydale and cranberry is just that good.
Of course this will be presented like it’s a ‘more human’ advancement in the AI scanning world. A more ‘personal touch’ to your shopping. Relaying a series of programmed-in phrases based on your purchasing habits, in an attempt to make you less depressed about the lack of daily human interaction. In reality it will just be asking the local drunk if he’s ‘got a big party planned?’ as he stashes up for the night.
Now I’m sure people will be saying it’s better for everyone because queues are down yada yada, and if they really want to speak to a human they can still go to those queues. But isn’t that a bit grotesque? ‘This way for fast, efficient, cold, empty scanning’ or ‘This way for an actual human interaction - current wait time 30 minutes’.
It’s hard not to feel like supermarket scanners (and their creepy voices) are just the latest (in a too-long-running series) instalment of ‘Efficiency über alles’ - slowly eroding the intangible pleasures of living in the name of our merciless efficiency overlords.
We’re heading that way anyway, why not just sack off all human facing work? QR codes and AI machine service everywhere. Retail is halfway there already. A bricks and mortal store in 2022 acts more like a drop off zone for the unwanted dregs of the latest online ‘haul’ anyway.
If we’re lucky robots will take over and none of us will ever have to work again. We can all, instead, bask in communist dream land, where there are enough robots-replacing-humans to make Karl Marx cum.
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