Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology is touted as an AI-powered checkout system at its Fresh grocery stores, but new reports have claimed it used 1,000 people in India to monitor buyers.
The company is now walking out on its own the technology that promised an innovative alternative to cashiers by using cameras and sensors to scan each item and is switching to a self-checkout shopping cart called Dash Cart.
An Amazon spokesperson said they do have people watching cameras at Just Walk Out locations to annotate video images, but claimed the associates aren’t monitoring customers.
Amazon is discontinuing its Just Walk Out technology in the 27 Amazon Fresh stores its used in across the US
Amazon Fresh is replacing Just Walk Out with Dart Cash that has a scanner and screen on shopping carts to let customers keep track of their spending
The Information first reported that Amazon’s artificial intelligence technology just meant outsourcing hundreds of jobs overseas to workers who can watch you shop in real time.
Amazon has referred to Just Walk Out as ‘a combination of sophisticated tools and technologies that added items to the shopper’s ‘virtual cart’ when they take an item off a shelf, and remove it when they put it back.
According to its site, by adding the technology it wasn’t removing employees, it was only ‘shifting’ the way they spend their time by assisting customers, stocking shelves, and answering questions.
However, new reports claim that Amazon has instead added workers in India to watch the cameras in Amazon Fresh stores and even add shopper’s items to their virtual cart.
Amazon spokesperson Sarmishta Ramesh vehemently denied the allegations in an email to Dailymail.com.
Ramesh wrote: ‘We DO NOT have people monitoring cameras,’ and labeled the employees as ‘Machine Learning data associates’ whose ‘primary role is to annotate video images.’
Annotating video images includes training AI-powered algorithms to recognize objects on the screen.
Reports claim that Amazon has 1,000 employees in India monitoring shoppers through cameras in its Amazon Fresh stores
Amazon denied the claims and said its employees were only annotating the video images
Ramesh said annotating the videos ‘is necessary for continuously improving the underlying machine learning model powering Just Walk Out technology.’
She added that the associates ‘may also validate a small minority of shopping visits where our computer vision technology cannot determine with complete confidence an individual’s purchases.’
When it released the technology, Amazon claimed it was ‘a combination of computer vision, object recognition, advanced sensors, deep machine learning models, and generative AI.’
The ‘Just Walk Out’ feature is being discontinued in all 27 of the company’s stores that house the technology – there are 44 Amazon Fresh stores across the US.
As the company rolls back on its Just Walk Out technology in its Amazon Fresh stores, it is instead introducing smart-shopping carts, called Dash Cart, which allows buyers to purchase their items using an embedded scanner and screen.
Ramesh said Amazon is moving to Dash Carts to give customers ‘the ability to easily find nearby products and deals, view their receipt as they shop, and know how much money they saved while shopping throughout the store.’
Customers previously complained about Just Walk Out, saying they were charged incorrectly or it took hours after leaving the store to receive their receipt.
Some shoppers were also concerned that the company was using shopper’s biometric data despite assurances by Jon Jenkins, the vice president of Just Walk Out, that the technology doesn’t collect or use biometric information.
Amazon had previously been accused of not informing customers that it was using its cameras and sensors to measure the shape and size of each person’s body as they entered the store.
The biometric data was reportedly used for identifying and tracking purposes and led to a New York class action lawsuit by customers who said Amazon violated the state’s Biometric Identifier Information Law.
According to the law, businesses are required to tell customers if it’s collecting their biometric information.
Peter Romer-Friedman, an attorney representing the plaintiffs told The Seattle Times that ‘Amazon owes its customers an explanation about how it’s operating these systems before people enter — so that people can decide for themselves whether they want to provide measurements of the size and shape of their body as a condition of getting a sandwich.’
Although Just Walk Out won’t be offered in Amazon Fresh stores in the US, it will still be available at Amazon Go stores and smaller Amazon Fresh locations in the UK.
