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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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I just read a short article in an email newsletter that threw out this statistic with regards to automation in the food industry:

Between March and July 2022, an average of 760,000 people quit jobs in accommodation and food service

The article goes on to argue the point that due to all of the ‘quiet quitting’ and generally unsatisfied workers after the pandemic or over the last couple of years, automation will not be as big of a deal as we thought. I’ve seen this sentiment echoed a number of times recently where news outlets will talk about how all of the people worried about economic disruption from robotics and Artificial Intelligence don’t realize that it’ll actually be great because people hate working anyway.

I used to believe these claims when I was a disillusion young adult who hated working, but overtime I’ve gotten more and more skeptical. Many people I know take serious pride and work, and in fact for a lot of people their work is the most important thing in their life. I’m talking people who don’t even really need the money, or who claim that even if they had enough money to retire they would continue working just as much as they do now.

Is this recent trend of less engagement with work robust enough to offset the rise in automation of jobs? Is this just a cope from those who know their jobs will disappear soon? (Ie email newsletter writers)

Personally I’m surprised that artificial intelligence hasn’t gotten more flack than it has so far. I expected the lights to come out in full force and at least get some sort of ban on image generation (I know Getty or some other site has done this) but so far it seems that artificial intelligence is generally unopposed.

Any major salient examples of automation technology or artificial intelligence being banned to protect jobs?

My experience is that the quality of customer service, the number and quality of employees, and the convenience and reliability of store hours have all gotten worse (nothing is open late; stores close sporadically). Also, things like self-checkout have pushed labor onto the customer. Personally, I like having the option, but it makes things worse when self-checkout is the default.

It's kind of like a reverse price gouging. Retail isn't colluding to fix prices, but rather seems to have unilaterally decided to not compete anymore on the customer experience front. It's just dropped off a cliff. I see more of this trend in our future, not automation. We're going to find out how poor of service Americans will tolerate before we reach a new equilibrium.

Often it's faster for customers by not having to wait in line , so the tradeoff is worth it

In my typical experience, self-checkout is about as slow if not slower. 1-3 machines down out of 6-12 across two sections (one notionally reserved for express). 1-2 helper/assistant types who are supposed to resolve errors, handful special case errors like WIC cards/coupons or confirm the shopper can purchase a semi-restricted item (cold medicines/alcohol) get easily overwhelmed by a handful of issues assuming they are there to do that instead of called away to deal with something else/shooting the shit with a coworker. Any sort of error is a hard stop and the wait for the person to notice/finish dealing with the three other problems adds up. The systems have so much lag built-in since you have to wait between scans for the system to confirm you put the thing in the bag zone that even if you were of the same skill level as someone paid to run a check-out register you'll still be slowed down. Of course these days even cashiered check-outs are slower compared to when bagging was a common minimum wage job for high schoolers. It's downright depressing going through stores with 10 check-lanes with only two of them manned.

At my local supermarket I can scan items off the shelf with my phone, put them right into my bag, and when I'm done shopping I pause briefly to scan a checkout code posted near the door. Then I leave.