Amazon Go Store Is Open, With All Of Its Frightening Implications

The prospect of Amazon opening a physical store where customers can just come in to purchase goods without having to deal with cashiers has been in the public sphere of consciousness for some time. Now that the first Amazon Go establishment is finally open in Seattle, the dream has just been made a reality. Some see the development as an opportunity while others consider it a nightmare.

As Bloomberg reports, the new Amazon Go store could be the first in a new storm of retail trends to take over the industry. While it is still in its early stages and adoption is expected to be slow since this is a brick and mortar arrangement, the advantages in terms of convenience and the absence of long lines could make the store a winning concept.

Then again, there are also some rather disturbing implications that come with all of those benefits. As Popular Mechanics reports, the whole thing works via machine learning and computer vision.

Customers walk into the store, get scanned to have their own QR codes, which will then trigger the store’s cameras to start monitoring what they do. The technology is apparently so sophisticated, it can recognize individual products as customers take them off the shelves, which they will then place on that customer’s bill.

Once the customer is done, all they would need to do is walk out of the store with their items and the machines will charge them accordingly. Such an arrangement has staggering implications for retail stores and not all of it is good.

There’s the matter of privacy, for example, which can never be possible inside an Amazon Go store or any store equipped with such advanced camera technology. Everything would be up for analysis and deconstruction within its field of view, even for those who are outside the premises. The fact that people could be potentially fine with this in exchange for the convenience is also what has experts worried.