This is for dynamic pricing
Cut pieces of paper with a 90 degree fold.
Place them on the shelf with the fold in front of the camera.
Bonus pts if you buy a cheap box of lil (low power to avoid accusations of attempted property damage) magnets to keep em there.
If I ever end up back in a Walmart and see these, I’m definitely setting something in front of them.
I stopped going to the major grocery chain here because they got rid of their 50% off stickers for food about to go past the sell by date.
If they did this I wouldnt just stop going there, Id fucking nuke it.
It must take a lot of compute to have AI review all those cameras and calculate surge pricing. I wonder where they will find it?
The cost of AI to do all this will be higher than any profits they could possibly make, but the managers who came up with this shot already committed and in the end they can just put that cost on the consumers anyway
One man’s cost is another man’s profit.
At some point, Walmart execs sitting on a pile of NVIDIA stock won’t see this as a loss for them. It will just become an excuse to trim spending - on healthcare, on wages, on wholesale costs, on maintenance of their fleets and facilities - everywhere that isn’t AI.
What the actual fuck
My first thoughts exactly word for word.
The closest store to my house is Walmart, so unfortunately I go there pretty regularly. They just rennovated. I’m going to have to see if they did this.
People are stealing sugar?
I’m not a scientist or anything, but that seems like really bad news
I’m guessing the cameras track your gaze, and they use that to decide what people are most interested in.
Seems easier to just look at how many were rung up at the till…
Interesting.
If it’s only a couple, could be surveillance. If they’re all over the place, they’re probably doing stock checking or shopper heuristics. They’re probably local AI just reporting back either where people are stopping, what they’re picking or if the shelves need attn.
If you wanted surveillance you’re better off with 4k zone cameras in the ceiling, cover the store with a couple dozen wide angle
Porque no los dos?
Walmart shoppers will put up with anything
I mean, yeah.
Wal-Mart caters to people who will buy cheaper things no matter what, whether that’s because they’re desperate or disinterested in how that impacts their world.
It’s like saying NASCAR fans like seeing cars go fast; that’s basically the whole point.
The cameras beep at you too
Perfect, draw my attention so I remember to fuck with it
Funny thing is, the regional grocer in my area has cameras up all over the entrances and parking lot. In my situation, there is less surveillance at Walmart than the “other guy”.
Surge pricing, here we come!
Kroger stores are especially bad
Oh, these Cheerios are too bulky! I guess I’ll just place them here, right in front of this electronic eyeball. Pure coincidence.
Oh I got nail polish on my finger accidentally. Good place to wipe it off.
Accidentally.
Find the peanut butter aisle. Then make all the aisles peanut butter aisles.
Do we have a “boringdystopia” instance on Lemmy yet?
Thoroughly illegal in the EU. Luckily Walmart doesn’t operate there.
I’m interested, what makes it illegal?
(likely) face identification and other surveillance of regular customers, if any data at all is created by that and analyzed or stored by anything that is a grave GDPR violation. Surveillance cameras for larger areas can be allowed but only to record for cases of legitimate control, no automated analysis nor data transfer to god knows where.
Personalised pricing is illegal as well in a supermarket. Digital price tags are allowed (and common) but there are clear rules how often prices are allowed to change. I’d have to research it myself but I think not more than once a day.
It wasn’t luck. They tried and failed, on account of how many of their normal practices are illegal in the EU.
Part of it was illegal, part of it was that their way of doing business pushed people away. Suppliers didn’t want to negotiate with Walmart and workers generally weren’t desperate to work there.
Sounds like two sides of the same coin.
I still have rather fond memories of shopping at Walmart in Germany. Tho I was a child and it always was more of an experience than a chore. Then Wexit happened and the world’s gone to shit ever since
Not yet, at least. It seems that they operate almost everywhere else though
They actually tried it in the EU but failed hard.
This is why they’re losing to Amazon.
No it’s because their website sucks
