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Walmart might be pioneering a way to to take jobs away from human and robots alike.
One of the major problems people have in America is the fear of something or someone coming to take their job. The popularization of the self checkout lane rubbed a lot of people the wrong way since it seemed to promote the idea of robots replacing actual humans in jobs that serve only the Walmart overlords.
It’s not like a robot needs a paycheck, where the single mother needing to feed her family does.
But now humans and robots share a similarity — they’re in danger of losing their jobs to a superior technology.
According to Engadget, the new Walmart app feature will help speed lines up by taking away the need for a cashier. This is already sort of a thing thanks to the invention of the self checkout lane, but things appear to be heading a step further down the A.I. line.
Walmart is in a position where they need catch up with the suddenly changing marketplace. Before, it was all about selling online to compete with Amazon and other digital retailers. Now Amazon is setting up physical locations where customers walk in and walk out with their items without ever standing in line. The transaction is completed through scanning the QR barcode on your Amazon app, which already has your credit card information stored.
Seeing that this is probably the way of the future, Walmart is rolling out a similar idea that should be perfected by March. But this now means that cashiers and their self checkout replacements are in the same boat of losing their value to something new.
Leave it to Walmart to find a way to unite the world in such a bizarre way.
