Self service checkouts
There are two problems with SSCs - but one of them isn't really a problem with SSCs as such, but a problem with all automation.
The first problem is that at least in my experience they don't work very well. I can hardly remember a time when a session with one of them didn't involve a member of staff coming to my assistance at least once. I believe that there are technical problems with the design and that these can be ironed out. In the meantime, there will still have to be human trouble shooters / assistants to get the sessions over successfully.
The second problem is automation doing people out of work. The problem here lies with the logic of the economy rather than SSCs themselves.
Automation has been taking over human work for a long time and will continue to do so for a long time yet and I hold that this is a good thing, because:
1) The reason for doing work should be that it needs doing and not that someone should not be able to subsist unless they work.
2) If a machine can do the work it should be allowed to, especially if it is more efficient.
People should be able to subsist without having to do work to get money.
To examine this matter in more detail with reference to checkout staff requires breaking down what they actually do.
The most obvious activity is the swiping of bar codes across a bar code reader and the hosting of payment transactions. This is the mundane part of the job that most lends itself to automation.
In the world of SSCs, staff are needed to help when things go wrong with a session. This is more likely to happen with new users and with people in a certain demographic - elderly most obviously - who tend to struggle more both conceptually and actually with new technology. This element of the role will diminish over time but perhaps never disappear.
Now it maybe that there are people who work in this part of the shopping process who say they like their job and that's why they don't want it automated out of existence. But what they like, I expect, is helping people and/or just dealing with people at a personal level. They tolerate the mundane bar-code scanning as that part of the job hasn't been unbundled successfully at least in the minds of some customers and staff.
Now if people were paid a universal / unconditional basic income, they wouldn't have to do a mundane automatable job just to subsist. Shops, however, if they are wisely managed, will not want to alienate the older customers by having systems that they can't comfortably operate and by removing the human interaction that they are probably starved of. So the shops would perhaps offer to pay people to be around to give direct assistance or just friendly banter/conversation. The customers who value the human contact particularly will use the shops where this is best managed and the people who like providing the human touch are presumably already motivated to provide it and the benefit of extra money will add a further incentive.
This is one example of where automation and UBI can work hand in hand to improve daily life for may people.
The first problem is that at least in my experience they don't work very well. I can hardly remember a time when a session with one of them didn't involve a member of staff coming to my assistance at least once. I believe that there are technical problems with the design and that these can be ironed out. In the meantime, there will still have to be human trouble shooters / assistants to get the sessions over successfully.
The second problem is automation doing people out of work. The problem here lies with the logic of the economy rather than SSCs themselves.
Automation has been taking over human work for a long time and will continue to do so for a long time yet and I hold that this is a good thing, because:
1) The reason for doing work should be that it needs doing and not that someone should not be able to subsist unless they work.
2) If a machine can do the work it should be allowed to, especially if it is more efficient.
People should be able to subsist without having to do work to get money.
To examine this matter in more detail with reference to checkout staff requires breaking down what they actually do.
The most obvious activity is the swiping of bar codes across a bar code reader and the hosting of payment transactions. This is the mundane part of the job that most lends itself to automation.
In the world of SSCs, staff are needed to help when things go wrong with a session. This is more likely to happen with new users and with people in a certain demographic - elderly most obviously - who tend to struggle more both conceptually and actually with new technology. This element of the role will diminish over time but perhaps never disappear.
Now it maybe that there are people who work in this part of the shopping process who say they like their job and that's why they don't want it automated out of existence. But what they like, I expect, is helping people and/or just dealing with people at a personal level. They tolerate the mundane bar-code scanning as that part of the job hasn't been unbundled successfully at least in the minds of some customers and staff.
Now if people were paid a universal / unconditional basic income, they wouldn't have to do a mundane automatable job just to subsist. Shops, however, if they are wisely managed, will not want to alienate the older customers by having systems that they can't comfortably operate and by removing the human interaction that they are probably starved of. So the shops would perhaps offer to pay people to be around to give direct assistance or just friendly banter/conversation. The customers who value the human contact particularly will use the shops where this is best managed and the people who like providing the human touch are presumably already motivated to provide it and the benefit of extra money will add a further incentive.
This is one example of where automation and UBI can work hand in hand to improve daily life for may people.
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