Walmart is developing a robot that identifies unhappy shoppers - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-is-developing-a-robot-that-identifies-unhappy-shoppers-2017-7 https://static.businessinsider.com/image/596f773c552be58e008b52d2-1200/image.jpg Walmart is developing facial recognition technology to detect frustrated or unhappy shoppers. The technology uses video cameras at store checkout lines that monitor customers’ facial expressions and movements to try and identify varying levels of dissatisfaction, according to a patent filing. If the system detects an unhappy customer, it will ping employees in other parts of the store and order them to report to a checkout register, in the hopes of alleviating shoppers’ distress.

I'd fucking hate that. I generally don't look "happy".

Hopefully it'll just tell them to get the fuck out of the store. Most of the time when people are mad at the registers in Walmart. It's either A: Crack-head. B: Caught Stealing C: Throwing a fit to get something for free.

If I'm not happy the rest of the time why would I be unhappy in Walmart?

The poor thing will never get a break. They're in Walmart. They're literally all unhappy. No one at a Walmart is happy. Not the customers, not the workers, not the fucking spiders living between the shelves. I'm pretty sure part of the process for opening a Walmart is to use the tears of puerto rican orphans to invoke foul hexes upon the land so as to drain the souls and joy out of everyone who approaches.

BE HAPPY. YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS TO COMPLY.

Haha watch employees scatter if you set off this thing. Fuck dealing with upset customers. That's a party I actively avoid as long as I can.

I'm not sure if it's because my brain was somehow turned into scrambled eggs, but I'm not that expressive when I'm not interacting with another person. What exactly am I supposed to do to appear "happy" to appease the T-800? Grin like that Jeff the Killer screamer at all times? Spraypaint the sides of my mouth so I look like the Joker? I really don't get it. If I need assistance finding/lifting something I'll flag down an employee. Maybe it could act as a mobile radiopiece to do so, but flagging them down for me without input so they can "make me happy" just seems like a waste of resources that'll piss off the employees AND customers when an "unhappy" customer really doesn't need anything, and the employees are left holding their dicks doing nothing while I explain to them that the robot got its readings wrong.

*Smiley face sticker belt-fed machine gun cocks*

"Hello, I am friend shopbot, I am here to make sure you are happy!" "Unhappiness is treason, treason is punishable by death." "Are you happy citizen shopper?"

or maybe they could just assign more cashiers at a time so there isnt a 20 minute line for 2 registers at 11 pm at night

God fuck this shit. I go into shops and get annoyed when people hound me and follow me around asking me shit constantly, I know they have to ao i put on a fake smile while theyre looking but damn its annoying, i just want to shop in peace. That alone makes me look grumpy, and now its gonna ping more people to come over and ask me how my day is I hate this future

People with resting bitch faces will end up being constantly harassed by employees if they ever implement this. This is a really dumb idea, it's going to make things really awkward for their employees.

Don't worry Britain, you guys still don't have shit on Shanghai's Air Pollution.

Oh great, because what anyone in a sour mood who has to be at Wal Mart wants is to be hounded by some equally moody employee whose boss told him to go pester a customer because the AI said they weren't happy enough, and if the store happy recovery rating doesn't meet a certain threshold they all get written up. I've worked in retail long enough to know that's basically how it'll work.

I think it's really sad that employees quite often thank me profusely for not exploding on them when I come to them with a problem I'm facing. Like, you're welcome, but that should just be... the norm...

Christ, I hate it when employees come up to me and ask if I need help. Sometimes I just want to be left alone, and now there's automation to direct them straight to me? God, it's like a nightmare. Then again, no one is happy in a fucking Walmart, so that thing is gonna sputter out after one shift.

You know what makes me unhappy? being approached by people asking if I need help. If I need help, I'll find help. I'm just picking up groceries for the 100000th time in this store and every aisle has a big ass sign saying what's in it. I don't think I need help damn

They can't even make a self checkout robot that works. How are they going to navigate human emotions.

If the system detects an unhappy customer, it will ping employees in other parts of the store and order them to report to a checkout register, in the hopes of alleviating shoppers’ distress. To me this sounds like it's designed to automate when more cashiers need to be called up, not to send people to unhappy customers.

This. I absolutely do not want to imagine the volume of abuse that retail employees have to eat with a grin. Every time I call Amazon customer service, I just treat them like every other person I interact with; with extreme politeness. They always seem super taken aback by how polite I am, which is extremely strange to me given how willing Amazon is to help you. I mean, hell. Even if you're the most selfish asshole in the world, surely everyone can see how treating service workers like people benefits you as an individual. On the note of Amazon, I've had reps bend over backwards and vouch for me to their supervisors to get replacements on electronics that were more than a year and a half outside of the warranty window. Why the fuck would any person working a job be willing to help you if you're being cunty?

All the crazy machine learning, "computers can do anything now" stuff that is blossoming in recent years (and at an increasing rate) is really cool but also.. really discouraging for some reason. I kinda wish sometimes that all this advanced tech would fuck off and we could live in simpler times again. It's just getting absurd the amount of high-tech solutions we're throwing at petty issues that sometimes are better with a human touch.

Almost every worker I interact with is fucking miserable or no help at all. I'm nice to them always, but most just act like abuse victims or have no expertise/interest in actually helping. The only exception to this is when I'm in vvvvvv wealthy neighborhoods.

We would be stupid to think they weren't tallying up everything you buy and marketing it to you later, if not now, certainly in the future.

Depression and Walmart go hand in hand. Kinda makes the robot useless.

I like how we live in a system that rewards the psychopathic corporate stooges that come up with these ideas so they perpetually stay in power and dictate us like this.

If they are looking for unhappy customers, just build a database of their employees facial expressions to get a feel of what they should be looking for.

Nah, they'll suck money from the quarterly employee bonus and say your friendly score wasn't high enough, yet your bitch of a store manager that never helps out will still get their bonus some how

this sounds personal

Meanwhile in Gaints in Pennsylvania, they have floor cleaning robots that have giant googly eyes on them and they look terrifying