At the grocery store I often end up in the self-checkout. I honestly prefer having a person ring up my purchases. However, most stores are switching to the self-checkout machines. Although the line up is usually shorter, I find any time saved in waiting is spent struggling with the machines. Inevitably, at least one of my purchases does something weird. Then I’m left waiting for an attendant to fix it. It’s rare that I have a quick experience.
The last time I used the self-checkout there were new AI capabilities. I understand it’s new and buggy, but the attendant had to come over at least 6 times. The produce proved especially problematic. First of all, the machine wouldn’t accept the carton of blueberries. Reading the bar code took many tries. Then the machine refused to accept the weight of the carton added to the bag. The screen popped up an expected weight vs. the actual weight, along with instructions to remove the last item. Which we did, the blueberries, but then it refused to ring anything else in until the attendant came over to clear it off.
For the second round, I used the handheld barcode scanner for the blueberries. This worked super fast, but same problem adding them to the bag. The attendant came again and fixed it, explaining that groceries read with the handheld scanner have to remain in the basket, not in the bagging area. All very confusing.
Then I saw the real AI capabilities in action when it came to weighing the loose produce. I put a couple onions on the scanner area to weight. While searching for the right type to pick, the machine took a picture of my hands and the onions, then provided a choice of three onion options. However, it would only let me use one of the three options as somehow the other two weren’t valid. Since the skin had flaked off one onion, this also confused the AI. Again the attendant came over for this round. The sweet potatoes were much easier. A quick scan of the hands, a few options appeared, and the right one worked.
Even though I monitored everything going in my bag, I still scrutinized the receipt. I left puzzling why the AI didn’t just scan the whole basket and ring everything up seamlessly. That would have actually been very useful and quick.