Marty the Grocery Store Robot Called 'Ominous', 'Mostly Useless' (mashable.com) 137
By the end of the year, Stop & Shop will have installed 500 "giant, gray, aisle-patrolling robots" in its chains of stores, reports Mashable, starting in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey.
"Attention shoppers: I've seen the future of grocery store technology, and let me tell you, we can do better." Each of the robots weighs a massive 140-pounds and costs a whopping $35,000. Oddly, all of the robots are named Marty, and atop their tall frames -- which tower over my own 5 foot, 3 inch stature -- rests a large pair of google eyes. You know, so as not to come off as complete faceless, emotionless, lifeless bots. If you're confused as to what these rolling mechanical columns do, Martys also wear the following description on their bodies like a name tag:
This store is monitored by Marty for your safety. Marty is an autonomous robot that uses image capturing technology to report spills, debris, and other potential hazards to store employees to improve your shopping experience.
Essentially, once Marty identifies a hazard using its sensors, it stops in its tracks, changes its signature operating lights from blue to yellow, and repeatedly announces "caution, hazard detected," in English and Spanish. One of several catches to their existence, however, is that the robots don't actually clean anything...
[O]ne of the robot's major flaws that its sensors appear to treat each hazard with the same level of caution. A harmless bottle cap or errant piece of cilantro will elicit the same response as a spill of clear liquid that someone could genuinely slip and injure themselves on, which means that in certain cases an employee may have to take time that could be spent interacting with a customer to walk across the store and grab a puny little grape that escaped a bag.
One customer complained on Twitter that the robot "just roams around and makes ominous beeps constantly."
And one employee confided told the New Food Economy site that "It's really not doing much of anything besides getting in the way."
"Attention shoppers: I've seen the future of grocery store technology, and let me tell you, we can do better." Each of the robots weighs a massive 140-pounds and costs a whopping $35,000. Oddly, all of the robots are named Marty, and atop their tall frames -- which tower over my own 5 foot, 3 inch stature -- rests a large pair of google eyes. You know, so as not to come off as complete faceless, emotionless, lifeless bots. If you're confused as to what these rolling mechanical columns do, Martys also wear the following description on their bodies like a name tag:
This store is monitored by Marty for your safety. Marty is an autonomous robot that uses image capturing technology to report spills, debris, and other potential hazards to store employees to improve your shopping experience.
Essentially, once Marty identifies a hazard using its sensors, it stops in its tracks, changes its signature operating lights from blue to yellow, and repeatedly announces "caution, hazard detected," in English and Spanish. One of several catches to their existence, however, is that the robots don't actually clean anything...
[O]ne of the robot's major flaws that its sensors appear to treat each hazard with the same level of caution. A harmless bottle cap or errant piece of cilantro will elicit the same response as a spill of clear liquid that someone could genuinely slip and injure themselves on, which means that in certain cases an employee may have to take time that could be spent interacting with a customer to walk across the store and grab a puny little grape that escaped a bag.
One customer complained on Twitter that the robot "just roams around and makes ominous beeps constantly."
And one employee confided told the New Food Economy site that "It's really not doing much of anything besides getting in the way."
Re:Are they robots? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Each of the robots weighs a massive 140-pounds and costs a whopping $35,000.".
Well, it's about the same weight as a teen-aged employee, but the cost is less than a tenth of what it costs to raise that teen-ager!
Re: (Score:2)
But companies don't have to raise teenagers to hire them.
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But they also have to pay them yearly.
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Some are pushing for a national $15/hr minimum wage even for a zero skill employee and some areas have already enacted such a minimum wage. At that rate, one full time employee for one shift would cost, just in wages alone, over $30K a year. Then there's payroll taxes, possibly sick leave, possibly health insurance, hiring costs, training costs, termination and discrimination lawsuits, "shrinkage" by employees etc... So conservatively the total cost to the employer is probably on the order of $40K/year per
Re: You mean you *expect* it to commit crimes? (Score:2)
I guess "terrorism" is the next word that morons have decided to redefine.
Re: You mean you *expect* it to commit crimes? (Score:2)
Actually it is terrorism in that is causes fear in the populace
Uhuh. So does farting in public. Better lock up your father.
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So, asking where an item may be located, or if they have more stock for an item on an empty shelf should never happen?
I agree that unsolicited interaction should not occur, I used to hate the 'roving upsellers' at Sears and such, to the point it's been many decades since I set foot in their stores because of them. I don't know if they have eliminated the practice or not. But if I need assistance, I fully expect it.
Surveillance (Score:2)
One customer complained on Twitter that the robot "just roams around and makes ominous beeps constantly."
And one employee confided told the New Food Economy site that "It's really not doing much of anything besides getting in the way."
Sounds like the perfect reminder (for both of them) that someone's always watching.
Ominous (Score:2)
changes its signature operating lights from blue to yellow, and repeatedly announces "caution, hazard detected,"
But how do you change the lights to red, and make it announce "kill mode engaged"?
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But how do you change the lights to red, and make it announce "kill mode engaged"?
Connect to the poorly-secured bluetooth and upload custom firmware. Bonus points for actually engaging kill mode.
"Cake is in Isle 4..." (Score:2)
"...in the bottle marked Draino" - GLaDOS
New uses (Score:3)
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Clips coming soon to YouTube!
It's a warning (Score:5, Interesting)
"But Marty’s introduction to supermarket floors has raised a number of questions about automation and surveillance for employees and customers alike—especially because the robot roll-out roughly coincided with a widespread Stop & Shop labor strike this spring to protest unfavorable changes to union contracts"
This robot's only purpose is as a warning to the unions, and boils down to "We're not afraid to replace the lot of you with robots, so stop whining about your wages and get back to work"
Re: It's a warning (Score:1)
More probable it's a theft deterrent. Employee and otherwise. The stated function of soup can detector is insultingly implausible.
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Re:It's a warning (Score:5, Funny)
And yet, that type of robot can only replace managers, not low-level employees (since it can only point to a spill, not clean it up itself).
Hopefully, they'll make a CEO-like robot next. One of those could save businesses hundreds of millions a year!
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I was going by the article.
The robot they purchased can't clean up spills, not can it stock shelves.
Obviously, there are more advanced robots out there, but in this particular case they didn't buy those.
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On the one hand, you're definitely correct that there exist more advanced robots.
However, I don't think there are actually robots available that could clean up spills in a way that would satisfy either state and local authorities, or the insurance companies. Nor are there robots that can stock shelves in a random Stop & Shop convenience store while also not injuring children that run up to it while it is working, "I want to play with the robot!!!"
The concept of it being intended as a threat is hilarious
The Supermarket Unions were busted early 2000s (Score:2)
The first goal will be to get people used to them. Next they'll be taking inventory (Walmart's already got some of those) and eventually stocking shelves.
Unions are screwed no matter what. Virtually all employees are. Even
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> This robot's only purpose is as a warning to the unions, and boils down to "We're not afraid to replace the lot of you with robots, so stop whining about your wages and get back to work"
Except they'll still do it the second a robot can actually do the job and at a price point that makes sense. It's not a warning, it's a harbinger.
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You are absolutely correct.
And in most cases, the replacement technology is 20 to 1 up to 1000 to 1. You get 1 new robot technician job for 20 to 1000 job eliminated. If it wasn't cheaper, they wouldn't do it.
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Best thing about robots is that when one is found roaming the parking lot burning, with an axe lodged in its head, it hurts the company a lot more than doing the same to a manager.
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Funny you should say that.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/... [theregister.co.uk]
Another data collector... (Score:2)
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Is that a real thing? A membership card at a convenience store?
I get it (Score:1)
Misunderstanding? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, to an onlooker who doesn't know the purpose of the bot it might just look like it's roaming around for no reason.
I like Marty! (Score:2)
I don't really care what it does. It rolls around and beeps. That's okay.
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I don't really care what it does. It rolls around and beeps. That's okay.
Until it takes a picture of you buying alcohol or cigarettes. At which point that data is transferred back to Bait and Barfs HQ, where its filtered and sold online for a profit. One of which happens to be your health insurance company. Where upon they use facial recondition to you match your face to your identity, and then your policy. Where you have yourself listed as a non-drinker to get lower rates. Thus leading to the cancellation of your policy right when you are involved in that high speed colli
Version 1. (Score:2)
Pretty cheap for version 1.
Version 5 will probably run the entire store except the checkout aisles.
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Two considerations... (Score:2)
Are they getting commensurate reduction in insurance costs if they respond to slip/fall safety issues faster via this?
iRobot has a mopping robot for a few hundred of dollar, but it does an entire space, combine the spill detection as defining the "space" and you'd have more useful functionality with a fraction of the cost.
Watching customers maybe? (Score:2)
The only possible reason I can think for this lame sounding robot to exist, would be that the purpose is not actually to alert spillages, but to watch customers.
There's two reasons to do this:
1. To watch for shoplifters
2. Market research
It would be far more ominous if this were actually the case...
Massive 140-pounds (Score:2)
Each of the robots weighs a massive 140-pounds ...
I'd re-phrase that when you girlfriend/wife says she weighs that much -- and is happy about it.
According to the CDC [cdc.gov] (and others, Google it):
Measured average height, weight, and waist circumference for U.S. adults aged 20 and over:
Women:
- Height in inches: 63.6
- Weight in pounds: 170.5
- Waist circumference in inches: 38.7
Re:Massive 140-pounds (Score:4, Informative)
I was actually thinking that "massive" and "140 pounds" don't really belong together on Slashdot, given the audience...
(Lord knows I'm carrying significantly more weight that that, anyway)
A sad commentary (Score:1)
... on the quality of grocery store employees.
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"Grocery" store might be an overstatement.
It is a place where people buy beer and cheesy poofs while they pay for their gas.
What did they expect? (Score:2)
A few months ago all of the Stop and Shop workers were on strike for I think over a week. Did they think there wouldn't be repercussions? The intent is to address a pretty major concern in grocery stores which is spills causing people to fall and injure themselves. This is a very real thing they have to deal with. The problem is they are so slow and not very good at it so this seems like a failed experiment. That said, it's kind of scary how humanizing a pair of giant googly eyes are. It really doesn't take
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A few months ago all of the Stop and Shop workers were on strike for I think over a week. Did they think there wouldn't be repercussions?
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Dwarves (Score:2)
Is this supposed to be a parody?
The robots weighs a massive 140-pounds and ... tower(s) over my own 5 foot, 3 inch stature.
The worst bit (Score:2)
Is the robot case isn't even symmetrical. If you're going to use that much material in building its casing, would it kill you to go a little tiny bit further and even out the base?
Re: Noise and Sight Pollution (Score:2)
So it finally came to it (Score:2)
In other words, they don't do any meaningful work, they only tell people to work while standing around and being at best useless and at worst in the way?
It finally happened. Robots in middle management.
It's a personality prototype (Score:2)
You can tell, can't you?
well (Score:1)
which tower over my own 5 foot, 3 inch stature
to be fair, everybody towers over a guy that's 5 foot 3.
clean up (Score:2)
on aisle 4
Marty (Score:2)
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And surely, Klingon is just as important as English and Spanish.
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We all know the correct incantation should be "Danger, Will Robinson".
And surely, Klingon is just as important as English and Spanish.
I prefer "Crush, Kill, Destroy" the Wal-Mart motto.
Re:English and Spanish? (Score:5, Funny)
We all know the correct incantation should be "Danger, Will Robinson".
And surely, Klingon is just as important as English and Spanish.
I prefer "Crush, Kill, Destroy" the Wal-Mart motto.
You're forgetting "Exterminate!"
Robot Catch phrases in English and Spanish? (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a list for some of my favourite robots - some would be downright creepy if this supermarket robot said them.
Danger Will Robinson - Peligro Will Robinson
Exterminate - Exterminar
Bite my shiny metal ass - muerde mi culo de metal brillante
I can't do that Dave - No puedo hacer eso Dave
Tears in the rain - Lágrimas en la lluvia
Do you want to play a game? - Quieres jugar un juego?
I'll be back - Vuelvo enseguida
Hey laserlips, your mother was a snowblower - Hola labios láser, tu madre era una quitanieves
My friends call me Murphy. You call me... Robocop. - Mis amigos me llaman Murphy. Me llamas ... Robocop.
Not bad, for a human. - No está mal, para un humano.
His High Exaltedness, the great Jabba the Hutt, has decreed that you are to be terminated immediately. - Su Alta Exaltación, el gran Jabba el Hutt, ha decretado que se te dará de baja de inmediato.
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Just send one to the BOFH, he knows what to do.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/... [theregister.co.uk]
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Re: English and Spanish? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would he want to risk losing karma to the radicalized morons who can appreciate every culture and race except white anglosaxons?
Re: English and Spanish? (Score:2)
I can always count on ACs to deliver.
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repeatedly announces "caution, hazard detected," in English and Spanish
Why does it use Spanish? English should be the only language used for business and government matters within the US.
The US doesn't have an official language. Given the fact that white folks will be just another minority sooo, why not learn another language? Most of the world speaks more than one language.
At least the robot is not Racist (Score:2)
according to CNN measure:
https://twitter.com/cnn/status... [twitter.com]
Re: English and Spanish? (Score:2)
not official at the federal level
Cute. Neither does Europe, at the EU level.