Amazon has responded to accusations that its Just Walk Out technology, which eliminates traditional cashiers, is managed by humans in India instead of artificial intelligence. The e-commerce giant dismisses these claims as “false,” stating that its system is based on a machine learning model with human support.
At the beginning of the month, The Information published an article claiming that Amazon employed around 1,000 workers in India to oversee customer purchases and review transactions in stores using the Just Walk Out technology. According to the article, these workers had to review approximately 70% of the transactions.
Amazon now acknowledges in a blog post that humans are involved in the process, although it claims that their role is limited to recording data from real and AI-generated purchases to improve the Just Walk Out system, not to fully execute it. The company compares this practice to other AI systems that also require human intervention to ensure greater accuracy.
However, Amazon also confirms in its publication that it is indeed removing the Just Walk Out technology from its stores, as customers prefer to use the Dash Cart system, which automatically counts the items in the cart as they are placed. The company has started expanding the Dash Cart to third-party grocery stores and all Amazon Fresh stores.
However, Amazon argues that Just Walk Out is still suitable for stores with a limited selection of products and where customers only need to buy a few items. The company plans to launch “more third-party Just Walk Out stores of small format in 2024 than any previous year”, although it does not rule out bringing the technology to larger stores.
In addition, Amazon says it is working on improving the latency and accuracy of the system to obtain faster and more reliable receipts, as well as developing new algorithms and sensors.
