Ah, it seems Sir is purchasing female sanitary products. Perhaps Sir would like directing to the beer aisle?

Ok, a very old joke... but to be honest, enough of this crap! We shop for products we need and I suspect no-one enjoys the psychological manipulation (ooh, I can smell fresh baking! Put essentials/staples at the back of the store so we have to tramp past everything else! Rearrange things on a regular basis so you have to search the whole store!). Having some avatar whispering in my ear is going to send me online permanently, not encourage me to remain in the store and buy more crap I don't need.

(Perhaps Sir would like... maybe Sir should consider... would Sir like... Why is Sir heading to the firearms section?)

Hardly manipulation, unless one's a half-wit. How often have you forgot something on your shopping list then remember it when you get home? I have. An AI servant that reminds me of an accompanying or complementary product would be handy. Remember, you don't to follow the AI, unless you're a half-wit. Then you do need help...

Given that all supermarkets are doing it, there must be a sizeable amount of half-wits.

Except it wont' work like that if the US/UK supermarkets start doing it. They're not in the habit of doing anything that helps customers unless they're making a killing off it. You'll be bombarded with what are essentially ads for promoted products. If you've ever done your supermarket shop online you'll have seen it already. Rows and rows of "suggested for you" that you have to scroll past to get to the thing you actually searched for. Shopping is a chore. The last thing I want is some annoying robot nagging me about why I really want to buy a fucking fruit cake.

Would Sir like a chocolate bar? Oooh. Ooh. A nice, smooth, moist chocolate bar. Oooh. Slips down easy Sir, the wife will never know Sir. Ohh. Suits you Sir

Some online shops have sequence like:

"I want to check out please" leads to the "special offers" page.

"I don't want any, I want to check out" leads to the "perhaps you forgot" page.

"Stop @$!|\|6 about and let me check out right now" leads to the "these items are really good" page

"Last chance or I walk away" lets you complete the order.

There is a bad chance that going elsewhere just puts you at the start of a similar sequence.

I have a barcode scanner. It would be really handy to scan empties into a file and xclip the list to a web site. If someone could figure out a way to do it with blockchain and an LLM perhaps it would happen.

It might well be able to do that. What it will deduce is that you should be encouraged to go to the pharmacy aisle to discover hair treatment products, hair regrowth products and assorted coloured dried frog pills.

No pseudo-AI we have now has ever deduced anything factually interesting about human behavior.

The day I stop seeing online ads for stuff I have just bought is the day I'll begin to grudgingly start accepting that "AI" might just be becoming useful, maybe.

Because if AI was actual AI, it would record the fact that I bought a UPS two years ago, and would start showing ads for replacement batteries in three years from now. Frightening as that may be, it would be useful.

But no, today's AI knows that I bought a LED flashlight, so it proposes batteries because duh, but it also proposes more flashlights.

Useless.

Within a few years we will need floating point to number the new Circles of Hell.

> customers increasingly want "engaging, consumer-friendly experience"

Remember who the customers are here. It's not you. It's the brands, including the supermarket itself.

You're the consumer part.

Honestly I'm running out of reasons to even use the supermarkets. Crap overpriced products, staff are underpaid and run so ragged they couldn't be friendly if they tried now being replaced with robots, psychological manipulation. Now this.

If there was a bot that could direct you to a specific product you're actually looking for in a Tesco gigastore, that would be extremely useful.

I realise conventional wisdom is that the more I have to hunt round to find what I'm looking for, I'm more likely to pick up other stuff I don't want, but in reality I'll probably give up and go to Lidl where there's only 4 aisles

Also I'm pretty sure it's still legal to punch a robot in the face, so in some senses this will be less annoying than having a human do it.

But still too annoying for me to want to go into a shop that has it.

>” Also I'm pretty sure it's still legal to punch a robot in the face”

I value my knuckles, perhaps it will become advisable to visit such supermarkets after Cricket practice…

Fancy shops are great and all, but they're still a shop - with expensive real estate costs, operating costs etc...

Surely the next big step is fully automated grocery shopping? Your house learns what you eat/drink, and orders a shop weekly with everything you are missing/need. With or without a human confirming the list is OK.

That'll be the next big marketing opportunity.

Given what kids like to eat, looks like that’s a lifetime’s supply of margarita pizza and lemonade…

I can see it now

We suggested you buy X.

You didn’t buy it therefore you must be intending to steal it.

Let’s prosecute the customer.

No that wouldn’t happen, I mean it is not like it happened in another shop like a post office.

Every time I go shopping, my wife always ensures that there's at least one item on the list which I can't find eg extract of Himalayan yak's foot. I don't need some AI suggesting more things I can't find.

Oh yes, the Zero Theorem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs8GxPO55tM

Well, then you have far too many self-service checkouts and not enough traditional ones.

I call bullshit. You don't want "engaging, consumer-friendly experience" at all, you want lower overheads.

And like self-service, your new upselling tech can just fuck off.

It doesn't say what form the avatar will take, but if it's a cute robot that bows and will guide me to the sushi discounted 50% before closing time, I'll take it.