Amazon’s “magical” AI grocery store technology exposed—it was actually 1,000 Indians...

There’s this meme that’s been cracking everyone up online. It jokes that AI isn’t some next-level tech marvel. Instead, picture this: 5,000 people in India, just sitting around, answering all our queries. It’s a funny take on the whole AI scene and pokes fun at the idea that maybe, just maybe, the big players like Big Tech, Big Pharma, and the government are pulling one over on us. And there’s this TikTok video that nails the humor perfectly.

This meme, as hilarious as it is, turns out to be not so far from the truth, and those who chuckled at the idea might just be onto something. You’ve probably heard about those Amazon Go stores, right? The ones that promised a futuristic shopping experience where you could just grab what you need and walk out, no checkout required—all thanks to what was touted as cutting-edge AI technology. Well, plot twist: as Amazon starts to cancel this “technology,” it turns out it wasn’t the AI doing the heavy lifting after all. Instead, it was actually a team of low-paid Indians, one thousand strong, sitting somewhere, monitoring what shoppers were adding to their baskets. So much for high-tech AI shopping, eh?!

Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology which was pitched as a magical AI technology was actually 1,000 contractors in India acting as virtual cashiers identifying what people put in their carts and tracking their purchases.

It will be replaced by shopping carts with scanners. pic.twitter.com/hjbSIVlqht

— Dare Obasanjo🐀 (@Carnage4Life) April 3, 2024