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This coffee shop uses AI to measure the productivity of their employees and the time spent in the shop per customer. Welcome to capitalist innovation. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 9 months ago by eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/11497758

This coffee shop uses AI to measure the productivity of their employees and the time spent in the shop per customer. Welcome to capitalist innovation.

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[-] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 41 points 9 months ago

Where's this shop? Would be a shame if their online reviews were cluttered with 1 star AI generated posts

[-] Masterblaster@kbin.social 15 points 9 months ago

consequences for shitty behavior is always the correct answer.

[-] Ildar@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Names look like Russian

[-] Masterblaster@kbin.social 36 points 9 months ago

the same AI that could be used to run the coffee shop efficiently and distribute resources along with our UBI.

but we somehow let a select group of sociopathic humans run the world instead. oh well. we kinda have ourselves to blame. we outnumber the sociopaths, afterall.

[-] pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 29 points 9 months ago

I was in an AI/ML training program last year, and there were a few hospital execs there too.

They were absolutely giddy about being able to use AI to deny unprofitable medical care. It was sickening.

[-] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 22 points 9 months ago

Not terrible if they intend on using this data to improve their services, but I have a feeling they're going to use it to tell customers to gtfo after a certain amount of time and fire employees who don't hit quotas. Neither of these improve their services, but they will improve short term profits.

[-] jet@hackertalks.com 8 points 9 months ago

Be careful when you gamify a job but not on the metrics you really care about.

Stacking employees by drinks touched per hour will definitely get you more drinks, but maybe at the expense of returning customers, or overall sales, or satisfaction.

[-] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee 8 points 9 months ago

Optimization of assembly lines and critique about it is pretty old by now.

I read somewhere how the japanese tried to optimize assembly lines and have a big board where everywhere there is a work stoppage a red light would go off so you could isolate and see the patterns. The ideal was that red lights would go on and off everywhere all the time, so that all workers are working at the edge of capacity. If they are not going home totally stressed out you're doing it wrong! /s

[-] Krauerking@lemy.lol 7 points 9 months ago

Man we have already been starting to get in deep with companies using unrealistic efficiency models for their employees based on computer models that assume a lot about how much each human behind the data point can handle. Use of facial and basic AI recognition is gonna make a lot of work feel like there is impossible standards unless their bosses can back away from max efficiency, which we know is practically impossible if the thought of profits are on the line.

Data on how long customers are staying and in which seats could be nice though just for reorganizing the seating to adjust that though.

Somehow it always feels like bosses use data to see how much more they can squeeze out of employees rather than how to make the space more enjoyable. Easy to interact with.

[-] 800XL@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

So fucking sick of the AI circlejerk.

[-] SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

This is just the machine learning-powered pattern recognition we've had for at least a decade now.

AI has become an umbrella term, but this isn't new tech.

[-] 800XL@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Who cares whether it's old or new or middle school. Who cares whether it's pattern recognition or an actual learning computer with thoughts and feelings?

It's all a corporate masterbatory fantasy of executives right now that somehow their company's OpenAI subscription is going to be the one to unlock the secrets of the universe and they can staff the company with animatrons that don't need time to shit, piss, eat, talk, sit, stand, sleep, take breaks, take vacations, learn, be trained, or have a family. They won't strike, get paid, leave the company, go home, have to drive to work, require costly office space, say no, have a need for HR, or social interaction.

So now they throw this bullshit at everything but are too stupid to realize that woopdie-do you successfully got rid of the person that spent too much time on the phone, but your product still sucks and no one who works for you cares.

[-] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago

Wait you guys thought the capitalists weren't going to use AI?

[-] bartolomeo@suppo.fi 4 points 9 months ago

Their union will put a stop to it, right? Right guys??

[-] Hiro8811@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Also why are there four servers? Most I've seen at coffee shops are two and maybe some in the back to prepare sandwiches and so on

[+] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works -28 points 9 months ago

I don't buy into the claim that quantifying performance is bad for employees. It prevents low-performers from free-riding on the productivity of high-performers.

[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 23 points 9 months ago

You are not taking into account that someone who sells fewer cups may be better at customer retention through personalized service. Unless this is at an airport or something where service doesn't matter, it's a pile of Elon.

'John is kind of an ass and he messes up orders sometimes but, he's really fast. Joan is a bit slow, but she cares and it's always right'.

This is a shit metric and I would not patronize a place like this.

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

This is less an argument against quantifying performance in general and more just an example of the importance of choosing the right metrics and interpreting them intelligently.

I have no doubt that more than a few moronic managers will try to make large decisions based on a trivial surface-level metrics like time per customer (which, at the very least, needs to be normalized against the complexity of the order), but still, I think the thing to be criticized is poor data analysis rather than the very concept itself. A smart manager would use this data to learn more about how their operations are going and have discussions with employees about what's going on and how various differences might be explained, while a stupid one would just fire the apparently slowest barista every few months, completely missing the fact that said barista has developed personal relationships with tons of customers and only performs slowly during off-peak hours when it makes no material difference at all.

[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

Very well put

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works -3 points 9 months ago

That's a good point, although I presume the same technology could be used to monitor customers and collect statistics about whether the identity of the server affects the probability that a customer will return.

Metrics can be dangerous because if people are rewarded according to a metric, they'll work to maximize their score, which might not be what the actual purpose of their job is. However, I don't think that's a reason to assume that metrics are worse than no metrics.

[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 months ago

I see what you are saying but I would rather have good managers who know what is best for both the customers and employees.

As a potential customer I also have big issues with the privacy aspects of this.

[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 0 points 9 months ago

Good managers are themselves a limited resource - I suspect that quite soon, the sort of manager who's better than a state-of-the-art AI system will be too valuable to assign to a coffee shop.

I figure that they already track all the customers who pay with a credit card.

[-] criitz@reddthat.com 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

https://youtube.com/shorts/XQT8_SAwwUY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024

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