Sunday Rerun: Aisle Be Damned

We grocery shoppers just took another step closer to the Brave New World that has been predicted for so long. First came the coin-counting machines in the lobby, and then it was the check-yourself-out lane instead of a human cashier, and then it was the self-scanner that you carry around and tote up all the UPC codes on your curds and whey and now...

Now, Giant Food Stores are going to have a whole cadre of new employees running (stalking) around their stores.

They are all named "Marty," if you wanted to know.

New Marty

                                      Old Marty

The Martys just started working there, but they are gray already. They have big googly eyes. They are not in the union, so they will work all sorts of crazy hours without a break.  Or a paycheck.

Marty is a robot.

All the Martys have a sign reading "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.”

Giant Food announced earlier this week that they will put Martys to work in all of their 172 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.

“Bringing robotics and A.I. from a research lab to the sales floor has been a very exciting journey, and we were thrilled by the customer response in our pilot stores,” Nicholas Bertram, president of Giant Food Stores, said in a statement. “Our associates have worked hard to bring this innovation to life with amazing partners.”

Here's the company line: the robots parade around the store autonomously, keeping their goofy eyes peeled for spills and trip hazards. If the RoboClerk sees some water or spilled soda on the floor, or the classic banana peel, it will bark out "Danger, Will Robinson!"  "Caution, hazard detected!” and also notify a human with a mop and bucket.

Continuing his peripatetic journey, Marty will do price checks, verifying the price of a can of peas against the store's computerized pea-pricing system.

Deep down toward the end of the press release trumpeting Marty's arrival, they tell us that Marty has onboard scanners so he won't run into you or your cart, that he is "powered by rechargeable lithium batteries," and that he has "has multiple cameras."

So the ceiling mounted cameras aren't enough, and now furtive-looking people will have this robot dogging their two paces behind all through the store.

Hello, 2022? 1984 calling!