Comment by NamTaf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NamTaf | Hacker News Reader

Counterpoint: a few years ago, having been stuck in abnormally high traffic on the way to the airport, I was running right on the cusp of the arbitrary check-in deadline for my flight. I began the automated checkin service, which was comparitively extremely slow on that day also. It let me start the process, but threw an unspecified error when I got to the final stages to print my boarding pass and bag tags. Upon retrying, I was past the check-in deadline. Buggery.

Walking over to the check-in counter, a polite explanation of the situation I found myself in (and, possibly, my moderate-level status with the carrier but I don't fully know) made the service attendant remove the problem in about 30 seconds, guaranteeing that both I and my luggage would make the flight with no problems despite being 'technically past the deadline now'.

Flesh-based interaction points, by their very nature, have a tendancy to span a far broader range of service quality than machines. The bad are far worse because machines don't gossip and hate their jobs. Conversely, machines have little hope when things go south compared with a good service employee, who'll do their level best to go above and beyond their basic responsibilites to make whatever issue you have either go away or minimally impact you.

My experience is that one of the most apparent examples of this is if you ever find yourself significantly up the greasy ladder of the airline status game for whatever reason. I postulate that because carriers have realised that 'bending the rules' is a relatively 0-cost commodity to exchange for brand loyalty and this is precisely factored into the training and job directives of their employees.

So why was the human able to fix the problem and the machine not? Perhaps the machine has an arbitrary deadline whereas the human measures the progress of the actual boarding process, in which case the fix is to build that into the machine. Perhaps they use differential "deadlines" as a way to subtly discriminate against undesirables customers, in which case the clear light of automation probably improves matters overall.

If the anti-labor argument were taken to the extreme, the explanation should be that the machine was programmed by humans, who gossip and hate their jobs. At the end of the day, the machine is still a human touch point, albeit an abstract one.

To the extent that we can automate the programming of the machine, we should (and the history of programming is full of that - e.g. on the earliest computers assembling was done by hand, but this was repetitive, mechanistic work so people wrote assembler programs instead).

That sort of thought has interesting philosophical implementations. You're positing that when our creations interact with others, we are unconsciously the ones interacting with others.

To a deeper extent, when you create and then raise a child, and your child grows up and interacts with others, that is also a case of you unconsciously interacting with others.

Follow the chain of creative identity backwards in time to the beginning, and you end up with the cause of the universe, whatever that may be, unconsciously interacting with itself, through everyone and everything.

It's not very relevant, and perhaps not even important, but it's an interesting perspective :)

Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.

- Alan Watts

I would imagine that fewer causal links would indicate higher relevancy. That is to say, chains of different length shouldn't always be considered the same.

Something tells me that by the time that machine gets fixed the guy will have already lost his flight.

Building the actual boarding process into the software probably isn't as easy as you think, and airline ticketing is a long list of edge cases. I'm not a particularly frequent flyer, but the following scenarios from my own recent experiences spring to mind:

- "Your computer systems somehow completely failed to notify me in advance you cancelled my flight. Your airline has a legal obligation to book me on an alternative route, and pay compensation in the event of a significant delay."

- "I've followed your suggestion and been all round the airport looking for somewhere to print my ticket confirmation details, but can't find anywhere, and it's 11pm. Look, it's on my laptop screen."

- "Would you like a complimentary upgrade? You'll need to change your shoes first to comply with our business class policy, mind you"

- "We're overbooked, would you be interested in the option of a £500 and a hotel stay overnight? Any questions?"

- "You don't have an onward ticket? Not even a boat or bus ticket yet? OK, despite experiences you may have had with other airlines, we're strict on enforcing that country's visa policy, so you'll have to buy one. Here's the cheapest we sell, and this is the process for obtaining a refund after landing."

- "Oh, you've got a ticket with that airline, have you? We've got a codeshare agreement now - would you like us to put your bags through?"

- "The flight is delayed for five hours, here's your complimentary meal"

- "Look, I understand that your 777 has significantly fewer seats than the 747 it's replaced at short notice, but we're some of the first people to arrive, why would you bump us off? We're travelling on business so we need to be there and aren't at all interested in your compensation package. Yes, we have to be there on that day, for a trade show. No, we're not frequent flyers with your airline, but if it makes a difference a colleague of ours just got headhunted to a VP position in your airline. Yes, he sits next to us for the next month. Oh, there are seats available now?"

Needless to say, even where software can be written to deal with these edge cases, keeping it up to date with the latest issues isn't cheap, especially when you need (inexpensive) staff hanging around your kiosks just to deal with people that don't understand how to use them anyway.

Discrimination tends to happen in reverse, with special privileges created for customers that have a particularly strong need to travel, customers that have suffered from the airline's cockup, situations where customers need extra help etc. It's difficult to argue that "Computer says no" is an overall improvement on that.

> You'll need to change your shoes first to comply with our business class policy

Which airline, if you don't mind my asking?

Singapore Airlines. I was in flip flops at the time, tbf, and they didn't mind the boardshorts :D

> Discrimination tends to happen in reverse, with special privileges created for customers that have a particularly strong need to travel, customers that have suffered from the airline's cockup, situations where customers need extra help etc. It's difficult to argue that "Computer says no" is an overall improvement on that.

I think it is, overall. Fixing problems may take a bit longer but they'll get fixed for everyone, rather than ad-hoc fixing it for upper-class folks who are friends with VPs and hanging the regular folks out to dry.

But the point is that the problem of the last-minute substitution of a smaller aircraft for maintenance issues isn't something the kiosk software is going to fix. Hell, the kiosk software can't even attempt to remedy simple problems like there being a lot of people needing the flight which departs in thirty minutes stuck in the queue behind the people on the flight which departs in three hours, never mind figure that it's probably not fair to prevent someone who's missed the cutoff time by thirty seconds as a result of the queue from trying to run to the gate.

Disgruntled business people missing part of the trade show they'd bought the flights for, the couple of club scheme members the algorithm prioritises boarding the flight instead of being offered the option of cash compensation and masses of free points for flying tomorrow they might have actually preferred and a VP getting a flea in his ear for the worst airline service ever probably leaves everyone strictly worse off than before. Not to mention how much more incredibly rude it appears to the average person if an airline informs people they can't board the flight they're waiting for via the passport scan machine rather than a sympathetic human that's just going to ring a couple of people to check whether there's anything that can be done.

To be fair, if the machine also tells me it deposited the cost of the ticket back in my account, plus $500, and gives me the option of either 1) A hotel stay and a ticket for tomorrow, printed right there, 2) A list of other flights going to the same destination today, which I can book/check-in from the terminal.

The pain is a lot less, though possibly still slightly less unsympathetic, depending on the mood of the attendant you'd otherwise have gotten.

Perhaps it is because machines are based on pure reason and strict logic, and passenger terminals are apparently based on the exact opposite of that.~

I put forth a guess that airline passenger terminals have not been made more efficient with automation because that would expose just how inefficient the airline is away from the public areas of the terminal. The ground crew service has to be automated first, in order to actually see any benefits.

For instance, boarding procedures are intentionally inefficient, for two reasons. If the passengers boarded quickly, and in an orderly fashion, they would just have to wait even longer for the ground crew to prepare for departure. And the first-class passengers have to be guaranteed space in the first-come-first-served overhead bins. That's really the only reason to board early. If you don't have a carry-on bag, you might as well wait until just before they disconnect the boarding ramp, because they will still be loading bags and running checklists at that time.

The baggage claim areas are intentionally hard to reach from the embarkation areas, because people will have to wait for their bags when they get there anyway.

A lot of the inconveniences you experience as a passenger in the airport are there by design.

So I would further guess that the arbitrary check-in deadline exists as a method to resolve overbooking conflicts. If that particular flight had been overbooked, the human could not have done anything other than offer a conciliatory apology and some compensatory voucher, depending on their mood and your demeanor. The deadline conceals the fact that the airlines sometimes sell the same seat to multiple people.

The other thing is the interaction needs to be fast and practical. Like many IT departments, the internal IT support at my employer likes to follow the latest fad more than being useful, and replaced the dial in menus in the phone helpline with a voice recognition system where you have to describe your problem to be directed to the right area. Of course you don't know what kind of sentence it expects, particularly for a complex problem, and half of the employees are non native english speakers and the damn thing doesn't do foreign accents...

If you work for ANZ, godddamn. Even if you don't please stop it. This is probably one of the most annoying processes I've had to go through and made a 2 minute call take about 15 minutes while I argued with a robot that can only handle very specific phrases.

Automated telephone systems should be required by law to respond to "shibboleet" and take the appropriate action. Or, at the very least, should be required to let me press 0 for an operator.

With most voice-recognition systems if you blow a couple raspberries down the receiver (or rub your finger on the mic or otherwise generate some noise) they'll give up after a couple of tries and take you to a human.

Some just hang up on you when they give up. Quite awful

I usually just tell them "sales" (because sales treats callers the best of all the departments, as they usually want your money) and then wait for the actual person to transfer me to the appropriate department.

...and then wait for the actual person to transfer me to the appropriate department's automated voice system.

* fixed that for you

Well, most automated systems are that way because the company doesn't really want to talk to you. You can't legislate good service if the company has decided that they don't want to provide good service but want (as evidenced by their actions in e.g. phone systems) to provide either cheap service or no service. I mean, having a person that says "fuck you, don't call us ever again" and hangs up the phone without listening would be a technically valid solution to a law that requires "to let me press 0 for an operator".

Honestly, I'll take that over the phone robot telling me "we care about your call" for the 152nd time. At least they're being honest that way.

Whenever I encounter those I just say, 'operator' over and over (though I suspect saying anything it doesn't recognize works work too) until I get a person.

I've had to work on making these voice recognition systems before. We originally allowed for people to just say operator pretty much anywhere in the app, and the client got upset that so many people asked for an operator and got sent to their agents that they had us restructure it so the person had to try pretty darn hard and be overly persistent before it decided to transfer to a person.

I felt a little bad doing it, especially after listening to the actual calls where people would just sound so annoyed and frustrated as they continuously asked for an operator, but the client insisted that less people actually reached their call centers.

These days, I've noticed hip phone menu systems hang up on you when you try to destroy America chanting this obvious codeword to commence the attack.

I'm fairly sure it was Bell Canada that would reply with "Alright, it sounds like you're having problems, let me transfer you to an operator.." when you swore. (Not sure if it still exists, it's been years since I've been a Bell customer).

It was actually brilliant because it was responding to real frustration in a useful way, and it was disarming because it was a humorous thing for an automated system to do.

i have had similar experiences with check out machines in Target and large retailers. they puke if you dont follow the directions to a T.

Now I deliberately avoid any automated checkout and go straight to the human cashier. if you insist on replacing humans with machines, it has to be flawless

How come there is no remove scanned item option like the real cashiers have. It happens to me -every single time-. Prefer the human option, truly.

I prefer automated checkouts far more than human cashiers. It's much faster. Maybe there's some problem 20% of the time which is quickly resolved by an employee. (People who would say that the system still needs humans ignore the fact that one person can now look over six checkouts, thus cutting jobs by one-sixth.)

I strongly dislike the automated checkouts; I prefer to wait in line to get a human.

I don't like the bagging system that has to ensure you put your item into a bag, and that has a quite noticeable delay in responding to your actions.

I also don't like the tiny area they have for the bags. What am I supposed to do? Put full bags back into my half-emptied shopping cart alongside items that haven't been scanned yet? It makes me uncomfortable, like they'll think I'm up to something.

I also tend to buy items in bulk, like 2-liter bottles, and it's nice to say "I have 8 of these" and pass one to the cashier.

OTOH, you can make sure your 2-liter bottles and tortilla chips are bagged separately.

> I also tend to buy items in bulk, like 2-liter bottles, and it's nice to say "I have 8 of these" and pass one to the cashier.

This is really not the case the self-checkout lines are designed for.

I use them almost exclusively for those cases where I duck in and grab a couple things quickly, and want to get the hell out. It's always faster and easier than even the 12-items-or-less express checkout line, not to mention the regular lines, where you get stuck behind somebody with a cart rounded to the sky and $400 worth of groceries in it.

Yeah, when I checked groceries and had the produce codes memorized, I could blast through a grocery cart full of food in the time it takes me to check out a dozen items in the self checkout. I always go to a person for anything other than the express line.

I find the automated checkouts to be much slower than human cashiers.

Humans can optimise the path from the conveyor belt to the bag so that the item just so happens to pass via the barcode scanner.

I could do that too, but the machine throws a hissy fit and doesn't let me scan the next item until I've placed it in the bagging area, and waited a second for the scales to stabilize. In the time it takes me to scan and bag one item on the automated checkout, an experienced human cashier can get 5-6 items bagged.

And that's only if things go as expected. Sometimes the scales bug out. Sometimes I have to navigate menus to specify what fresh produce I'm buying (while human checkout operators have memorised all the numbers). Sometimes I make a mistake and I'm not allowed to self-correct it. I have to wait for a human to come along and fix my mistake.

Not to mention, the machine is yelling instructions at me the entire time. "Yes I know I should use the pin pad to complete my transaction, in fact I did so while you were still playing the previous audio clip."

The only time the automated checkout is faster is when there is a queue at the real checkouts. And even then, the queue might be worth it just so I can avoid the automated checkout yelling at me.

Even if it's slower for the transaction itself, the fact that they generally replace 1 human cashier with 2-3 automated checkouts mean that waiting times are much shorter in my experience.

Although I did discover at my local supermarket that if I'm buying alcohol at a self checkout (which requires someone to confirm my age), it can be paradoxically faster to go when it's busy, because there's always someone at the machines, whereas they rely on wandering staff to see the alert when it's quieter.

Which also paradoxically means it's easier to turn up at a quiet time and steal the alcohol (even if you're underage!) than to buy it legitimately.

I've had the exact same experience. I could scan the items a lot faster than the machine allows me to (sure, not faster than an experienced human cashier), but it insists me to bag every item, has problems a lot of times when it stops and asks me to call a human agent, can't use some of the gift cards that I want to use with it, and doesn't override the price when the store has advertized a discount and the machine doesn't detect that. Also, for things that don't have barcodes (fruits/vegetables etc.), you have to 'search' from a list and either select the image of the perfect type of pepper that you're buying (or enter a code) - which makes it even slower. A human cashier remembers all those codes and very quickly types in. For a machine to do that right now, it will have to use some advanced image recognition techniques to just find out which of the 100 kinds of Apple it is - and set the price accordingly. Sure, all these problems can be theoretically fixed, but so far, I guess we're just not there.

One question I have about the automated checkouts at my local supermarket is they seem to intentionally slow the user down. For example, if you go to pay and put in a card, it says 'please remove your card, press the -debit card- button, and pay with your card'

It seems like no reasonable person wouldn't notice this flaw, let alone the presumably several people involved in creating this software, so it leads me to believe that there is some reason the shops want to encourage not using these checkouts.

I wonder why?

It's those dreaded words: Minimal Viable Product.

The slow part of human cashiers is waiting for the people in front of you to get their payment done and move on with their stuff.

The payment part is unnecessarily slow at these things. We should be able to wave something at the device and walk out the door by now. But instead it's hit I'm done, wait a second to be able to hit pay with card, wait for it to tell you to enter a card, enter it, wait for it to tell you to enter pin, answer if you want cash back, wait a few seconds for it to accept and make a buzz to remove your card, wait 6 seconds for the stupid question "did you enjoy your experience today? yes/no" to go away (that I refuse to answer because it shouldn't fucking ask me in the first place), wait a couple seconds for it to decide to print the receipt and the cash to dispense, finally get your bags into your cart, and then leave.

None of the steps are really that long by themselves, but in aggregate it's easily another 1-2 minutes checking out.

> The payment part is unnecessarily slow at these things. We should be able to wave something at the device and walk out the door by now.

Been using this for years in Canada. Most well known as PayPass (MasterCard) but also PayWave (Visa) and Contactless Payments (American Express). By far it's the fastest and easiest way to pay (including vs cash), and I use it whenever I have a choice. I'd say it takes me well under 10 seconds which includes taking out and putting away my card.

I've noticed the newest terminals in sit-down restaurants are even working with it now, by moving the prompt for the tip to the start of the process (before you tap or put your card in) instead of the end.

Automated checkouts aren't about each individual machine being faster than one cashier, they're about being able to serve ten people while only one cashier watches over.

I don't mind automated checkouts that much because I worked as a cashier as a teenager and based on that experience I'm able to check myself out pretty quickly. When there's a line for all of the checkouts including the automated ones, though, I avoid them, because the average customer is generally awful at using them and the lines at manned checkouts move much faster.

I guess it depends on the implementation. At my store you bring a scanner and some bags along, and scan and pack each item as you go. At the checkout you simply return the scanner and swipe your card.

What store is this?

Waitrose or Tesco in the UK have these scan as you shop schemes.

>It's much faster.

It depends on the store. At the grocery store a few miles away, I can scan an item and immediately put it in a bag. At the grocery store closest to me, you scan the item and place it on a belt, which takes it to the end of the counter. You bag everything at the end. By contrast, at that store, a cashier can scan an item an place it directly in a bag.

I prefer automated checkouts out of respect to humans - how terrible job that is! And also as a reminder, how terrible the software is. (I design and write software, not of this type though, for a living.)

Although I take my time to go through it. Damn, if it's done by machine, I can do it on my own pace.

So out of respect you put people out of work whilst increasing the profit of the already wealthy - in most cases - shareholders? Is it more dignified to be out work and penniless?

My position, having worked as a checkout assistant FWIW, is the opposite. Using the self-checkout is redistributing money from the poor to the rich, AFAICT: you're saving the company wages, paying the same amount, and doing the work for free.

If the out of work checkout assistants got a living wage then you might be on to something.

I am social democrat, and as such I am for all people to have living wages.. (and I am actually proponent of basic income and progressive taxes)

However, checkout assistants are not very well paid and the job is horrible (it's not the worst, arguably, but could be improved).

I do not however feel responsible for the bad moral decisions of other people. My action in itself doesn't increase profits of the wealthy, it's actions of other people. These people need to be made socially responsible (for example via progressive taxation), not me.

There was a time when you got good money to work in a grocery store, even in a checkout. I have (older) family members who decided not to finish college because they were making so much money at the grocery store, with pensions, in positions that would only pay minimum wage nowadays.

I worked as a grocery checker for a year or so. My dad did it for half his career. It used to be a solid, union job in most places in the us.

It's really not even that bad, if you like talking to people. The checking groceries part can be sort of meditative and relaxing.

I am not from U.S., so I can't compare. Here (Czech Republic) it's usually one of the worst types of employment, rife with abuse (there were cases where employees needed a permission to go to the toilet, had to stand all day for no reason, etc.).

> I prefer automated checkouts out of respect to humans - how terrible job that is!

I prefer automated checkout too - but I'm curious as to why you think the job is "terrible"?

Before my first software development gig, I worked for 6 months as a cashier. I won't say it was all rainbows and roses, but it wasn't "terrible". Hard on the feet (standing), but I was young at the time so it wasn't too big of a deal. Dealing with irate customers could be interesting at time (pass 'em to a manager if you couldn't calm 'em down). Occasionally you'd get someone trying to return an item bought 20 years ago (actually had this happen to me).

But there were also the "regulars": The 70 year old lady who came in every Wednesday to purchase a bunch of liquor - who'd then walk out, and hop into her brand new Vette. The weird cat dude, who always smelled, but was friendly - purchasing a cart full of cat food, and another of rubbing alcohol and swabs (poor cats). The guy you always carded for beer, because he looked underage - and even though you know he wasn't, you did it anyhow, and he complained - but corporate policy, ya know?

Then a break - go face the aisles, or stock new stuff, or pull the old stuff. Have some lunch or some dinner. Eventually close the store, sweep the aisles, clean up, shut down, and go home.

For me, it was an "after school" kind of deal - not a career. But it wasn't a terrible job. Just difficult on the mind and body (it was a bit boring at times). My fellow employees were all friendly, and management was nice and helpful. I always got paid on time, meager as it was.

It gave me a better perspective and understanding for those working behind the counter, because I know what they're going thru. Plus, it also taught me how to properly scan items quickly (though when I started, the place I worked at didn't have scanners - they didn't get those until a couple of months later). Even so, when an item doesn't scan, I find it a bit frustrating, but most systems have a way still to enter the UPC number...

...still, I wouldn't want to go back to those days.

Those self checkouts aren't automated. Those are having human customer do the checkout work.

Automated would I walk out the door and rfid or whatever senses what I'm carrying and charges my account.

Or, I don't go to the store at all and shit just shows up on my doorstep, periodically or whenever I hit a button.

Amazon Prime Pantry seems to do the latter. We've been getting some of our stuff delivered that way the past few months.

I feel like a lot of people miss this point. The technology has existed for years although clearly the cost to implement a touch screen console has also plummeted.Even accounting for that most self-service checkouts are just a tilled turned around.

I wonder how much of this is super markets jumping on to the fact people are conflating automation with using a machine and assuming self-service checkouts are proof of a technological revolution. At the end of the day the same amount of work is being done at the till as if a cashier was working but it is now being done for free and a company won't miss a chance to capitalise on an opportunity like that.

I shop at Aldi's where the prices are low and the employees are well compensated. The owners, 2 brothers, have some unique ideas about efficiency. They haven't installed any machines because they are slow, customers are slow, and they don't handle edge cases well. Employees are few and far between. Generally 1 cashier and 2 on extra busy days.

The Target on the other hand has rows and rows of empty checkout tills. They try to get you to use the automated tills but that line is so much longer that it just boggles the mind. Any time savings is wasted on the machine having an error,

While I haven't used Target's, I do like Home Depot's self checkouts. They are pretty intelligent on their own, like just swiping a card to initiate the payment process, even if you don't press the "pay now" button. Then, when you do encounter a problem, there's an attendant for every four checkout stations that can help you from their workstation. Usually they know you're having a problem before you can even turn to tell them so, and by the time you do, they're waving you on and the problem has been resolved. My only issue with them is that they shut them down about an hour before closing, and waiting for a human cashier is even more annoying after the self-checkout experience there.

What if we had machine intelligence monitoring employees to decide which ones are going above the call of duty? Too Black Mirror?

No thank you. The good companies already strive to recognize it, the bad ones will use it as grounds to let someone go for bending the rules.

Arguably there are people who have it in them to do better, but feel that their extra contributions would not be recognised. Tipping is supposed to be a solution to this in some jobs, but there's not much of a culture of tipping airline check-in desk clerks in most cultures

Sure. But if their company is not already trying to recognize it, why would they pay for software to do it? And if they are, and are just not good at it, why would they recognize software as the solution? I just haven't seen any companies going "We sure would like to recognize our best employees, but we just have no way of knowing why they are". -Especially- in customer service land.

i have flown into JFK over 10 times and to this day i still dont know how those passport scanning machines work. i try various permutations of placing it on the machines but everytime i just give up.

I think some passports are just bad at this, but I have no plausible theory as to why. Mine never scans without at least 3 attempts at any scanner, in any situation, anywhere I've been in the world.

Try the new mobile passport app instead: http://www.mobilepassport.us/

I've heard that in the UK they have people controlling those automated passport gates - the matching of the photograph is not done by machine. Needless to say, mine never works and I have to go to the person who asks "is that really you?" and I reply "yes" and that's enough human touch verification to pass through

Mine used to not work, now, the same passport works everywhere without flaw. I notice I have to take my glasses off otherwise I does not, but that is not too strange as my passport pic has glasses. Not that it matters, most airports have manual checks after automated check anyway.

Where are the second checks? I've used the system often in Europe, mostly London, and never had a second check.

Heathrow, Malaga to name two.

It might not be everywhere, I find I have different level of success at different airports in the UK. The machines at Gatwick never have a problem with my passport so maybe they have 'human help'. At Stansted however my passport has failed to work at least the last four times I've been through.

I've found that there are quite a few things you need to get right with the UK gates, and the UI doesn't do a great job of encouraging correct usage.

In particular, I was instinctively looking at the screen instead of the camera, despite the big sign telling you not to.

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