Local grocery store now has robots patrolling the aisles

Kevin

Code Monkey 🐒
So, it turns out my local grocery store now has robots patrolling the aisles. It seems the only thing they do is randomly go around the store looking for items on the floor and when it finds something, like a liquid or spilled merchandise, it stops and makes an automated announcement about a cleanup needed in aisle X. it sports an employee name tag with "Marty" on it and as you walk about you'll hear employees talk about "Marty".

Interesting times we live in.

Grocery Store Robot.jpg
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for right around $200 I have a robot that vacuums my house every day. With 2 dogs and a cat, it comes back with a full dustbin every day. We went from needing to vacuum once a week (with dust bunnies showing up mid-week) to only needing to manually vacuum the corners every couple of weeks.

I would expect that an upgraded Marty that actually cleans up the spills is only a couple of years away.

Now if I could just get a robot to make me a good martini.......
 
And how hard would it be to arm that robot with the layout of the store so when I walk in and only need salad dressing, I can ask Marty and he can tell me what aisle it is in. We're pretty close to about 7 very large grocery stores....close enough to all that none have become our "only" store, so sometimes I spend 10 minutes walking up and down every aisle until I find the one thing I need.

We need BETTER and more robots.
 
for right around $200 I have a robot that vacuums my house every day.
Which one did you end up with? For price point, I've been looking at the Eufy models...
I would expect that an upgraded Marty that actually cleans up the spills is only a couple of years away.
Not quite as small as Marty but commercial robot cleaners area already out there.
Intellibot-900.jpg

And how hard would it be to arm that robot with the layout of the store so when I walk in and only need salad dressing, I can ask Marty and he can tell me what aisle it is in.
We're getting closer. The local big mall (either the #1 mall in USA in size or #2 mall in USA in size depending on which measurement you go by, physical floor space or actual retail space) has had digital touch-screen layout screens for a few years now and even the smaller local retail centers are starting to switch to them. There is some learning involved though for a certain age demographic of customers as they can't quite get the hang of using 'pinch & zoom' on a billboard to find out where a particular store is.

My guess is that the only reason they aren't already voice activated is that in a retail environment it'd be too confusing with multiple people trying to talk at the same time. Now voice activated apps on a customer's phone, that I think is likely coming if not already since malls even have their own apps these days.
 
We had a Roomba years ago and when I saw all of these new knock-offs, I knew I was done owning a $500 robot vacuum.

I can't recall if I found a minor difference or NO difference between the 11 you linked to and the 11c I bought for $199 from Wal-Mart. But I must have decided they were more or less the same thing, so I went for the one that was $50 less (and FWIW, though it is currently out of stock at Wal-Mart, it is now down to $167.20......low enough that I am considering buying one to keep for when this one eventually gives up the ghost a couple years down the line).

The Eufy has really changed my life. One of the dogs is not crazy about it, but we just let her go hide under the bed. I usually start it as I head out on my morning dog walk. Then when I get home I make sure it hasn't gotten stuck any where and take a shower, and usually by then, it's done. I empty the dustbin, clean out the roller and put it back on the charger.

And the best part now is that my wife doesn't tell me I'm not vacuuming well enough.
 
My take is that Skynet has decided that being sinister and vicious didn't work in its many attempts, so innocuous is its new plan to subjugate society. We humans are prone to ignore the harmless and banal, so the strategy just might work.
 
My take is that Skynet has decided that being sinister and vicious didn't work in its many attempts, so innocuous is its new plan to subjugate society. We humans are prone to ignore the harmless and banal, so the strategy just might work.
Yeah, I think we're more likely facing a "Wall-E" world versus "Terminator". Of course though the "Wall-E" world takes the chance of turning into a "Matrix" world where AI keeps humans dumb & happy in their own little VR while they're really in captivity. Of course it could be argued that we're already in a simulation so we could end up living a Wall-E world inside of the Matrix. :D
 
One time in class we discussed “will the last significant act of humans be to create a computer smarter than them?”. We found ourselves torn between “yes” and “no, we will cybernetically enhance ourselves to keep up”. Suppose we do develop useful chips to enhance our intelligence. Imagine the incredible pressure to get one of these to stay employed in the better jobs.
 
The robot serves as amusement for my youngest, she would deliberately stand in it's way, testing the object collision logic. We had a bit of a surreal moment when my wife yelled at her "Stop annoying the robot!" Then we looked at each other for a second...
 
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