Amazon Go is a cashierless store concept that can be found in Chicago and Seattle. While its premise can be seen as a major step forward for technology, its implications on the workforce could be grave.

Imagine a Walmart or Target without any cashiers, strange right?

Amazon Go runs off of cameras that oversee each and every action a person takes while they shop. The hundred or so overhead cameras track which items a customer “bags” on their visit. Once finished shopping, the customer walks through a high-tech exit that automatically charges their pre-registered credit card. A smartphone and an Amazon Go account is required to shop at Amazon Go locations.

Bezos and Co. have had a range of interesting issues arise inside Amazon Go stores. The most notable include the store’s cameras lacking the ability to properly discern between body types and their tracking system being fooled by kids messing with product. Cashierless stores are prone to deal with new issues that have never popped up traditional brick and mortar stores.

The success of cashierless stores could lead to a future without the need for someone behind the cash register. Companies are out to make money. If they don’t need to hire anyone, they won’t. Especially if technology can do just as much, if not more, than a human can. Once the kinks are ironed out, the future could see the destruction of 2.3 million jobs.

Talk about structural unemployment.

Computer systems nowadays are more reliable than humans. In the future, that gap could increase tremendously. Speaking as a cashier myself, I would hate to lose my job and be replaced by technology. With that being said, it is almost impossible since I currently work in food and not retail (Amazon Go, Target, Gap).

I can only imagine how someone would feel if their job disappeared with the passage of time. For the past few decades humanity has thrown around the phrase, “Robots will take our jobs”. In 2018, that possibility is more fact than it is fiction.

Follow Andrés @_andresbear