• Mechanismatic@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    Sounds like the Mechanical Turk which was run by chess players moving the “automaton.”

    So much of the wow factor of new technologies is just marketing hyperbole.

    • wildncrazyguy@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      The article states they’re replacing the original overhead camera concept with cameras embedded in the shopping carts, so the idea is not going away.

    • reversebananimals@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      That’s because the writer is trying to make it sound that way to get people to click the headline.

      In reality, the 1,000 people were mostly just tagging the videos to help train future iterations of the model. It would have taken way more than only 1,000 people to actually run the technology as a mechanical turk.

      Its just poor quality sensationalist journalism.

    • petersr@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      To be fair, this is a classical strategi in startups called “wizard of Oz prototyping” - it is used to test if there is a market for something before the tech is ready. But the tech is supposed to be created soon after and actually work…