Meanwhile, more uplifting news from the Netherlands. National Dutch newspaper Telegraaf reports that the Netherlands’ 2nd biggest supermarket chain Jumbo terminates their experiment with AI powered in-store surveillance (about which I blogged earlier this year). The experiment started because of high instances of shoplifting, likely driven by the rise of the self-scan checkout taking over from the human cashier.
One reason why i find this new interesting is that it can be read as signaling a decrease in the unbridled enthusiasm for all things ‘AI’. Perhaps the tide is turning on the unlimited business promises of AI driven smart technologies? This case shows that it can indeed be turned and that all it takes is labeling an experiment as ‘failed’ and to pull the plug. I welcome the courage to call a failure a failure. Often in the world of technological innovation it seems very hard to escape the rhetoric that failures don’t exist, and just admit that technology is not the solution.
There is another reason why i think this is interesting, and that has to do with the media logic of news reporting about AI and digital ‘smart’ technologies. The Telegraaf has a reputation of being a newspaper catering to right-wing populist sentiments. In that light, it’s remarkable to note the kind of language that the Jumbo CEO uses. I interpret this as deliberate discourse meant to appeal to specific conservative and tech-averse audiences and political sentiments. CEO Ton van Veen is quoted as saying things like: “this technology negatively impacts the shopping feeling/experience”, “customers are not suspected thiefs”, and goes on to frame technology as “expenses that cannot be returned to customers in the form of lower prices”, “not following the current trend of society ‘coursening up’ [verharding] by using technologies ourselves”, and last but not least “social control and eye contact are important”. These utterances to me read like moral statements conjuring up an idealized past that perhaps never really was: a humane vision of society based on trust, responsibility, equity and watching over each other (even as a business).
All of those phrasings are also a type of PR, presumably meant to appeal to audiences who are often averse of new technological developments in society that are felt to harm traditional sociability. These audiences are likely to read this particular newspaper. Moreover, the present political wind in the Netherlands is fiercely blowing from the right side of the political spectrum. This message from Jumbo clearly rides this sentiment of a society that to many people is no longer recognizable as ‘ours’ (whether it’s new technologies or immigration).
Is it surprising then that the news is brought here? Not if this is seen as a kind of techno-nostalgia.
Link to article in Telegraaf >> (found via Tweakers >>)