Already posted items about the potential wave of automated food shopping demonstrated by Amazon Go (1 + 2), a Swedish General Store 2.0 and a French market that uses Li-Fi to spy on the buying patterns of customers, which could give the store’s computers the ability to dynamically adjust prices.

Cashier, stock and cleaning jobs, among others, would be eliminated if these visions were widely realized. Have to assume the transition would mean the creation of some good positions to develop smart machines (even if their actual manufacturing is mostly automated), though this scenario still feels like it will wind up being the same tale of haves and have-nots.

From Omil Xia at Yahoo! Finance:

Here’s how the grocery store of the near-future would work: An automatic facial recognition system greets customers by name at the entrance, and virtual assistants can direct customers to different aisles. Artificial-intelligence sensors will also assist grocery store customers, continuously updating the prices and items in the customer’s shopping cart.

Customers can then finalize purchases through a cellphone order that gives them customized coupons. This process could, in theory, take a lot less time than checkout lines.

Behind the scenes, the automatic stock room will manage the store’s inventory and send signals for robots to restock vacant shelves. Similar to today’s online grocery shopping experience, advanced technology can also prepare custom orders and deliver the items via drones.

While this elaborate scenario is not yet available, automated grocery stores are not anything surprising. Self-checkout kiosks, robot cleaners, and automated storerooms already exist.•