I mean, that sounds obvious to me after that one :
404media.co/mark-zuckerberg-ai…

Nevermind having to talk to human people to buy food, the zuck thinks your friends should be AI too.

Mark Zuckerberg Thinks You Don't Have Enough Friends and His Chatbots Are the Answer

The CEO of Meta says "the average American has fewer than three friends, fewer than three people they would consider friends. And the average person has demand for meaningfully more.”

^{Samantha Cole (404 Media)}

For me personally, the self checkout is just a way better solution to the problem. It's for me much faster and more efficient. It's also easier for the store itself. The best kind of self checkout for me is where you can scan everything with a hand scanner or app whilst shopping. Then just pay at the self checkout and walk out. That way I just put the stuff in my bag directly, instead of from the shelf into the basket or cart. Then from the cart to the checkout and then from the checkout into my bag. It also spreads out the action of scanning the products, which means avoiding a slow and repetitive task scanning it all in 1 go. I'm also not blocking a checkout whilst scanning. I hate it when stores that offer the hand scanner have people scanning a whole cart full of stuff at the checkout. And then bagging it of course, which blocks a checkout for ages. Just go to the regular checkout if you want to do that, the cashier is faster than you are and you can focus on bagging exclusively.

However the lack of human contact is an issue. I've seen a lot of stores that offer self checkout recently make one or two lines available for chatting. It's just the regular oldskool cashier, but they are relaxed about it and chat with the customer. This means people in a hurry or that don't need contact right then can go fast through the self checkout. And people who like to chat can use the chatty checkout with a good old human being.

This for me is the best way to apply new tech, all of the benefits for all parties involved and hopefully none of the downsides.

No, the hand scanners aren't connected to the kiosks. They are at the entrance, you pick them up, scan all you want to buy. Then at checkout you place the scanner into a kiosk, it knows what you bought and you can checkout as usual. Every once in a while a store employee takes the scanners and puts them into the holders in the entrance. Depending on the size of the store there can be up to a hundred of these scanners available.

Other stores do the same, except your phone is the scanner with an app you can download. It works basically the same way. Most stores that offer the app also offer the hand scanners, which I prefer.