Faked it, failed to actually make it.

Tried it once. I’d been curious and needed a thing.

As billed, I just got my item and left. No confirmation from the turnstile or anything. Just walk out. It was a vending machine in the form of a convenience store, convenient and cheap, and I hated it.

This was downtown after trading hours (fewer people about). It was the layout of any corner store aside from the till replaced by a beverage kiosk. It was clean, well-lit, and well-stocked. But there were no people. It was empty and silent with cameras everywhere, a weirdly dystopian liminal space I was happy to leave.

Back in my hood, I stopped by my bodega for a chop and a loosy for my guy on the corner. The ock’s cat pawed at me for attention and a neighbor chatted me up. I left the change.

I wonder how easy it is and how much you'd actually have to know to do a tech startup grift applying "AI" to a thing to get investor money

Common misconception. It's actually Al checkout, because the camera reviewers are all named Albert or Alphonse.

Humans will be cheaper than AI for a long while yet, computers demand temperature and humidity controlled environments, along with stable electricity, humans don't have such requirements and those workplace protections aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

Could you just, like, shop in a Richard Nixon Halloween mask and have Amazon bill the White House?