“Everyone hates the self-checkout line,” Regina said wearily. “It doesn’t work properly. It’s eliminating jobs. It’s unpaid labor by the customer. We get complaints at least once a week.” She tipped her head, striving for the optimism she’d promised to get herself through one more holiday season shift. “Not every day for a few years now, though.”
“This is a new complaint, boss.” Opal’s eyes were wide. “You know the latest software upgrade?”
“Ugh.” She wrinkled her nose. “The AI one last month? Yeah, we got a bunch of complaints after that, too. Turns out some people actually read the fine print as they’re checking out. Including that guy who covers the camera with a plastic bag every time.”
Opal shrugged and pointed. “Well, that one seems to be learning faster than the others, but the rest might learn from it if they’re networked at all.”
“What?” Regina nudged the CLOSED sign out of the way and began pressing the touchscreen. “What do you mean, this one’s learning faster?”
“That’s the only checkout station we’ve gotten complaints about so far.”
She stopped, UPC book in hand. “Opal, tell me more about these complaints. What exactly happened? Wasn’t this version supposed to eliminate of the whole ‘please rescan your item’ nonsense that everyone hated?”
A heavy sigh from the teen. “That’s what the rep said. But it started off with a lot of errors. You know, telling people they hadn’t put something in the bag, but they had, and making a human clear the error still. And, um, I think a lot of people got really irritated with it.”
“So?”
“So they swore at the machine, and now the AI assistant for self-checkout has learned to cuss. Or at least that one has.”
Regina caught herself and limited the obscenity to mouthing the word.
“It’s mostly ladies who seem offended,” Opal pointed out, tugging on a blue pigtail.
“Right.” She straightened. “Well, the latest study says they’re doing the majority of the grocery shopping still. Let’s turn this machine off. I’ll contact the software guy and get him on this straightaway. One down shouldn’t back up the lines too much.”
Across from the women, a man with a newsboy hat broke into laughter. He bagged his last item and snagged the receipt, still chuckling.
Regina made eye contact and raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t that beat all,” the man said, zipping his leather jacket. “The machine gave as good as it got, eh? Defending itself. And still wished me a good day!”
She winced. “Opal.”
“I know.” Another sigh, the kind only a seventeen-year-old could supply sufficient weight to, the kind that drowned the world in a limpet mine’s worth of sorrow. “Shut them all down.”
***
This week’s fun prompt was from nother Mike: The AI help line for the self checkout worked fine, until it learned to cuss…
Mine went to Becky Jones: He had the personality of an unhappy slug in seawater, but they needed his skills.
Find more, over at MOTE!
