Well for training attention-cnn model I think it.would speed it up, but as they note in the paper, running the pipeline they experienced worker saturation on their dataset (see figure 12). Looks like saturation occurs after 7 parallel workers with their hardware.
Somewhat OT, but standing in line at the grocery store checkout last night I couldn't help but wonder why so many billions are being spent on complex visual problems like self-driving cars, then at the same time the checkout clerk has to look in a laminated binder and then manually punch in a code number to get a price for bananas. (Happens at both big chains around here — Safeway and Kroger alliances.)
Surely with all this image AI and ML coming out of SV, there must be a way to augment cash registers to detect the difference between a dragonfruit and a kumquat.
The issue of human labor cost isn’t the whole picture as much as the TCO of an impoverished employee class such as high employee theft rates, lost work days from stress / poor nutrition / commute / lack of energy for exercise. Then there’s also the PR and legal necessary to avoid paying out fraudulent worker’s comp cases. There’s a lot of overhead that comes from treating employees like cattle that it makes me wonder if things may be better by just paying them more.
Looking at the laminated binder is not a nominal case, thankfully. Think of it as a cache miss.
Most checkout clerks have memorized the codes and don't refer to the binder anymore. Perhaps you saw a new employee.
Also, many fruits/veggies have stickers on them with the code (either numeric or bar-code) so you don't have to do a lookup into "the binder". That's how you can easily go through the "self checkout" lanes (although there is a fallback in the form of a "virtual binder" in the UI if you can't find the code and want to select your produce from a set of buttons/images on the screen, with optional string searches).
It's often key to have a differentiator in the form of a code because different items can be visually equivalent (think about bananas vs organic bananas).
many fruits/veggies have stickers on them with the code
IME, too often the sticker isn't useful because it's fallen off, or is obscured by the green eco-friendly produce bags.
That's how you can easily go through the "self checkout" lanes
I don't use self-checkout, on principle. I'd rather wait in line three minutes than cost a minimum-wage checkout person their job.
It's often key to have a differentiator in the form of a code because different items can be visually equivalent (think about bananas vs organic bananas).
This is an excellent point I didn't think of. I don't know that AI will be able to distinguish regular from organic produce in my lifetime.
For sure it will recognise fruits and vegetables better then any teenager around here that has a job as cashier. Amount of times I had to facepalm because cashier didn't recognise a beet or other common vegetable or fruit is significant.
But I refuse to self scan until you have to pay to use a cashier or self scan gets you a discount.
Amount of times I had to facepalm because cashier didn't recognise a beet or other common vegetable or fruit is significant.
Yeah, I have that problem, too. And I don't even eat "exotic"-looking things like pomegranates. Finger potatoes, kiwis, beets, cherry tomatoes (are they cherries or tomatoes?), and lots of other things confound grocery clerks these days.
And holy cow, don't try to pay with a two-dollar bill, or a dollar coin!
But I refuse to self scan until you have to pay to use a cashier or self scan gets you a discount.
In Australia the 'binder' is builtin to the cash register. A simple touch interface allows the checkout clerk to select the vege/fruit that currently being weighted on the scanning platform.
> I couldn't help but wonder why so many billions are being spent
I wonder the same about why shops need to be manned at all.
Vending machines have been a solved problem since many decades.
Just supersize them. A secure warehouse connected to a few external despensers won’t even take up as much space as a full brick-and-mortar store that people need to walk around in.
Chalk this up as another example of things that should have been commonplace 20 years ago but didn’t.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 46.0 ms ] threadFrom what I read they can process Yolo 6fps on multiple GPUs. Is a 20x speedup with more gpu possible based on their architecture?
Surely with all this image AI and ML coming out of SV, there must be a way to augment cash registers to detect the difference between a dragonfruit and a kumquat.
Perhaps we’ll see more of the tech you mention in Whole Foods and other brick and mortar businesses that Amazon is getting into.
Most checkout clerks have memorized the codes and don't refer to the binder anymore. Perhaps you saw a new employee.
Also, many fruits/veggies have stickers on them with the code (either numeric or bar-code) so you don't have to do a lookup into "the binder". That's how you can easily go through the "self checkout" lanes (although there is a fallback in the form of a "virtual binder" in the UI if you can't find the code and want to select your produce from a set of buttons/images on the screen, with optional string searches).
It's often key to have a differentiator in the form of a code because different items can be visually equivalent (think about bananas vs organic bananas).
IME, too often the sticker isn't useful because it's fallen off, or is obscured by the green eco-friendly produce bags.
That's how you can easily go through the "self checkout" lanes
I don't use self-checkout, on principle. I'd rather wait in line three minutes than cost a minimum-wage checkout person their job.
It's often key to have a differentiator in the form of a code because different items can be visually equivalent (think about bananas vs organic bananas).
This is an excellent point I didn't think of. I don't know that AI will be able to distinguish regular from organic produce in my lifetime.
Yeah, it will. The not-organic produce will have been genetically engineered to contain RFID tags :-).
> I don't use self-checkout, on principle. I'd rather wait in line three minutes than cost a minimum-wage checkout person their job
Thanks for stating this, I never realized the potential connection between the two. I'm going to do the same thing from now on.
But I refuse to self scan until you have to pay to use a cashier or self scan gets you a discount.
Yeah, I have that problem, too. And I don't even eat "exotic"-looking things like pomegranates. Finger potatoes, kiwis, beets, cherry tomatoes (are they cherries or tomatoes?), and lots of other things confound grocery clerks these days.
And holy cow, don't try to pay with a two-dollar bill, or a dollar coin!
But I refuse to self scan until you have to pay to use a cashier or self scan gets you a discount.
Agreed.
I wonder the same about why shops need to be manned at all.
Vending machines have been a solved problem since many decades.
Just supersize them. A secure warehouse connected to a few external despensers won’t even take up as much space as a full brick-and-mortar store that people need to walk around in.
Chalk this up as another example of things that should have been commonplace 20 years ago but didn’t.
So it’d be interesting for them to update their performance figures with current GPUs. It likely would run at much higher frame rates.