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Short abstract:

This paper documents the use of digital interfaces, architecture, and onsite branding to downplay the presence of human labour and reinforce specific, lucrative sociotechnical imaginaries within the context of streetside retail automation in North American urban centres.

Long abstract:

This paper documents the use of interfaces, architecture, and branding to present human service sector work as automated processes within the context of streetside retail automation in North America. In their 2019 book, "Surrogate Humanity," Atanasoski and Vora speak to the trend of rendering workers invisible on TaskRabbit and other micro-work platforms. Embodied labour such as picking up groceries and cleaning homes is rendered abstract by practices of anonymization and asynchronous scheduling embedded into the interfaces of these apps, enabling "the fantasy that technology is performing the labour." Reiterating the ethos of ghost work, the authors outline that the innovation of these platforms is not algorithms or AI: "the innovation is the interface." Departing from the online platforms characteristic of ghost work, this paper documents the use of digital interfaces (and accompanying physical design features) to obfuscate the presence of human labour within digital automats, "Just Walk Out" grocery stores, and other sidewalk-level forms of retail automation. Although marketed as futuristic, AI-driven, and entirely autonomous, these service sector businesses generally rely on vast human infrastructures to restock products; clean and troubleshoot hardware; and even tele-operate entire apparatuses when the guiding software has failed. This presentation explores how such ostensibly autonomous retail technologies holistically employ architecture, digital interfaces, and onsite branding to downplay the presence of human labour and reinforce specific, lucrative sociotechnical imaginaries. Throughout, examples will be drawn from "Toronto 14-24," an ongoing data visualization project mapping the proliferation of these retail concepts in Toronto, Ontario over the past decade.