Considering the moral implications of self-checkout

I recently went to check out in a big-box home improvement store, only to find that every cash register had been replaced by self-checkout. While self-checkout is nothing new, and I use it on the regular, I sometimes have a bit of hesitation and a thought crosses my mind: "What is self checkout doing to us as a society?" When I saw a store with self-checkout as the only option it immediately repulsed me and made me start to wonder about the implications of it.

Pros of self-checkout

If I'm honest, I do see two benefits of self-checkout (which are really one benefit, from different perspectives): Efficiency & expediency.

From the business owner's perspective, a single person watching over a host of self-checkout registers lowers costs & increases profits. From a customer's perspective (something I've pondered when deciding which line to stand in), even when the self-checkout line is much longer, there's a good chance you'll get out of the store more quickly if there are 10 registers behind that line.

My career is that of a software engineer. We often work with asynchronous queues. Those are just fancy words for a list of jobs, with some number of workers (e.g. computers) that can perform those jobs. If you have 10 jobs (10 people in line), the last job will complete more quickly if there are 10 workers (cash registers) that can perform those jobs.

With the advent of scan & go^[1] and just walk out^[2] technologies, the number of workers (registers) are infinitely scalable. This is great for allowing the business to run efficiently, and for letting customers get out of the store quickly, but what is it doing to our society?

Cons of self-checkout

Job displacement

My immediate thought when I saw the missing cashiers was "What happened to their jobs?" Were the employees moved to another role, or were they laid off? Did they have a say in this? (My guess is no.) Many cashiers in our town are older and likely couldn't fill roles that required lifting, or walking long distances through the store. Where does that leave them?

Lack of human interaction

This is my bigger concern. Our society is continuing to become more and more fragmented.^[3] The word society has its roots in: companionship, friendly association with others, fellowship, and community.^[4] How can we have "friendly association with others" without the "others"? We were made for human interaction.

Closing thoughts

I don't have the answer, and am still working out my thoughts on this subject. I think people can fall into one two ditches: wanting to progress (looking only at the pros) or conserve (looking only at the cons), for the sake of their ideology. New technologies can bring with it both good and evil. We should not (necessarily^[5]) fear or dismiss new technologies, but should instead take a full-orbed view of any new technology. We should also be careful about allowing the ends (profits, speed, etc) justify the means.

Historically, jobs & careers being displaced by technology have opened the possibility for new careers to form. What happens to workers in the meantime though? And what happens to a society when its technologies continue to increase its fragmentation and isolation?