Artificial intelligence, at least according to its most prominent backers, is going to revolutionizeevery industry in the country—including the people tasked with protecting retailers fromshoplifters. In a special edition of the trade publication Loss Prevention Magazine (LPM), whichbills itself as the premier periodical for “asset protection professionals,” AI is presented as anexciting opportunity for the retail industry.Sandwiched between jargon-laced articles about “Promoting a Data-Driven Culture” and how AIcan help asses “voice stress to pinpoint possible signs of deception” amongst detainedshoplifters, LPM assured readers that enhancing the local Whole Foods or REI with state-of-the-art surveillance tech is a “no-brainer.”
After all, LPM has argued in the past that retail theft is onthe rise across the country.
Such advances in AI would supposedly augment and speed up key tasks in retail security, likeanalyzing CCTV footage. “As opposed to the laborious process of watching hours of video, AImonitoring, for example, helps prevent theft at self-checkout kiosks by using cameras, sensors,and machine-learning to analyze data and detect suspicious activity,” says one feature in LPM.Just have cameras everywhere at all times, andThough the chatter of a business-to-business magazine might seem benign, the pages of LPMreveal a candid portrait of how retail owners and management examine the social and economiclandscape of the customers they serve and the workers they employ. For example, consider anLPM whitepaper on worker safety in retail: In the report, one in four workers is consideringquitting their jobs not because of work conditions or stagnant wages,
More from Gabrielle Gurley