In general I'd rather interact with a machine than with the kind of person who can get hired as a cashier where I live - likely someone cognitively disadvantaged or who is an immigrant from a poor part of the world with limited English skills.

Precisely because our society is rich, and reasonably meritocratic (and has a lot of immigrants from poor, non-English-speaking parts of the world), people who are reasonably smart and conscientious don't last long in low-pay, low-status jobs like cashiering - they get promoted or quit to do something more lucrative. This is Patrick McKenzie's concept of The Sort (https://x.com/patio11/status/1818781344702644311). And it means that my experience of interacting with a cashier is likely to involve interacting with a menial laborer who is difficult to communicate with; meaning I'd rather avoid that interaction altogether and just press buttons on a machine.

have you talked to cashiers? many prefer the new ones. who are you protecting?

>also fucks self-checkout. are we so poverty stricken as a society now that we can't afford to pay cashiers?

Yeah, I'm appalled how poor as a society we've become, now that we can't afford door men (outside of luxury condos in Manhattan), elevator operators, and bank tellers.