No way! Talking to the cashier by Zoom?

A photo of a cashier Zooming into work at a fried chicken shop in New York City from the Philippines went viral on X this weekend. The cashier sits on a computer monitor on top of an empty cashier desk and a virtual background of the store’s logo. Brett Goldstein, who posted the photo, wrote that this was “insane” and said it “only takes a short hop to imagine the near future where this is an AI avatar.” 

The Zoom cashier is real. She works at Sansan Chicken, a small Japanese fried chicken shop nestled next to New York University’s campus in the East Village. The store has a touchscreen ordering kiosk similar to those that are common at McDonald’s. But it also has a separate setup with the Zoom worker, who also takes orders from customers. 

More here at 404 Media.