Sorry, just looking in again on the thread. The hatred of automation has no basis in fact, IMO.
Do you only hate automation when it occurs at a checkout register or hotel lobby? Next time you pass a construction site, you should stop to yell at the workers for using mechanical equipment. Clearly, they should be using teaspoons to excavate. Think of all the jobs it would create.
I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you there. Not about the excavation spoons but about automated check in/out services. Why? Because customer service.
Do you really want to walk into a retail establishment in the future [insert your favorite here, e.g.: Walwort, Large grocery chain, hotel] and have rows of automated self-checkouts with one plebe at a central station to help when something goes wrong? I don't. Customer service is already bad enough.
Grocery stores are becoming like Home Depots. There are hardly any employees milling about the isles and it's getting nearly impossible to go to the front to ask a cashier a question. Those places already have 27.3 checkout isles with only two checkers at five o'clock in the evening and 45 customers with squalling kids waiting impatiently in each line. The self check isle is jammed with customers looking to the aforementioned single plebe for help. The machines suck. Paying in cash sucks. (Go ahead, toss the 19th century grenades at me for not using plastic.)
"Hey POS machine, I've got five of these damned Deep Fried Twinkie boxes. Stop halting my #$@%^ transaction after each scan because you didn't detect the weight of the $#^ widget on the #$^ checkout counter scale." "Hey plebe, what's the code for loose non-organic poisoned GMO edamame?"
"Hey cash customer, don't forget to put the small change in FIRST when feeding me, otherwise I, the #$^ POS machine, will just ASSUME that you're done inserting money as soon as your larger bills exceed the amount of sale and spit out lots of change you didn't want. And no, I won't take all that loose change and those dirty ones to give you back a ten spot. Get lost!" "Uh, plebe? ..."