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Exam practice by Dr Hannah Lili Böttcher
Want a glimpse of dystopia? Visit the self-service checkouts (663 words)
World and Press • 2 nd November issue 2023 • page 2 page 1 of 4
Exam Practice
Topics: Automation • dystopia • artificial
intelligence • society • technology
Language variety: British English
Answers: See pages 2 to 4
| Image: Pixabay/Faisal Mehmood
Assignments
Task 1 – Comprehension
Explain what the author, Adrian Chiles, believes to be dystopian about self-service checkouts.
Task 2 – Analysis
a) Analyse the syntax in paragraphs 3, 4, and 5.
b) Analyse the author’s language use by grouping together examples and explaining them.
Task 3 – Evaluation
Do you believe the development towards more and more self-service checkouts point towards a utopian
or dystopian future? List advantages and disadvantages and include this cartoon in your pro-and-con-list:
• Cartoon by Trevor White captioned “I just want to interact with another human being...”, published by
Cartoonstock, 25 Feb., 2022, search ID CS570316
© 2023 Carl Ed. Schünemann KG. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Want a glimpse of dystopia? Visit the self-service checkouts
World and Press • November 2 / 2023 • page 2 page 2 of 4
Answer key
Assignments
Task 1: Comprehension
Sample points
• The author believes self-service checkouts to be dystopian because they are slowly but steadily
replacing the staffed checkouts, a process he calls “the death march of progress” (paras. 1–3).
• What annoys him is that some self-service checkouts are always out of action while the rest of them do
not work properly either (para. 3). By quoting the woman working in the supermarket, he also addresses
the fact that automated tills are a problem for elderly and disabled people (para. 6).
• Another negative factor is the fact that you cannot just exit the self-service area. Measures against shop
theft involve that you scan the barcode on your receipt in order to be able to leave. This would make
everything more tedious and harder for people. He thinks this would pose a challenge for elderly people
like his father who might be able to operate the self-service checkout but would possibly get stuck trying
to leave the supermarket (para. 5). This is almost like a nightmare that you cannot escape.
• He believes the “[t]ipping point” was reached when the self-service checkouts outnumbered the human
ones; to him, this is of great concern (“[e]xtinction loomed”, para. 4), and he paints a gloomy future
scenario in which the human-operated tills will be a relic of the past and something that can be looked
at only in a museum where they will be laughed at by the younger generations (para. 7).
• Finally, using humour and exaggeration, he paints a dystopian picture of the future. He (self-mockingly)
includes himself among the “[h]uman checkout enthusiasts” who will be tracked down by the AI police
as “degenerate counter-revolutionaries” and displaced to some distant railway arches where they will
“play pretend shops” at risk of being captured and killed by the government (para. 9).
Task 2: Analysis
Sample points
a) Syntax: There are many short and incomplete sentences, for example, “A zero-sum game” (para. 3),
“Tipping point. Extinction loomed.” (para. 4), “So cruel.” (para. 5). This feels like the author allows the
reader to hear his unfiltered inner thoughts. The language is informal and expresses the author’s
personal involvement with the topic. Together with spoken language (para. 5), this adds a sense of
immediacy and alarm to the author’s message.
b) Language use:
• Exaggeration: He often exaggerates and uses dramatic vocabulary in order to support and stress
his point about how awful the automated tills are (e.g., “my mood darkens”, “death march”, para. 1;
“[e]xtinction”, para. 4; comparing self-service checkouts to a dystopia).
• Slang: The author makes use of colloquial expressions (e.g., “fresh hell”, “beavered away”, “I
shambled out”, paras. 5, 7, 8), which contributes to the immediacy of his message and his informal tone
of writing.
• Tone: In general, the article is written in an informal and humorous but also sarcastic and selfdeprecating
tone. While being obviously annoyed and worried by the self-service checkouts, he adds
some funny anecdotes, like the one about the dried-out geraniums (para. 3), his imagination how
children will laugh at the human tills in museums, and how he and other supporters of human-operated
tills will be outlawed by the AI police (para. 9). In some remarks (e. g., “our tender eyes”, para. 8),
anecdotes (his struggle with the geraniums, para. 3; he and other people underestimating the
development, para. 2), exaggerations (see above), and descriptions (“Human checkout enthusiasts,
para. 9), he makes it clear that he is being self-deprecating.
© 2023 Carl Ed. Schünemann KG. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Want a glimpse of dystopia? Visit the self-service checkouts
World and Press • November 2 / 2023 • page 2 page 3 of 4
• Inner thoughts and use of contrast: He shares his inner thoughts (e. g., para. 5) by a quick
succession of questions and answers and what he imagines other people’s reactions would be. Again,
this, adds to the immediacy and his personal involvement in the topic. At times, it feels almost as if he
were talking to himself (e. g., “That’s useful, I suppose.”, para. 5). In the concluding paragraph, he gets
to the heart of his dystopian vision by contrasting what he expects to be the future (“Yes, …. No, ….”,
para. 9).
• Dialogues and address of the reader: The language is very lively, which is also achieved by
including dialogues in the article (e.g., para. 6) as well as addressing the reader directly (“Oh yes,
my friends, now you have to swipe a barcode on your receipt to be released.” para. 5).
Figures of speech:
• Metaphors:
◦ “the death march of progress” (para. 1) – also oxymoron, a combination of two normally
contradictory terms, as a death march is not normally associated with progress but with the opposite.
◦ “next wave in the deluge” (para. 4): Metaphors are figures of speech that describe one thing in
terms of another. Here, progress, normally associated with something positive and innovative, is
compared to death (i.e., the ultimate end and thereby the opposite of progress). In the second
example, the constantly growing numbers of automated tills are compared to a flood that sweeps
everything away and where there is no chance to escape from it.
• Antithesis and parallelism: “A handful of self-checkouts appeared; a handful of human ones
vanished.” (para. 2): This juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in parallel structure is an indicator of the
immediacy of what is at stake: the moment automated tills took over, human-operated ones were
stopped. By juxtaposing these two phrases, the author points out how the one “supermarket reality”
superseded the other.
• Personification: “Still more territory has now been swallowed up by a dozen new, bigger auto-tills …”
(para. 4). Here, the inanimate auto-tills are given human qualities, thereby also alluding to the idea that
their presence is a threatening invasion.
Task 3: Evaluation
Individual answers; sample points
Advantages
• Self-service checkouts might be faster than human tills, which could be an advantage for the shop and
its customers, especially during busy working hours.
• It saves the shops money because they need less staff. This would mean more profit – either if the
shops keep the money or if they reinvest it and attract more customers with reduced prices.
• By spending less money on staff, shops could provide more self-service checkouts and save customers
more time.
• Labour shortages at shops would be less of a problem because fewer members of staff are needed.
• Self-service checkouts take up less space than human-operated ones.
• During the Covid-19 pandemic, self-service checkouts reduced the risk of contagion.
• Shops entirely based on self-service have been opened in rural places and make life in the countryside
much easier.
• Conclusion: This points towards a utopian future in which a greater use of machines not only helps
humans to save time and money but also liberates them from monotonous and repetitive tasks like
operating a supermarket check-out. Human beings will profit more from this than they would be harmed.
Rural areas would benefit and the economy would profit financially by saving companies money as well
as in terms of labour shortages because more machines would reduce the need for human workers.
© 2023 Carl Ed. Schünemann KG. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Want a glimpse of dystopia? Visit the self-service checkouts
World and Press • November 2 / 2023 • page 2 page 4 of 4
Disadvantages
• Self-service checkouts might not necessarily be faster than human-operated ones, especially if there is
a glitch (which very likely will happen), and it turns into a bigger technical problem than a member of
staff could fix immediately at a human till.
• It’s absurd when a member of staff needs to fix a glitch at a machine that’s supposed to reduce the
amount of human time spent on it.
• People working at the checkouts might lose their jobs, which leads to more unemployment.
• You need some practice, especially with products that don’t have a scan code, like fresh vegetables
and fruit, fresh bread, or reduced items.
• Some groups of people, for example, elderly or disabled ones, might have huge difficulties operating
the self-service checkouts because these tills are not necessarily user-friendly or accessible for people
with disabilities or without a lot of technical knowledge.
• As is shown in the cartoon, there is no more human interaction at the till when you only have selfservice
checkouts. However, talking to a real person when you do your shopping is an important part of
some customers’ social interaction during the day, especially elderly and lonely people, so this could
lead to more loneliness among certain parts of the population. The pandemic showed how the loss of
everyday contact can affect people.
• Automated checkouts make the whole shopping experience much more anonymous. There are even
self-service shops with no staff at all.
• The risk of shop theft is greater.
• Conclusion: This points towards a dystopian future in which a greater use of machines will cause more
harm than good. Social interaction would be reduced more and more, which would in turn affect
people’s mental health. The development puts people who have a harder time using machines at a
disadvantage. Furthermore, human beings would be made redundant, which would harm the economy
due to higher unemployment. Machines also make or have pre-programmed errors, and the more
people rely on them, the greater the risk that these become harder and harder to fix.
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