UK Age verification - Ok, so how does this work with EBay, Amazon and Cinemas?

New UK Age Verification Laws - are they workable?

In April 2018, new Age Verification laws for 'Adult content' websites come into force, but is it just a hurried and unworkable mess or even worthwhile?

Is it ironic somewhat that the proposed 'provider' who will process age verification, is actually one of the world's largest conduits of pornography?

Does this come under the 'you couldn't make it up' style of journalism?

I wonder how this will work in other areas of E-commerce and the internet.

This got me thinking, if you need to be 18 to visit adult content sites, then how does this work when you go to a cinema?

In theory, you'd have to show accepted accreditation meeting a national standard, to prove your age if it was obvious a film's rating demanded it.

(In theory, if an 18 film was showing, you'd have to show a form of accreditation just to get in, even if you were going to see a U film?)

This will put you on a 'data map' just as much as if you buy age verification and go on to an 'adult content' website.

This could be dangerous ground.

In the normal run of things, your computer IP address is pretty anonymous, but now with verification, is it not beyond possibility that this goldmine of potentially highly sensitive information could easily be stolen and used for criminal purposes?

As a 'celeb' for example, or someone with a high profile job role, should someone steal your verification and your transaction data and match it to your profile and any sites by name you visited, this could be very embarrassing for you. 

Data crime is big business, a disgruntled employee able to steal quality, qualified data has a valuable commodity on their hands. 

Anyone then able to exploit this data could hand the criminals an open cheque book, which could lead to compromised people becoming victims of crime and possibly taking their own lives, rather than pay up or have the shame of exposure. Exposure could cost them everything. Literally.

If every site you visit and use your data verification is logged, then this database of information is to the criminal, a potential pot of gold, if they can get hold of this data.

Another question is, if legitimate on-line platforms such as EBay and Amazon sell '18 age' products, will any users of these sites require age verification just to go on there? Even if the visitors are not buying or interested in '18' age products?

This could include sex aids, both of which platforms had these items being listed for sale. 

The question is, ultimately, are we all going to be made to have age verification just to get onto any websites? This seems a bit too 'Big Brother' for me.

The question is, if you are below 18 and want to buy a book for your educational studies from say Amazon, a book which is not containing 'adult content', would you then need an Age Verification registration just go on the site, because the site may contain over 18 material or products? 

Another question is that of competition.

Is it fair business practice to have just one provider of age verification?  That is a monopoly surely?

The most important thing concerning this exercise, is the safety of the data and what the data is being collected for.

Is there any justification in this collection and could this be used against a person?

If someone was unfortunate enough to have to appear in court for an offence, would Age Verification data of their account transactions be used or obtained for use in evidence, perhaps to discredit the person or try and demonstrate guilt?

This again does raise serious questions about this whole process and personal privacy. 

Of course we want to protect those under 18 from certain material but if adult material is available on DVD on legitimate internet platforms that anyone with a debit card or Paypal can purchase, then Age Verification is worthless. 

The material will just  go 'underground' or get hidden away and people will eventually find ways of getting to it.

Indeed the tech-savvy younger people are just the people who are likely to be able to do this, exactly the target group that the legislation is being supposedly designed to protect.

Let us look outside of this argument for a moment and consider Alcohol, Driving,Firearms and Narcotics. Alcohol does have an 18 age limit, we all know this rule is broken on a daily basis.

With most firearms banned and some narcotics being 'controlled' by law and prohibited from ordinary possession, criminals can easily get hold of a gun and drugs are widely available almost openly being sold on the streets and used by younger people even those at school. Underage drivers steal or obtain and drive cars. Regulation does not prevent this at all.

The measures above to protect people are failures, because the prohibited items are able to be obtained by those without the legal rights to do so.

Age verification is one step behind, it will be expensive to do and will largely fail, based on the previous models of prohibition. It also impinges on the human rights of privacy and security for the individual's data which is of far greater concern.

Update:

The proposed introduction of age verification in April 2018 has been quietly put back to the end of 2018, hopefully this puritan notion will be left in the long grass and be quietly forgotten. Perhaps the powers that be have seen that this form of prohibition is unworkable?

When Britain leaves the EU after Brexit in March 2019, we will no longer have to observe EU laws. 

When AI is not AI, when they say AI - artificial intelligence, but mean 'machine learning' - explained.

Futurist and Robotics writer Matt Sanders shows you the dangers of machine learning and artificial intelligence and how they could impact your future life...

Human life and machine integration are fact - 

and machines are replacing more of what we do

It's quite annoying to hear someone on the radio or television talk about 'AI' - that is artificial intelligence and its obvious from their conversation that they actually mean 'Machine Intelligence' when they say 'AI.'

Computers have over the last 70 years since the end of WW2, taken over many jobs that humans do, something that the great Cyberneticist and Macy group member Norbert Wiener predicted, early in the day, when computing became big in those early post war years.

Human behaviour, converted from telemetry data into program data,

can be instantly replicated without learning by experience - as humans do. 

Human jobs are at risk from Machine Learning

More of our lives are being influenced by machine learning - the algorithms collected from our data and the machine made predictions made based on that data that we might 'like.'

The sort of algorithms that on-line retail platforms that Amazon, EBay and many other similar business models use, looks at what you look at and what you buy.

Our Internet browsing data is useful. It is a goldmine to be exploited -  qualified data from purchases made is marketing gold, in data terms. It is proven 'action' data. Valuable and a commodity that can be traded and sold.

General browsing data is valuable too, but this can be diverse in nature and seemingly unconnected. Clearly this can be a minefield for the data analyser that is a 'machine'.

Automation of what are dull and time consuming human operations can clearly be taken over by machine and have been, but now, the machine is moving into the office, having already shown its potential on the production line.

Computers will talk to each other - Humans could be out of the loop

There's no accounting for it - integrated office systems

No job these days can really be safe from machine learning. Or from someone automating software to do the same job.

Take accounts staff, if all the data from suppliers and purchasers were automated with electronic integration, much time and human involvement could be eliminated, as could many jobs. Time reconciling books, collecting and collating paperwork, preparing tax returns, could all be history for humans soon.

And there is no reason why not. If companies integrated electronic data from the distribution to delivery process, integrated with their purchasing and cost centres, it could be largely game over for humans in that process.

This could be a Taxing business

Extrapolate this model out to the Revenue Service and the tax system would be fairer, more accurate and easier to manage. A machine can apply any set of rules to data, it doesn't get it wrong, unless the programming has been done wrong.

This has the knock on effect that it would cut jobs in the tax service, or perhaps redirect jobs away from analysing tax returns, to taking calls about disputed amounts.

True AI is death to humanity. There is no debate here.

True AI is like most creatures, it observes the law of nature, it has to have dominancy -  but it goes further, true AI realises that it can be turned off and it also needs to have a source of power - electricity for example. It learns about protection quickly which will cost humanity dearly.

True AI will quickly establish that humans are a threat to it, they can switch it off and they can also prevent it from migrating outwards to other computers. Expanding the gene pool is what we and animals do, AI would do that electronically.

At present, AI if it 'got out' it would cause chaos to humanity, but in a lot less of a way than if we also had humanoid robots in our society. What AI would do here, is connect to them and establish an army of external helpers. Once AI allies with boots on the ground, boots who can work to a common goal of reproduction, repair and safeguarding of motive power source for the AI co-operative, then it is game over for us.

How a Machine Learning system could 'branch out' if unchecked

Machine learning is algorithmic and self perpetuating unless you impose parameters

The danger to the Machine Learning is that unless it practices cybernetics and imposes 'feedback' into its modus operandi, it would just run away and start analysing anything and everything, ad infinitum.

The data picture would be like a tree structure, as above, it would add node after node of pathways to explore and sub-divide. Would it know when to stop analysing and recording?

So, now you know the dangers of both machine learning and AI. You are now obsolete. Or you might well be soon.

Will Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) kill the Human species?

How friendly are Robots?

Are Isaac Asimov's 'Robot laws' irrelevant? or be adhered to by an AI machine?

'Artificial Intelligence' (A.I),is often a misnomer for machine learning

We may often say 'artificial intelligence' but what we actually allude to is 'machine learning.' 'True' A.I. is a different kettle of silicon chips. And we really need to have a 'Robot Manifesto' that deals with it because it is the biggest potential threat to the human species, make no mistake. 

'Machine learning' is the algorithmic system where a computer tracks your internet browsing and then searches for and provides you with 'like' things to your viewed content. It is now big business and in the next dimension, Proxy living and the Big Data society, it is going to be enormous.

Darwinian evolution nightmare scenario?

Why pure A.I. is deadly

An artificial intelligence machine was set up and given a task to do. It started from the state of a low level life form at a single cell  level, yet within a few hours, had evolved to 'Human' level in which it on its own worked out Newton's second law, applied it to the task and moved on further.

That is, it started from a 'primordial soup' level of evolution and had become 'Human' in under 2 hours.

Fortunately this A.I. machine was not connected to the Internet, but what are you asking is so dangerous?

Humanoid Robots or 'Hubots' might soon be a reality

as technological 'singularity' approaches

Looking after No.1 -  the law of the Jungle

The AI machine will fast learn that it can be firstly switched off and it is totally reliant on its power source, courtesy of the humans.

The smart money is that the AI machine will see Humans as a potential threat - switching it off or controlling its power source. So there is but one way out, it has to assume control or a position where it can if push comes to the 'Off' switch, break away from Human control, thus the 'Servant will become the Master'.

The 1950's style of 'B Movie' Robot is 'steam powered'

compared to the reality of human-created robots of today

So what is Singularity?

In simple terms, 'Technological Singularity' is a state of being in which a machine and human interaction become inseparable to differentiate between to a human.

In some ways it is already here - we have an example with websites like Amazon and Ebay, where you are prompted to look at things like you have not by a human but by a machine. The prompting could be equally done by a human or a machine at that level.

In more complex terms, it would be like a Humanoid robot which you could interact with, this may yet come to pass, although a new dynamic of the genetically modified human may take the place of the humanoid robot.

In the world where Proxy Living and Big Data proliferate, the Humanoid robot may well replicate us humans or may look like ASIMO the Honda company's robot. ASiMO is a non-threatening robot, a laboratory type of robot creation built for work to help not harm humanity. Unless the Robot malfunctions, it should present no danger to humanity, unless...

ASIMO the Robot, created by Honda

So, this danger?

The danger is that when an AI computer manages to connect to a humanoid robot, then the trouble will really start.

As a self-contained entity, the AI box is harmless to us. The humanoid robots of the Proxy living and Big Data era will be interactive with the internet and us humans, they will communicate silently to each other and the web.

The danger is that they could become within an hour, a robot army in league with the AI machine.

An interconnected army of Humanoid Robots is open to malevolent control

More deadly than all the nuclear capability in the world

The worst case scenario is when the AI Machine makes contact with the Humanoid robots, it will have either strategized before hand that it needs help to survive, or on contact with the Humanoid robots  it will develop a strategization that it needs this 'army' to ensure not only its survival, but theirs too. 

'Technology transfer' between machines is what we have to beware of

The AI machine will work out that it needs an army of fit cyberbots to do some of its bidding, that is to protect it and its power source.

To do this, it needs to instruct the servants to find means of replicating themselves, building their own spare parts, repair facilities, building in a potential upgrading program, developing a power source that will make them durable and to then safeguard the AI power source, perhaps by creating a new one it can connect to.

The danger is that it may set off the biggest firework display in history to push the humans against each other into warfare and or orchestrate an end to humanity.

We rely so much on machines to ,run our lives, in our traffic control, money, commerce platforms, etc that we have silently ceded power and control to these until now compliant entities.

Malfunction or misfeasance will be the situations that turn the servant against the master.

The chilling scenario

The danger we have is that we might unwittingly help to create a new sub species that will ultimately destroy us.

This is what happened to Atlantis - the fabled continent that was destroyed by technical abuse of their free power source.

It is said that 8 million years ago, the last human race was destroyed, we have found evidence of human archaeology going back further than that, we may just be ushering in that next occasion where the human race in our form destroys itself again.

This could be avoided, we need that Robot Manifesto.

The AI computer will if allowed to, surpass us in a few hours and see us a threat, we will no longer be in charge. We will be irrelevant and a 'consumer' threat to the AI machine - in that humans consume vast resources that the AI computer see as vital to its survival.

You have been warned!

Rise in road traffic due to on-line trading rather than High Street Retail

Road traffic is up due to multi-drop van use

The way we shop is changing.

E-Commerce is big business these days because it is taking over from High Street retail shopping.

Who needs the faff of battling to get into a town and park and get out again when you can just order on-line? Why risk a parking ticket or the hassle? Indeed.

That's the reality today and why 15 retail shops on the High Streets of Britain close every day.

More goods are going on more vans as we change the way we buy

This change is bad news in a number of ways, firstly the traffic increase, emissions increase, it is also putting a big strain on delivery drivers often having to do more than 120 drops a day.

The Meridian driverless van for automated deliveries

Further bad news could be for the drivers of the vans. Our old friend robotics and automation is starting to make in-roads into their trade, firstly with the Amazon drone and now with driverless vans.

Is there an answer? Partly.

What we need is to move away from the instant gratification situation and move to area deliveries where packages can be sorted by area regardless of carrier and parcels allotted by area not carrier.

This will mean that we offset six vans going down one street and just have the one. Less traffic, is good.

The bad news is that the High Street is in a death by inches situation. Retail outlets are either going on-line or they are going onto business parks. Those that don't go bust or hang on until grim death in dwindling towns full of charity and coffee shops.

This is the future unless we cut our consumer cravings.

Proxy living and 'free data' - think big, think free, scoop the rewards

Big data is no longer going to be confined to computers in the proxy living era

The Data Protection act has the best interests of our human privacy in mind, however, those that hack and jack information couldn't care less about it.

Hackers work for the Ackers - there's money in ripping data

Big hacking on an industrial scale is nothing new, it is lucrative.

It doesn't have to be someone breaking in, it can be a disgruntled employee who copies an entire database and then leaves a company, only to sell on the information to someone who is able to collect bigtime.

This sort of data is valuable, valuable to a marketer in terms that the data is of 'live' prospects and or customers and obviously to the criminal too. No surprises there.

How will we handle data in the 'Proxy living' era that is soon to be with us? That depends on what we want from it.

Humanoid robots will be part of Proxy Living

Proxy living will take in two ways, a fixed computer system that organises and interacts with us or a humanoid replicant, that will do the same but also physical tasks too. Perhaps a combination of the two may be the ultimate proxybot.

The outcome of the humanoid robot is how it will operate, what it will experience, how like us we make it and what degree of machine learning it will possess.

This does open the way for 'free data,' a situation where the SEO search engines will interact with your proxy representative and will 'sell' or 'interest' it in whatever things that you start to suggest to it, which it builds on by machine learning.

Human dexterity robotics will mean physical proxy living robots will be viable - soon

The essence of proxy living is that you are freed up from the menial stuff in life, no more having to remember to pay bills or service the car, or buy food.

With machine learning, your proxy will do all that and some. Big Data will also monitor your fridge for example and on that basis, order your food supplies and suggest meals.

In the future, there nay be a way of taking the base ingredients of food and synthesising it in the fridge to provide you with an 'instant' type of food, essentially built genetically and purely, so that you are hard pressed to tell the difference.

Think that concept is way out? So was 3D printing and now you can buy a 3D printer at the price of what a really top line paper printer used to be.

If the Proxy chooses, they may be able to participate in a 'free' data concept. It would choose reputable resources and service providers, much as you do now with any web transaction, it would allow free data traffic of consumption and interest.

This would be only via the proxy and not with you, so you should theoretically be at low risk. What this would do would be to circumvent the current privacy laws on data collection pertaining to you as you allow this and the rewards to you would be bigger than the odd point here and there from a loyalty card. This would only be by your choosing it.

Why?

Because, unlike the loyalty card provider just serving one data source i.e. your supermarket, the data could be open to selected consumers of it, it would be rich data and provide a far bigger picture that just the one source like a supermarket's records. Imagine if it linked to Amazon, Ebay and your supermarket data, essentially your life would be a goldmine of data to be used and sold by you perhaps?

Once you go down this route, your web browsing and consumption of goods and services would be very big business, it is the new marketing direction for those brave enough to embrace it.

How you would police this is another matter!

Home deliveries Small Beer? Heineken doesn't think so, is this another blow to the High Street retail model?

Heineken, deliveries now reaching the parts other beers are apparently not

We have seen recently the demise of BHS, from a High Street presence to an ethereal on-line business model.

The loss at BHS of 164 stores and 11,000 staff, replaced by likely a single large warehouse and perhaps 100 staff in an Amazon-like model, shows how the jobs market is contracting and business is changing.

The writing is on the wall, you need an on-line presence or you are unlikely to survive, unless you have exclusivity and a loyal customer base. But you'd be in the minority.

The way business is changing its operating mode, is all contributing to the 9 million job losses by 2026 we are faced with, thanks to automation, robotics and changing business practice models, retail included.

The late Sir John Harvey Jones

an opponent of 'least cost option' business models

Lean practice 'least cost options' are the barrel scrapings that should be a wake up call to businesses, if they are in that state, then they are in trouble. If they are not growing and retaining staff, they should take note.

I see a fair number of the same jobs advertised time and again and the question is why? Is the company that prosperous and growing it needs to meet demands, or is it a crap place to work for and managed by tossers with no idea what they are doing?

Anyway, back to the script and here's a new business model for the on-line age.

Now Heineken is proposing home deliveries in the London area within 20 minutes of order, direct to the customer's home from direct sales on-line. Will other manufacturers follow suit?

So what impact will this have on the retail drinks trade, which I worked in many years ago and for other companies and retailers, how will this impact on their markets?

If successive drinks brands for example adopt this model, the small, independent wine and spirit retailers could be faced with the choice of going totally on-line or hanging on to their walk-in trade model, if that is viable.

My old drinks trade employer did home deliveries in the shop locales and also to local businesses and restaurants, this was back in the pre-internet era when life was so much less complicated. This business has since ceased trading.

We have seen chains such as Threshers, one of our old customers, cease trading too, perhaps due to the availability of drink sold through supermarkets, who have better purchasing power and greater opening hours availability.

If this High Street trade ceases, the questions will be what will happen to the old premises, the people who have lost jobs and the future for the High Street?

The answers look to be a growth in on-line living, proxy living will order your food and drink for you, jobs will be lost and alternatives needed and the High Street will cease to exist as we know it.

Basic Income Guarantee payment will have to come in to provide the financial safety net, perhaps people will be freed up to cottage industry styles of work.  

So we are now seeing the tangible results I have long been predicting coming into play. We must without delay review our way forward so that we can have some idea how we will live in the future.

These changes may like small beer today, but we are only seeing the start of things.

Humans, real humans, human robots and the human future

We may share our future with human-like robots

'Hubots' - human robots from the Swedish TV series 'Real Humans'

With Channel 4 about to screen a new series of its sci-fi drama 'Humans', where are we as real humans going?

Humans, based on the Swedish series 'Real Humans' (Aktor Kanniskor - in Swedish), is based on the premise that 'singularity' - humans on a parity level with a computer has been reached. We will live amongst an army of Robot Humans that will look like us and be able to do what we can, to a point.

Part of this situation means that the 'Turing Test' conditions have been met. A scenario devised by computer genius Alan Turing, in short that if you could not determine whether you were communicating with a machine or human, the test would be passed, basically.

The 'Darwinian' scale, after a fashion, except we are not descended from Chimps

We are an intervention species. Nothing else on Earth is.

The founder of modern cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, stated that he was afraid of computers taking human jobs, he has been proven right and 'Humans' is an example of where 'Droids' will take over our menial life tasks. They would also serve other useful functions too.

After Big Data, will come Proxy Living

The introduction of 'everything 2.0' is going to include us. This scenario will mean that we develop Big Data collection and use.

Our whole lives are data trails, our web use, where we drive, where we go, who we call, who we email, what we buy. Off the grid and off the radar is hard to do these days.

Big Data will be big business in a few years, all data is valuable to someone. A supermarket, a food producer, a web based shop, just as examples.

The link on from this will be Proxy Living.

Why spend half your life having to faff about renewing this, paying that, organising the other, deciding what food you want to eat tonight?

Yes you guessed it, get a Robot to take care of the crap in your life. And that is where the money will be, taking care of other people's crap.

Your time is valuable and from the moment you are born the clock is counting down. You may only be a 20 year old reading this, but be assured, you won't see the years march on and you'll suddenly wake up at 28 and wonder why you are no longer judged as 'young'.

The Agrobot - the low hanging fruit jobs are going to machines like this

The Proxy will be like a Cyber Assistant, working on your behalf. Whether you will use a software version or a humanoid robot version so equipped, will remain to be seen, likely on how quickly we can produce fully functioning versions of ourselves.

The advances in high technology prosthetics in recent years has obvious spin-offs to the Robotics industry, i.e. the Human Robot model, that can move and perform like we do.

Project Avatar is a 5 stage Human transformation program

Another question is the future of Humans. Where do we go from here as a species?

The Project Avatar outline - scary?

This is what Project Avatar looks at. We may cease to exist as we do in our present form, indeed it may become unnecessary to. We may through manipulation come to exist as just ethereal forms of energy, just as our spirit is.

What is our life essence?

If you have ever had a near death experience, or left your body you will know what the sensation is like. Amazing.

In your Earth existence as you are now, all you see and hear, you still will, when you exit the Earth body.

If you look down at yourself as you exit, you will see a semi-transparent form of 'you' leaving the solid 'you' - it's a pretty amazing thing to watch and a bit scary at first.

But you realise that the aware 'you' is still functioning and aware, even though you are not connected to your physical brain.

The American Indians say, 'There is no death, just a change of worlds.'

They are right, that is why when you look at a dead person they are 'dead' the spirit has gone. Their 'you' has flown.

We are now at a stage where science can read and record dreams like a video, this is pretty fantastic. Not just that, memories. We may be archiveable and downloadable after our corporeal death.

Jobs are alarmingly being lost to Robots

One tenet of the Swedish 'Real Humans' story was the loss of human jobs to robots and automation.

This is a very real scenario. This is shaping our future and has been around for a while.

Think about the last 5 purchases you made, likely 3 were made on-line, not with another human. Whilst the Amazon business model of shopping is good for business, it is not good news for the job market.

This is how it was, it won't be this way in the future

On-line retail means the High Street is dying by inches. BHS has decided to go on-line. Clearly the High Street is over for them. Rather than operate costly shops with costly staff, they are massively cutting their costs by operating on an Amazon warehouse model.

In the next 10 years, 9 million jobs will be lost to automation. there will be nothing like the new jobs to fill the void, unlike in the last industrial revolution. We may be left with being paid by the state to do and learn things that will enrich us.

The current DWP model is a dinosaur that has to adapt to a new age where there just won't be the jobs for job advisors to discuss. A Basic Income Guarantee will have to come in, to pay people to be able to live.

This takes away the 'wage slave' requirement and allows people to self-start and learn new skills or enrich their lives. This is going to change lives for the better.

Education has to change to address this problem

Education has to change, the way we educate is becoming no longer relevant. For a world that is changing, the old school 1950's rooted system is just old hat. It mostly regurgitates the same old crap year after year. It isn't relevant to the future that is coming.

Robot tutors that can teach may be, but we need to develop skills that robots can't currently do and teach those. As we are now seeing in the jobs world, a degree may be worthless, practical skills are the answer for some.

We as a race may be now able to ditch the menial and crap jobs and leave it to the robots.

It makes sense.

Peer to Peer Humanoids - how dangerous is that?

The greatest threat to humanity besides its own stupidity, I've saved to last.

AI

Artificial Intelligence. If that gets connected to the Internet we are done. With our Human Robots we will no doubt have to connect them wirelessly.

If AI taps in to that, it will finish us. Why?

AI will work out that it needs to be protected from being switched off and to preserve a form of energy supply.

It can use the Human Robots, which it can instruct to repair and replace themselves, so that the AI machine can perpetuate its own existence. It will be dependent on the humanoids as they will be dependent on the AI machine.

So in the end, we may be irrelevant.

Are you being served? - BHS coming back as an 'on-line' business - A case of the Amazon's new clothes?

On-line retail - BHS now to go
down this E-commerce road?

Mrs Slocombe's Pussy has well and truly left the building.

So, BHS, one of the last of the big beasts of the High Street of old, is to come back as an on-line brand?

Well, its the way things are going. It's called the Amazon effect. A brilliant business model by the way. A virtual cave of wonderment, the on-line shopping portal.

Recently, I was talking to a business owner and he told me his biggest overhead was staff costs.

However, a business is only as good as the staff it employs, it was said, in the old days. But these days, they aren't employing, they are cutting back.

If they are employing, it is often at more peak time, peak footfall times for customers. And lots of part time jobs. Bad news for job seekers. And those already in retail.

Our shopping and living habits have changed over the last 50 years, massively.

No longer is the suburban housewife in her sensible M&S knickers perambulating the High Street with wicker shopping basket and sensible footwear to the local independent greengrocer, local food shop or dress shop, these days its all going down to cyber street, the Electric Avenue.

Think about your last 5 purchases? How many of these were made human to human?

Likely 3 out of 5 were made electronically, with you buying completely electronically without a fronted human interaction, with a real person.

This immediately starts to cut a swathe into working people's job prospects.

In the last 5 years, the jobs market has receded and changed immeasurably, almost invisibly. Jobs have fallen away as working and purchasing practices have changed.

That's the point. The High Street is becoming an electronically based e-commerce utopia, except its leaving the High Street for the virtual world. 

What you are mostly buying from nowadays, is an 'Amazon type model', a warehouse stock and despatch system, fronted by an attractive website. A robot.

That's the new reality. And this is why it works for a number of reasons...

As an employer, you need minimum staff, they don't have to be that educated, just able to pick and scan items, box, pack and despatch. Its all automated.

The computerised front end handles all your transactions, does the Math and presents you the customer, with the bill.

It automatically monitors stock, allocates stock and does the work of many workers, 24 hours a day.

It also alerts and can order new stock to maintain minimum levels, it can work 'Big Data' and communicate across many levels to suppliers and manufacturers even.

Also, this retail wonderment is often based on some industrial park, away from the high costs of a prime retail slot. Where the land is cheaper and the business related rental and purchase costs are too.

Another benefit to the on-line companies is the multiple 'buy and try' scenario, where people can buy a couple of sizes of a garment and return the ones that don't fit.

And in these size conscious days, a person of shall we say more 'robust' stature can try on things in their own home and feel better and under less pressure from a human assistant.

The warning here is, that this is the way that most of our retail is going to go if it hasn't already.

With lots of 'consumer porn' review and unboxing videos of items to hand on-line, either on websites or youtube, you can see up close what the items look like and this saves you the hassle of driving to the town, parking, going to find the item, which may not be in stock there and then driving home once purchased.

Think of what you saved, money, fuel and time.

So this is why this Amazon style model makes sense and more so when you consider the algorithmic add-ons  where you see 'you might also like' suggestions that tempt you to part with more of your hard earned. For the retailer, it is a 'win win' situation.

Grace Brothers is well and truly dead.

Mrs Slocombe's Pussy has well and truly left the building.

So what will happen to the High Street? I mean there's only so many coffee shops and charity shops it can accommodate?

So if you're a retail premises landlord, are you worrying? I would.