The Robots Are Coming. Prepare for Trouble.

Online retailers use A.I. applications to figure out what customers want and to get it to them quickly, all at a much lower cost than their brick-and-mortar competitors. The key innovation is using data to make better predictions. Amazon uses customers' browsing and buying histories to make personal recommendations. Purchasing patterns across places and over time are used to predict product needs and to stock warehouses accordingly. In traditional stores, the shelves are often full of items that no one wants and bereft of others that were hotter than anticipated.