https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-ai-voice-order-technology-drive-thrus-2024-6

  • Deadend [he/him]
    ·
    3 months ago

    The people who thought they could made a bot that could take orders from drive thru have never worked at a McDonald’s.

    • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]M
      ·
      3 months ago

      "Hello, can I take your order?"

      *indecipherable mumbling interspersed with crackling feedback over the sounds of a customer screaming at you from the other side of the counter.* "Uhm, excuse me, Hello??? Are you lazy fucks even listening‽"

      • Deadend [he/him]
        ·
        3 months ago

        It’s why touchscreen ordering works, but verbal.. may as well have a person do it.

        Maybe the real thing is that drive thru is kind of fucking stupid and a waste of space.

    • ryepunk [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      It's like people who want help shopping at the grocery store. A robot is basically useless. My average interaction:

      "Do you have this thing?"

      Is it a food thing or a non food thing?

      "It's a bin, for food"

      Okay, you want a big bin or a little one, disposable or resuable? Made of glass or plastic? Aisle 2.

      "It's food, I can't eat plastics or glass." Okay... You want beans maybe?

      "Yes yes beans that's what I said"

      Okay aisle 5, right hand side halfway down.

      Customers frequently don't know what they want, or even how to say it. So I spent 5 minutes looking for a Greek spice ziitar when they were looking for an arabic/north Africa spice Zaatar that is in the world food section.

      Imagine a robot trying to decipher this, especially when many people have accents as well, or they just show you a picture of a thing. I can work it out, it takes a little to time. The robot would also be useless because our store carries like millions of things and has at one point carries most things but it's a luck of the draw if we currently carry something. So ask a robot, do you carry tahini sauce? Yes we do, we currently have 0 at negative 1 dollar located in section not found. Because that's all the computer is going to say for like 90% of the tahini stuff we carry since we've switched brands a dozen times and they all are still stores there even though we haven't carried many for over a decade.