This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
To understand this, you have to understand the CEO cult. They ALL hang off every word from SV tech bros, and the appeal of free labor is hard to ignore when you have to find $100M for executive bonuses.
If automated food service was what people wanted, then automats would have never gone out of business 120 years ago.
can't believe they saw how shitty mcdonalds became with all their kiosks and automation and thought yeah i want that for me
I'm actually not angry at McDonald's implementation of their online/kiosk/self serve ordering systems. Not a fan of an AI taking my order tho.
If I'm going through the drive through, just let me talk to a fucking person. They're standing at the window waiting to collect my payment, doing literally nothing else, just let them take the order too. It's eliminating work and adding to the global fuckary that is "AI" for absolutely no benefit to anyone.
Unless they're going to eliminate everyone except the person handing me the food, then fuck off with the AI slop.
10/10 times I would rather order from the app and just pick it up, except their app is shit and won't allow you to use it until you've given them all of your data, signed up for an account, filled out their account recovery questionnaire so they know your mother's maiden name, your dog's name from grade school, your blood type, and probably what kinks you like... Just to order a fucking big Mac?
My dudes. You have over estimated your worth to me as a part of society. If the app was just, "hey, where are you?" Then "cool, this store is nearby" selects store "tell me WTF you want" orders "pay me please" Google pay/Apple pay... "Thanks, your order number is asdf1234! Go fucking get it.... Also, did you want to create an account to collect rewards or some shit?" Selects no "okay, your shit is waiting for you, go pick it up"
Instead it's... "Give us access to all your phone data and precise location" Ugh "do you have an account, you need an account" argh furiously types "thanks for signing up, did you know that we have x, y, and z deals for you? We know you like y because you searched for it earlier this week" no "GPS position is not precise enough, cannot locate a store to shop at, please enable hyper precision GPS so we know within a cunthair where exactly you are" ... Some time later... "GPs location obtained, you have 8 stores 'near' you, most of them are pointless to show you because they're more than twice the distance from you as the closest store, but we're going to put those at the top to confuse you instead" picks location "what did you want to buy?" Finally orders "pay me" tries to use Google/Apple pay "something went wrong, we accept Visa, and MasterCard" puts in Visa branded debit information "something went wrong, we accept Visa and MasterCard only " finds actual visa/Mc enreta info "what's your home address? We 'need' it to authorize the credit card transaction" Ugh "is your billing address the same as you home address?" Yes "what's the expiry, and CVV on the card?" Enters info "thanks! Transaction declined because you put 'st' in your address and you should have used 'Street'. Get fucked" closes app, jumps off bridge
I rarely go to McDonald’s but I personally like the kiosk because it gives me time to think and change my mind. But the ai I’ll definitely pass on.
Don't have to deal with it at all if you simply stop going. That's what I've done, as it doesn't make sense to spend $15 on a fast food meal when the same amount of money buys food from a real restaurant.
let's get real, when was McDonalds never shitty?
I've never liked most of their food, but you used to be able to get a hot, cheap, and quick meal there. And at least the fries were tasty, and the Coca-Cola was perfect.
In the 80s and 90s, going to McDonald's felt like a guilty pleasure. It felt cheap, but you were in on it so it was ok.
Now it feels cheap at your expense. It's sparse, like they're providing the minimal viable product. The fries are garbage, the Coke is garbage, and the service is garbage.
I mean there's no point to it, it doesn't speed anything up.
For example this morning I had a client meeting (saturdays, ugh) so I went to the train station cause it has a mcdonalds and it opens at 630am. They have 5 kiosks there and one person manning the til. People who were ordering from the til were getting their orders faster than people who used the kiosks. I had to wait 10 minutes just to get a coffee and muffin simply because I used the kiosk.
And it doesn't even make sense. I would have assumed all the orders go through the same system regardless of where it was placed but apparently not. apparently people who don't use the kiosk get priority?
It's the same ordering system, but different queues for drive-through, tills, and kiosk. Usually there's some priority order, but tills and kiosk shouldn't be different
They're trying to create a world where they no longer have to hire people and can get rid of that final cost barrier to infinite money. It's delusional, but they really think AI is the key to solving that for them.
The point is you don't pay a wage. It's not customer experience that matters to McD
McDonalds where I live also still just uses the behind the counter menus (no kiosk menu) so you kind of need to walk over there anyway to be able to make out the actual text of the menu underneath the constantly scrolling advertisements that keep covering it.
WE WILL DRAIN THE RIVERS DRY TO QUENCH OUR THIRST
One clip on Instagram, which has been viewed over 21.5 million times, shows a man ordering "a large Mountain Dew" and the AI voice continually replying "and what will you drink with that?".
"Dude, Where's my car" turning into prophecy wasn't in my bingo card:
I get annoyed just hearing a pre-recorded greeting at a drive thru. I can't imagine ordering through an LLM, and yet I imagine I'll have to deal with it sooner rather than later.
It sounds actually very funny to try and break it
I tried that with an LLM and it told me I was clever and smart.
there's that regurgitation and feedback loop.
I saw a short of the guy doing that, the AI voice started to respond and then it cut off and a human said "What can I get for you?"
Some companies make AI interviews, prompt breaking it to pass the interview xD
Is it safe to assume the people that made this AI thing for TB got fired and hence AI kind of did make somebody lose their job?
AI v Ingenious Redneck
They could hire a person to take orders. Companies just want to use AI. Even AI has issues. Big companies can afford people.
But are the AI issues cheaper than the corporate infrastructure around hiring and paying employees and losing the occasional customer? If AI is more profitable, they don’t care. The only thing that’s mattered for decades now is what the bottom line says, no matter the cost.
No, but AI kiosks are a resource and employees are a cost. So spending more on AI looks better on paper.
You can label it whatever you want. There are going to be API fees or development costs for AI, so whatever box they want to put it under.
I'm surprised they're not hiring people in third world countries to take the orders since it's through a microphone.
Or just making people order through their phones and use the drive through as a pick up point.
