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McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs

bbc.com

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Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs

#31

Post by CamperBob2 »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #14
hendersoon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking short-term. What are the odds the food service industry will employ humans to take mass-market food orders in 10 years? Restaurant servers will still exist at the higher-end, much like chauffeurs do today. But most people won't be driving their cars and a human won't be taking burger orders or grilling the patty.

My honest opinion is that after investing in AI and seeing it come up short time and again, over the next 10 years, businesses are going to run from anything that calls itself AI. I think we are going to have another “AI” winter.

I think AlphaGo put paid to that notion. It's real this time. It's all over but the scaling.

Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs

#32

Post by fouc »

vallismortis wrote: post #22

Welcome Manna. https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

In some ways, the notion of humans as instruction-following-meat-robots actually just feels like an extension of a todo list or a check list, but with AI. So basically I could give the computer my task list, my goals, or whatever, along with data about my energy levels, mood, etc. Then it could return an optimized & personalized set of "Do X for the next 5 minutes, do Y for the next 15 minutes" instructions. That could result in significantly more productivity.

I'm quite the fan of the exocortex notion - the computer as an external brain that extends my intelligence, productivity, etc.

Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs

#33

Post by vnchr »

esotericn wrote: post #20

Why not just stick a kiosk there? In Europe most McDs have kiosks inside them... make it weatherproof / stick a roof over it, done.

Voice ordering would have a lower installation cost since it can rely on the existing outdoor ordering interface, and it’s more familiar to their customers. There are 14,000 McDonalds in the US alone, so the switching costs and risks add up.

Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs

#35

Post by wnmurphy »

I cannot wait. Finally, going to McDonald's will lose all semblance of visiting a restaurant, and be fully realized as the experience of receiving various permutations of bleached flour, HFCS, and sad meat from a giant red and yellow robotic playdoh factory that it was always meant to be.

One can only hope the robot arms will sport giant mickey mouse gloves. Value added.

Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs

#36

Post by CamperBob2 »

jumelles wrote: post #18

"What drinks do you have?" "Can I get combo without the drink?" "How much cheaper is it with a water?" "My kid wants the rainbow Happy Meal toy, can we have that one please?" "What time did you stop serving breakfast?" "Do you still have McFlurries? What flavors are there?" This won't go well.

Yeah, because the same machines that wiped the floor with a 9-dan Go champion a couple of years ago will be completely flummoxed by people placing orders at McDonald's.

Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs

#37

Post by jedieaston »

esotericn wrote: post #20

Why not just stick a kiosk there? In Europe most McDs have kiosks inside them... make it weatherproof / stick a roof over it, done.

Moes, a texmex chain in the United States, already does this. This firm provides the systems: https://www.nextepsystems.com/products/touchscreen-drive-thr...

Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs

#38

Post by p1necone »

Spooky23 wrote: post #19
hirundo wrote: post #15

Next they'll come for the cooks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKCVol2iWcc There are ~487k fast food cooks employed at ~$22.6k average wages. That's more than an $11 billion annual incentive to bring robochefs to retail. And that's just fast food, just in the US. Robo janitors may take a bit longer. Maybe they can design automated kitchens that work like jumbo dish washers. Seal, flood, heat, drain, reopen. The jan…

Next they’ll come for the liquidator. The Burger King on the NYS thruway north of nyc went to touchscreen ordering. Everyone refuses to use it and there is one long line going to the one register that remained.

We have those in New Zealand and they were initially awful - slow, hard to navigate/find stuff, actually missing lots of menu items. They seem to have swapped out the system now though and they seem to be relatively usable.

Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs

#39

Post by p1necone »

tracker1 wrote: post #11

"Double Quarter Pounder, just the sandwich, only cheese, no bun. Two side salads no croutons, no dressing, two dip cups of ranch for nuggets. Large diet dr pepper, easy ice." Lets see if the AI can get that right more often than their staff can.

I don't think I could get that right, what does "only cheese" mean exactly?

Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs

#40

Post by macintux »

esotericn wrote: post #20

Why not just stick a kiosk there? In Europe most McDs have kiosks inside them... make it weatherproof / stick a roof over it, done.

Everything outdoors needs to be fairly robust, and the kiosks would be hard to reach and painfully slow compared to any voice system.

I use them most times I go to McDonalds, but they’re always slower than it would be to just order if there’s no line, and worse, they feel much slower than they probably are.

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