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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

#51

Post by shantly »

bluedino wrote: post #28
cbdumas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I've seen touch screen ordering at McDonalds all over the place and most people seem to have no problem with it. Why do you think people avoid it?

We have those and they are slow. I wonder when they’ll put them in the drive through.

The couple I've seen have had bad menus (what? Options? I just want the damn thing like usual, there are options? I don't care, where the hell is the "just buy it like normal" button?) and have suffered from the same jank that every non-Apple touchscreen I've used has, somewhere on the medium-bad side of that spectrum. Feels like HTML+JS running on Android, which is very possibly exactly what it is. Missed touches, animation stutter, stuff like that. They're way worse than just ordering.

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

#52

Post by blisterpeanuts »

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.

"Can I substitute the Artisan Grilled Chicken Sandwich for the Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Sandwich in Meal #6 if I don't get the fries?"

"Can I get a burger with two patties?"

Personally I usually just order what's on the menu but there must be lots of people asking for substitutions or modifications. That's the general public for you. I wonder how this "AI" is going to handle it.

Probably it will just pass the order to a human if it totally doesn't get it, rather than risk screwing it up too badly. Or maybe McDonald's has already figured out how much it will cost to re-do someone's meal versus having another human on the payroll.

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

#53

Post by cbhl »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #50
cbdumas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I've seen touch screen ordering at McDonalds all over the place and most people seem to have no problem with it. Why do you think people avoid it?

Sounds like McDonalds is making the same mistake the automobile companies made with their infotainment systems, cutting corners to save on hardware and just being too inexperienced on software. The infotainment systems of the past couple of years have been a huge improvement over those of the past decade so maybe McDonalds and the food service industry in general will just have to go through the same painful process…

What I don't understand is why the McDonald's mobile apps are region-locked. If I am an American and I visit Canada or Japan, why do I have to use the register or kiosk? I should be able to use mobile ordering, just like back home.

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

#54

Post by adventured »

p1necone wrote: post #39
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?

As someone who only orders cheese on burgers (although with the buns), it means they only want the sandwich to consist of the meat and cheese (hold all other toppings; so if it would normally come with pickles, hold those).

If I go through a typical drive-thru, I order it like this: "cheeseburger plain, with just the cheese" (varied slightly based on the fastfood chain in question). The first plain part removes all the other toppings (or plausibly all the toppings), the with cheese part confirms that you actually do want a cheeseburger and that you only want the cheese. I've found that specific order instruction to be the closest to universally working across all chains, while generating the fewest errors, after ~25 years of testing combinations.

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

#55

Post by blisterpeanuts »

wnmurphy wrote: post #35

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.

As long as the AI can reliably and accurately serve me a decaf coffee, I'll be satisfied.

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

#56

Post by ineedasername »

Lots of people here are saying they should just use a phone app.

I see it as problematic to require drivers, even those stopped at a drive through, (you don't generally put your car in park) to use their phone. There are laws against it, and they don't have exclusions for drive through ordering. I'm not even sure that a McDonalds policy that said "put it in park" would pass legal review since the car is on and you're only stopped temporarily.

There would also be an issue with keeping the orders in the proper order. 10 people in line at the drive through sending their orders through at once would make that difficult, error rates could be high.

Maybe a kiosk would work though.

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

#58

Post by Scoundreller »

ineedasername wrote: post #56

Lots of people here are saying they should just use a phone app. I see it as problematic to require drivers, even those stopped at a drive through, (you don't generally put your car in park) to use their phone. There are laws against it, and they don't have exclusions for drive through ordering. I'm not even sure that a McDonalds policy that said "put it in park" would pass legal review since the car is on and you're…

> There are laws against it, and they don't have exclusions for drive through ordering.

Depends. Sometimes traffic laws only apply on roadways/highways, and not on private property.

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

#59

Post by Scoundreller »

Krasnol wrote: post #41
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.

Please hold on, we'll connect you with our teleoperator. "Hello this is Lakshmi, how may I help you?"

McDonalds trialled a remote operated drive-through a long time ago.

I think they found that orders were a couple seconds faster. Dunno why they didn't go forward with it: the outsourcing advantages are obvious.

Found the article: 2006 NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/technology/the-longdistan...

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

#60

Post by kylec »

Why not just use a call center for this? Someone pulls up to the speaker, and someone in another part of the world takes their order and puts it into the restaurant’s system. Surely that would be easier and have a greater chance of success than voice gen?
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