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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

#61

Post by Scoundreller »

loceng wrote: post #23
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first job was at Burger King. Working the drive thru was seen by most as a punishment. During the day it wasn't that bad but at night people were absolutely ridiculous in their behavior and expectations. It didn't help that many were drunk or under the influence of other intoxicants. Not sure how well automated systems would be able to deal with such situations. Maybe the customers simply couldn't order food unles…

Sounds like a design funnel using AI system that doesn't respond to the shenanigans would take the reward away from them, and they'd just "behave" and order.

Sounds great for the employees, but where's the sell for the franchisee/HQ?

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

#62

Post by bestnameever »

kylec wrote: post #60

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?

They've been doing that since 2006. I guess this is next step.

source: 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

#63

Post by heavymark »

kylec wrote: post #60

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?

Presumably because the idea is to save money, and a call center forever would be more expensive but the far more realistic issue, if unlike an AI that could provide a consistent on brand experience, with a call center your experience would be hit or miss every time and drive thoughts are already not usually a great experience so a low wage call center would probably be even worse. Taking away jobs is certainly an issue in itself but I imagine overall this will mean a more consistent experience that they can improve over time.

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

#64

Post by flukus »

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…

Automated cooking seems more achievable to me, at least somewhere like McDonalds with fairly standardized items. The inputs and outputs are much more defined and there's much less need for AI.

> Maybe they can design automated kitchens that work like jumbo dish washers. Seal, flood, heat, drain, reopen. The robot janitors could take the form of underwater scrubbing drones.

Anything that complex would probably go through a chemical wash rather than having a robot get into every corner. Some medical equipment like endoscopes are cleaned this way.

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

#65

Post by heavymark »

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 imagine a person is more likely to get that wrong, yes you may get lucky, but also many low wage staffers especially late at night tired could easily be quite confused. Versus an AI that can be programaged on all the various terms people use and be programmed to ask for clarification consistently when a request is made that can often me more than one thing, and even take into factor things such as the location of the McDonalds and the dialects used there. Sure will start off very buggy but then presumably would only get better with more data.

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

#66

Post by Scoundreller »

aaron695 wrote: post #2

> McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs So that's a lie. https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/McDonalds-acquires-Israeli... Remember in 2006 how they outsourced the drive in windows to a call centre in Hawaii, how did that turn out? Did it immediately sack everyone one or did it not work out? https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/technology/the-longdistan... Yes, yes AI will kill jo…

> "Their job is to be fast on the mouse -- that's their job,"

Ugh. No wonder why the project failed. It treated people as tools instead of people.

There should be a custom board of keys. The more common the order item, the bigger the button to press.

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

#67

Post by SECProto »

vallismortis wrote: post #22

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

Was there some other short story about a similar concept (AI managed fast food workers)? Something by Stallman or Doctorow maybe? I have vague deja-vu at that story, but from much longer ago than 2017, when Manna was published.

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

#68

Post by tracker1 »

adventured wrote: post #54
p1necone wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Exactly.. if you don't say that part, they'll usually remove the cheese too. Similar on experimenting on how to order. "Diet Dr. Pepper" is another hard one, often you will get regular, or diet coke.

The dipping cup ranch, for those curious is because the ranch dressing has a lot of added sugar/carbs and the dipping cups are like 1.5g each. Severely diabetic and nearly 0 carb has been the only effective way to manage it well.

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

#69

Post by tracker1 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #59
Krasnol wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I think Wendy's did that for remote order takers... they found it worked better, and had more accuracy with dedicated/shared staff taking orders for multiple locations.

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

#70

Post by cavisne »

I wonder if mcdonalds records/retains the audio from its drive through systems. Seems like a goldmine of validation data thats already labelled (with the order the employee entered).

Voice with some minor interaction seems like a much better solution for the kiosks as well. "Large Big mac meal" is a lot quicker than clicking through a kiosk.

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