I've never understood why drive through ordering was not done through a call center. It could be in India for cheap labor. At the end of the day, you are "calling" someone and they punch things into a computer that is the same system no matter where you are ordering.
McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs
101–110 of 259 posts
Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs
#102Earlier 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?
I would avoid it just because of all of the various fingers that have touched it before me.
I don't like touching the screens either.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/28/poo-found-on-every-mcdonalds-...
Traces of faeces have been found on every single McDonald’s touchscreen swabbed in an investigation by metro.co.uk. Samples were taken from the new machines that have been rolled out at restaurants across the country – every one of them had coliforms.
Senior lecturer in microbiology at London Metropolitan University Dr Paul Matewele said: ‘We were all surprised how much gut and faecal bacteria there was on the touchscreen machines. These cause the kind of infections that people pick up in hospitals.
Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs
#103"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.
Oh, you're one of those. My parents never order what's on the menu. They've always got to customize it. Which is fine. But then they get all bent out of shape when the order isn't right. From a fast food joint. Can't you just order what's on the damn menu?
:)
Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs
#104"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.
> just the sandwich, only cheese, no bun
I wouldn't expect anyone to figure this out. Every fragment is a contradiction! Without a bun is it a sandwich? Only cheese already means no bun?
Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
We saved billions of dollars with automation! Why is no one buying our products anymore? Hmm, it must be because they are spending all their money on avocados! I think the only way to go is to do basic income funded by an automation tax. Henry Ford knew that people needed enough money to actually buy his cars and made it happen with high wages.
Taxing automation is absolutely wrong. We want automation. In the same way it would be wrong to say landlords of condos make too much profit because there are so few condos so we are going to tax condos more. More automation is required to contribute to liberate resources to eventually push our civilization to the next level. If anything, incentivize it. We want things behind made with "infinite" productivity. But we…
This would be nice if it were true. Since the top 0.1% have figured out how to own the nation via politics and trying to dumb down the general populace to ignore what they're doing I don't have nearly as much confidence in automation as you do.
Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs
#106I've never understood why drive through ordering was not done through a call center. It could be in India for cheap labor. At the end of the day, you are "calling" someone and they punch things into a computer that is the same system no matter where you are ordering.
I believe they experimented with this in the late 90's early 00's. I recall seeing job ads for rural remote workers doing exactly this kind of work.
You don't even need to go overseas, as rural America & people looking for temp work would probably offer you higher quality for very low wages.
Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs
#107Next 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.
Unclear why one needs kiosks when the user's device is much more compelling. While there are some (very good) exceptions, many remain yesteryear's technology and meh to outright garbage UIX. The only reason is to maintain some local control and (when available) human common sense in the equation.
Brick & mortar kiosks are the DVD Netflix of fast food.
Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs
#108Next 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.
My local mcdonalds has 3 panels and no cashiers at all except drive thru. People use them all the time and this is BFE Texas. Assistance is available of course, via the people who would normally bring out your order,for people who can't use them properly.
Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
They’re totally different domains. McDonald’s orders don’t have the crazy branching structure of Go, but they also aren’t nearly so self-contained.
How is this not a perfect example of a self-contained problem? There are only so many items on the manu. Each can only be prepared in so many different ways, with so many different ingredients.
Never mind Go, this application would have been possible in the days of Zork if speech recognition had been up to the task. It is now. Anyone who doesn't understand that has questionable business on a site called "Hacker News," IMO.
Frankly this entire subthread is surreal, as if the site had seen a lot of recent signups from people who've never used a smart speaker before.
Re: McDonald's is to replace human servers with voice gen in its US drive-throughs
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
The local Mickey D's put in a couple of tall touch-screen systems that I found surprisingly difficult to figure out. The touch screen was slow to respond -- nothing more frustrating than tapping a glass screen and wondering why nothing happened -- and the decision path didn't make sense. I suspect whoever designed it had one kind of user experience in mind, then it was modified by a different group to change the UX,…
The one at mine is a completely smooth experience.
Same here. His McD's must have cheaped out.