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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

#121

Post by creato »

arthurfm wrote: post #102
burgerzzz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Univers…

I think I've heard this ("there's poop on it") about everything. Keyboards, doorknobs, kitchen sinks, toothbrushes, etc.

Either it's simply not true, or it is true and it doesn't matter.

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

#122

Post by mike_d »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #44
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?

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,…

My local McD had touch screens with exactly the experience you describe. I got in the habit of repeatedly tapping until I got the button to respond.

This last week I noticed the UI had some major improvements and was ultra snappy.

I expect they took user feedback and are slow rolling a version 2.0.

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

#123

Post by m463 »

mankyd wrote: post #75
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.

Honestly, I expect that would be the easy part. The hard part is: "Can you put [specific toy] in the kids meal?" "Wait, no, I want ketchup on that. I mean, mustard." "Can you bring it out to me when its ready?" "Your ice machine is broken?" "My debit card doesn't have much money on it, so just ring up my order until it hits $20." Taking an order is totally doable. Answering questions that require stateful knowledge i…

"Just wait a second while I look that up"

"Ok, your debit balance is zero."

"I see you haven't ordered a drink, would you like to add one?"

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

#124

Post by triggercut »

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…

Lots of interesting operating considerations.

A few thoughts, having worked in "Quick Service Restaurants" a long long time ago.

Ignoring cost of human labor and a move to equipment maintenance for a moment, one of the key metrics tracked is waste/loss, i.e. from the bins in the kitchen. Amounts of discarded buns, lettuce, tomatoes, burnt or spoiled, past due-date, serve-time etc. it all gets tallied and recorded.

If you get sent one box of frozen fries weighing a known amount, that should translate into (x) number of servings +- a fairly narrow distribution curve. If you go through 10 boxes but only sold 9(x) servings then maybe your staff are overfilling, dropping, burning or eating the fries. Either way, they are losing you cash. The cash at the tail end of your otherwise carefully controlled supply chain.

Anything that cost effectively eliminates waste will be next.

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

#127

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #109
mattkrause wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Menu ordering can be automated. Customers, however, can't be, and they'll ask for and do the wackiest shit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromretail/top?t=month

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

#128

Post by bluedino »

randomdata wrote: post #47
bluedino wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The ones that McDonalds has here are fairly well implemented. Certainly preferable to dealing with the average cashier not thrilled about the job. But I haven't travelled enough to see what systems are being used in other regions of the world. It seems that what you and others are saying is that they are not all the same.

Custom orders are really slow to enter

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

#129

Post by DeafWiz »

I think it's bad idea since there are a few lawsuits against restaurants that are not serving deaf customers. I'd say quite a lot complicated than you think. I understand the concept of automation but there are between cons and pros. For example, a car automation may develop the brain cancer by the radiation through the high-energy reception or whatever the factor may be but that's the point...it's going to be a long shot for sure.

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

#130

Post by odessacubbage »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #3

I am not sure voice based AI is up to the task. Even with a headset/mic Google Assistant and Siri have problems with more complicated commands. I am not sure how well the tech will hold up to the effects of wind, car engine sounds, screaming kids, customizations (hold the pickles), accents, etc. What I think will happen is that they will roll out this technology, and then be faced with a bunch of irritated customers…

also throw in externalities like nearby construction, speech disorders, music with lyrics or radio shows, 2nd or 3rd language speakers using english improperly, or just plain stupid and bizarre behavior. not to mention it gives your competitors an easy marketing opportunity, 'real human servers' could become the new fresh not frozen. mobile ordering would add a lot of convenience, but it's also very frustrating to see so many services become tied to the assumption that you have a phone & more or less inaccessible without one.
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