131–140 of 259 posts
"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'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.
You could also emphasize the "drive through" aspect for some customers if you could convince them to call while they were en route, or use the app to order, you could have their food waiting for them in a place where they could drive up, tap their phone, automatically get their food, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It takes a TON of work to get the menus+availability, payments, local tax laws, security/privacy right for specific regions. Menus are not a solved problem - think about the case where a user wants a fillet o'fish, but hold the sauce and the top bun. Is the fillet o'fish the same item in the US as in Japan, even? What about other regional items? etc.
Also - McDonald's is run by McDonald's corporate and Franchisee's. Sometimes, corporate has the buying power, but most of the time, it's the individual franchisees that make the buy decision - for even things like mobile apps and ordering. Many times, restaurant brands you see here in the US, when traveling, are owned and operated by completely different sets of corporate beings.
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…
Nope, they'll come for the managers first. See Manna by Marshall Brain
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…
"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?
(Cheese/bun part addressed in other comments.)
Earlier 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.
If robo cooks are truly inexpensive, we could feed a lot more people in need for less money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think AlphaGo put paid to that notion. It's real this time. It's all over but the scaling.
I'm picturing someone saying the same thing about Deep Blue a couple of decades ago. Are we so sure it's that different this time around? Sure, current AI are better, but are they better enough?
"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.
Once upon a time I'd go through the McD drive through every workday morning on the way to work, and order a big breakfast with hotcakes. I did this for about a year.
Then one day I instead ordered a sausage McMuffin and an Egg McMuffin.
I heard the order taker saying in a disbelieving tone to someone else "he ordered something different today!".
When I was at the pay window paying, two or three different people stopped to ask the cashier if it was true that I had really changed my order.
When I got to the other window to pick up my order, there were still people coming up to the person manning the window to ask if it was really true that my order had changed. I could also hear people in the background talking about it.
In short, apparently everyone working there was talking about my change of order as if it was the most astounding thing they had ever witnessed.
They handed me the bag, and I checked it--and they had gotten it wrong! The sausage McMuffin was missing, another Egg McMuffin in its place.
The local economist has been ascribing this move to the $15 minimum wage. His take is that the only way fast food can stay profitable, with the higher minimum wages, is automation. Computers cost less than people.