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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

#151

Post by chrisco255 »

rangibaby wrote: post #72
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…

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.

Why wouldn't the price of food plummet in an automated world? The cost of labor is priced into everything you buy. I still think we're a few decades from these scenarios, but I am not willing to solve a theoretical problem (permanent unemployment) until it becomes a problem in reality. Right now we've got 3.7% unemployment despite all this tech. So I remain very skeptical of this theory playing out and UBI being necessary.

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

#152

Post by CamperBob2 »

kadoban wrote: post #120
CamperBob2 wrote: post #31

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?

Yes. Chess and Go are that different.

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

#153

Post by jacobolus »

noobiemcfoob wrote: post #88
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.

You mean...like the doorknobs?

If you make doorknobs out of brass, they might still get poop on them, but many types of bacteria and viruses can’t survive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_properties_of_co...

Maybe we can start making public touchscreens out of brass...

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

nitwit005 wrote: post #146
arthurfm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Isn't this the result whenever someone investigates any surface people touch? Not everyone washes their hands, but everyone poops. The result is sadly predictable.

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by habosa »

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…

San Francisco has some self-cleaning public bathrooms that work like that. Locks between each person and cleans the whole thing including the floors. Pretty cool.

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

#156

Post by habosa »

At many fast food restaurants, especially the less busy one, the person taking drive through orders is multitasking. I've seen people run the front register and the drive through ordering at the same time.

It's very impressive, and it also means this won't cost quite as many jobs as it could.

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

#157

Post by crucifiction »

kadoban wrote: post #120
CamperBob2 wrote: post #31

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?

What is different this time is cloud computing / always connected devices. This enables easy collection and access to enormous amounts of training (and continuous retraining) data needed, as well as offloading processing to a single, central model that can be optimized for fat hardware for runtime.

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

#158

Post by chillwaves »

test6554 wrote: post #137
LanceH wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If robo cooks are truly inexpensive, we could feed a lot more people in need for less money.

People are a lot like stray cats in that the more you feed them and house them, the more of them you have eventually. At some point, before we are all underwater, we are going to need to have a fertility discussion.

Long before you tell people they do not have a right to live, you will want to address consumption. Poor people are not consuming as much as rich.

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

#159

Post by etrautmann »

habosa wrote: post #155
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…

San Francisco has some self-cleaning public bathrooms that work like that. Locks between each person and cleans the whole thing including the floors. Pretty cool.

Except when they’re not working, which is every single time I’ve tried one.

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

#160

Post by SllX »

habosa wrote: post #155
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…

San Francisco has some self-cleaning public bathrooms that work like that. Locks between each person and cleans the whole thing including the floors. Pretty cool.

Hmm. It might have been ten years since I tried to use one of those here, generally I found them to be broken or continuously occupied for absurd lengths of time, I.e. camped in. There’s a reason nobody is advocating for more of these to be installed despite demand for well, public sanitary facilities.

I did however use the same model in Palo Alto recently. Turns out they’re not bad if they’re well maintained and charge a small fee (50¢) to use.

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