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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

#251

Post by tracker1 »

js2 wrote: post #103
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.

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? :)

It's not like they don't have the ingredients.. and I'm expressly asking them to give me less of them, not adding any.

It's not like being pissed off because something isn't in the color I want. Product colors and manufacturing are hard problems... getting a fast food order right isn't.

The problem is the younger generations don't give a damn about their quality of work.

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

#252

Post by tracker1 »

mc_blue wrote: post #229
all_blue_chucks wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just an order for gluten-free/keto burger and salad with no toppings other than cheese. Plus some tenders.

I actually don't think tenders is included in the order... I think they just ordered the ranch dip cups you would get if you ordered nuggets.

correct.. the dip cups are ~1g carbs per cup, the salad dressing packets are around 12g (mostly sugars) iirc.

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

#253

Post by tracker1 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #100
tracker1 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I worked McDonald’s drive thru as a kid and plain cheese burger meant bun cheese and meat. They even had a key for it on the POS, it was completely standardized. Of course, it’s always possible some new employee would mess it up, or anything on your order actually. With turn over so high, there was no shortage of such errors.

I worked at a couple different McD's in my teens, was an opening manager at one for over a year at 19. Never underestimate nature's ability to build a better idiot.

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

#254

Post by tracker1 »

fouc wrote: post #42
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.

That's actually a bit confusing to me, not sure if you're doing that deliberately. First of all the "Double Quarter Pounder with cheese" [0] would be the name of the sandwich. Also do you want to remove only 1 bun or both buns? I guess you meant "not the combo", so maybe saying "a la carte" would work here. [0] https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/double-quarter-po...

Yes, "with cheese" is part of the sandwich name, but because they don't have one that doesn't have cheese on the regular menu, when you ask for "plain" it often means they'll take the cheese off too. Also, there is only 1 bun, it's split in half with the burger in the middle and I don't want it at all.

Again, you'd be surprised how well orders can come out wrong and the way I do order it reduces that chance as much as possible. It's also less expensive to order as a meal with the side salad as a sub for fries, but that means more risk of the order being wrong in the end.

If I could order "Two quarter patties with cheese, ..." then I would do just that.

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

#255

Post by tracker1 »

tylerrobinson wrote: post #131
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.

Instead of trying to teach the computer to understand this ambiguous order, what would happen is customers learn the UX of the assistant. It only takes one or two tries to figure out what words Alexa/McAI understands.

Judging by the interface you get with Uber Eats, I doubt it would be any better.

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

#256

Post by johnisgood »

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?

How many doorknobs do you typically touch outside of your home a day? Most doors here are automatic. Plus, I would be reluctant to use someone else's keyboard at work, even.

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

#257

Post by noobiemcfoob »

johnisgood wrote: post #256
noobiemcfoob wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean...like the doorknobs?

How many doorknobs do you typically touch outside of your home a day? Most doors here are automatic. Plus, I would be reluctant to use someone else's keyboard at work, even.

But...why? Do you have an autoimmune disorder? Generally find yourself especially vulnerable to the errant bug? How do you feel when you breath in someone's fart? You're a walking bag of mud expressing discomfort at other bits of mud in the world. One bit in a million might be annoying. One in a billion actually painful.

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

#258

Post by leosarev »

krapp wrote: post #197
lordlimecat wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Or we recognise that as we automate further that there's less collective work for humanity This has basically never been true in the history of work-saving technology improvements. Such advances tend to create entirely new, previously impossible jobs.

What entirely new, previously impossible job does automating away McDonald's workers create, that formerly employed McDonald's workers are qualified for? Are we going to send them all to coding bootcamps so they can program the kiosks and... oh wait, those jobs are already taken, never mind. Your statement tends to be true when automation involves some kind of revolutionary technological paradigm shift, and the numbe…

Before you have said "unprecedented scale", do you realized that in XIX and XX century advances in agriculture production LITERALLY removed about 98% of the jobs of that era?

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

#259

Post by Traubenfuchs »

spacechild1 wrote: post #189
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Austria, for a few shining years, we had "build my burger" where you could use the order terminals to create your perfect burger. For a year I ate a mess of three chicken patties and lots of cheese on a daily basis. Sadly, they got rid of it.

The new terminals have an option to customize your burger, I guess that's pretty much the same thing. Or did they remove it only recently?

You can customize burgers, yeah, but with "My Burger", you could think up insanities like 3 chicken patties and 5 pieces of cheese.
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