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Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

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Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#91

Post by Spooky23 »

acdha wrote: post #13
PapaPalpatine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... that's just not the experience with drive-thrus in Central Ohio.

Maybe they’re less busy there but everywhere I went in California it was faster to park and walk inside if there was anyone in line ahead of you, which was almost always the case. The problem is that you’re limited by the slowest order ahead of you but the same place usually has multiple registers inside and the people who are waiting for pickup don’t block you from ordering. (Head of line blocking in real life) This…

It’s worse now because fast food isn’t fast, and you end up committed with online ordering. You need to online order or pay a big premium, then you discover the drive through line is a trip to narnia only when you arrive.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#92

Post by computerdork »

nickthegreek wrote: post #18
akerl_ wrote: post #16

I’m shocked that anybody with a smartphone is still ordering by talking into a voice box, regardless of whether it’s a human or an AI on the other end. There’s a Starbucks near me that is pickup-only. You mobile order, and inside there’s just a rack where the employees set out drinks as they’re made. Walking inside felt like I’d stepped into a glorious alternate reality.

I’m shocked that anybody with a smartphone is installing tracking fast food mobile apps, creating accounts, giving emails, and even enabling notifications. Another capitalistic hellscape flimsly masquerading as a great deal for you.

Well, you know, going to a drive-thru at a fast-food restaurant is already ultra capitalistic, so installing an app on a phone seems maybe just a little bit worse (and a great time savings).

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#93

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #33
PapaPalpatine wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never heard someone describe drive-thrus as a “famously bad experience.”

There’s a StarBucks near me that takes about 3-4 minutes per car at the drive thru. Frequently there would be 3-6 cars in line. Yes, people literally wait 15-20 minutes in line before they can even order, much less get their order. Sure, maybe they’re just inefficient and shouldn’t be rewarded. However the people there are indeed working feverishly (and paid poorly). Going inside and ordering isn’t any faster. I’d pu…

Most Wendy's without a kiosk have the cashier's chronically ignoring customers at the counter as online orders queue up from the receipt printer. I'm on a personal boycott for this shit tier service.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#94

Post by hackable_sand »

toofy wrote: post #79
hackable_sand wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowledge processes are more amenable to automation than physical processes, especially in food service. Cleaning and automated meal assembly are hard problems, not to mention accountability for food safety. But this issue is larger. I've had several customers come through who refuse to interface with NLP/AI. A select few refuse to use the touch-pad kiosks because they want to interface with a person (who is ultimate…

i definitely prefer to order from a person. for a few different reasons: 1) i kinda like people. 2) being in this industry, i know more than a few people who struggle with basic human social interaction shit. most of the people i know who are fine with other people worked these kinds of jobs when they were younger. dealing with customers face to face as a job teaches us stuff about interaction many of the struggle bu…

Makes sense to me.

The first few months were rough. Mostly because I am neurodivergent, but also because the work does suck.

It worked though. I kept my head down, got promoted, made friends.

I went into software engineering out of high school, so this was definitely a new experience, but I agree. I think everyone should give this kind of work a shot. You learn a lot about people.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#95

Post by ares623 »

hackable_sand wrote: post #58
joshdavham wrote: post #35

So AI will replace software engineers but not fast food workers because that work is too complex for AI?

Knowledge processes are more amenable to automation than physical processes, especially in food service. Cleaning and automated meal assembly are hard problems, not to mention accountability for food safety. But this issue is larger. I've had several customers come through who refuse to interface with NLP/AI. A select few refuse to use the touch-pad kiosks because they want to interface with a person (who is ultimate…

The more people behind the counter, the less people outside starving or looting

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#96

Post by fouc »

eco wrote: post #14
josephwegner wrote: post #5

I will say, there is a Wendy’s near me that is piloting an AI drive-thru experience, and I prefer it 10-to-1 to the human version. It had a clear voice, it didn’t disappear randomly, it understood what I meant the first time (even though I was speaking naturally - I didn’t know at first it was AI), and it asked me for feedback (“what sort of sauce?”) in a very understandable way. Drive-thrus are famously a bad experi…

I've had two interactions with Wendy's AI drive-through, and the first time I was pleasantly surprised, but the second time it would not stop suggesting add-ons after every single thing I said. It was comically pushy. A human would have pretty quickly picked up on my increasingly exasperated "no, thanks" and stopped doing it, but the AI was completely blind to my growing frustration, following the upsell directive wi…

I would hope you can actually skip that automatically by ignoring the follow-up and immediately driving off to the next stage.

If it knows what you asked for + sees you drove to the next stage, it should automatically finalize the order.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#97

Post by dangus »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #2

Mind boggling that they would roll it out at scale without testing. Using open ended natural language to make a multiple choice selection (choose a taco) seems like a way to massively complicate a simple problem. What next - have a humanoid robot bring the food out to the car? Looking forward to more "AI Darwin Award" stories!

500 stores isn't really "scale," that's only about 6% of their locations.

To be honest, if LLMs are good at anything, this is the exact kind of thing they are good at. It really isn't dumb that Taco Bell tried this.

I could also imagine how great it could potentially be for people to be able to view the menu and/or order in any language.

I think long ago I actually read an article posted to HN that essentially argued that most businesses don't take enough risks and that frequent risk-taking is statistically advantageous.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#98

Post by EZ-E »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #33
PapaPalpatine wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never heard someone describe drive-thrus as a “famously bad experience.”

There’s a StarBucks near me that takes about 3-4 minutes per car at the drive thru. Frequently there would be 3-6 cars in line. Yes, people literally wait 15-20 minutes in line before they can even order, much less get their order. Sure, maybe they’re just inefficient and shouldn’t be rewarded. However the people there are indeed working feverishly (and paid poorly). Going inside and ordering isn’t any faster. I’d pu…

I've always been puzzled that Starbucks drive through is a thing, and even has long queues. It's coffee, do people really drive there just to get a cup? I understand if it's along the highway but otherwise. You pay the premium of the brand without getting to see or enjoy the facilities. Just my feeling as european, maybe just a cultural thing.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#99

Post by joshdavham »

smnplk wrote: post #50
joshdavham wrote: post #35

So AI will replace software engineers but not fast food workers because that work is too complex for AI?

They were smart and didn't upload their process to github, didn't write any books or tutorials on fast food ordering process. So AI could't learn the craft. ;)

I’m sure Taco Bell must’ve had a bunch of training data, at least!

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#100

Post by bee_rider »

EZ-E wrote: post #98
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a StarBucks near me that takes about 3-4 minutes per car at the drive thru. Frequently there would be 3-6 cars in line. Yes, people literally wait 15-20 minutes in line before they can even order, much less get their order. Sure, maybe they’re just inefficient and shouldn’t be rewarded. However the people there are indeed working feverishly (and paid poorly). Going inside and ordering isn’t any faster. I’d pu…

I've always been puzzled that Starbucks drive through is a thing, and even has long queues. It's coffee, do people really drive there just to get a cup? I understand if it's along the highway but otherwise. You pay the premium of the brand without getting to see or enjoy the facilities. Just my feeling as european, maybe just a cultural thing.

They make the dessert-coffee drinks that some folks like. Those can be kind of a pain to clean up after, with all the frothed milk and sugar…

Of course, probably shouldn’t have one every day anyway!

Coffee-to-go can make sense if the place already has a pot going, I guess.

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