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Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

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191–200 of 237 posts

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the appeal of drive through is 100% solely just that I get to listen to my own podcasts or music. I don’t carry headphones with me outside of the house so if I get to keep my podcasts going - that’s good enough reason for me.

It seems very lonely to live such a hermetic existence.

What's hermetic about listening to music you like?

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#193
post #8

Anyone involved in fast food automation should see this movie about AMFare in 1956.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xop9py8zBY

That is one of my favourite videos.

I wonder why those failed. Just too extensive for no benefit? Too much things getting stuck all the time?

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#194
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said mobile ordering and you transmogrified it to “apps”, but I’ll play along with the strawman. Yes, those apps. It turns out it’s pretty easy to just turn off notifications for them.

Death by a thousand opt-outs.

App notifications, on iOS at least, are opt-in, not opt-out. When you open the app it has to prompt the system to ask "do you want to allow this app to send you notifications". And if you don't hit "yes", it doesn't get to.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#195

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…

Standing in line at McDonalds, to pick up an online order, made me think that maybe the drive thru isn't that great of an idea during rush hours. The staff needs to handle orders in a very specific sequence, to get the cars moving, meaning that they'll need to priorities drive thru orders. Wolt/DoorDash impose the same problem to an extend. I've notice that orders from in restaurant customers is frequently seems to b…

McDonald's around here have designated wait spaces with numbers. I've had them direct me out of line and an employee then brings the bag out to me when it is ready. So they do seem to have solved that problem.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#196
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

you've hit the nail on the head here. AI rollout has this hilarious consequence where "lower" departments have for a long time insultated the c-suite against their worst excesses and worst mistakes. Now that barrier is slowly crumbling due to AI-first, giving the c-suite an incredibly rare opportunity to discover how bad some of its ideas are in practice and there's less opportunity to blame those outcomes on others.

I am pretty certain that if you are in an org where c-suite shifts reasons for negative results to external sources, they will find a way to do the same in the age of AI.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#197

I don't understand the appeal of drive throughs?s? In my area there are dozens of people idling for 10-15 minutes in the Starbucks drive through even though we have a municipal "no idling" bylaw to reduce emissions. The line is so long it interferes with traffic on the street. It also seems like sitting in your car inhaling CO from other people's tailpipes for 15 minutes is bad for you? Many of the local fast food pl…

[dead]

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has mobile ordering to the next level. Every McDonald’s has a set of two sided lockers, you just scan your order QR code and the locker your order is in opens…no human contact what so ever. In the USA, McDonald’s app is pretty bad compared to Starbucks at least. Nowhere near where it is in China (well, if you do the wechat plugin). I find it isn’t worth the trouble and will just use the kiosk for the rare times…

What was weird was when the restaurant was closed and looked deserted but you could still order online and hope the locker with your order lit up with your food (it did). I found it disconcerting that I couldn’t tell who was making my food, it felt dehumanizing and weirdly off putting

Like using a vending machine? Having worked at McDonald’s for 4 years before I started my long tech career, why do you think you’d known anyways after the food goes from grill to front counter via a bin? Double that via drive thru, there is always a division of labor anyways…it’s fast food after all.

Having had unhoused neighbors steal my order at Starbucks, I find the system they use in China reassuring.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#199
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t buy gift cards without soft ID these days. Additionally, the ability to pay in cash isn’t needed for buying coffee, it’s needed for paying for legal defense, publishing, transport, and a bunch of other things. The issue isn’t that Starbucks is cashless; the issue is that when all of society goes cashless (because places like Starbucks did) then we are all capital-f Fucked. Imagine a world without investigat…

>You can’t buy gift cards without soft ID these days. This is 100% false. I do gift card reselling and buy 6 figures worth of gift cards per year. Sometimes places like Dollar General require ID, but CVS, Staples, Grocery Stores, etc. almost never ask for ID. When they do it is to match to the name on the credit card to prevent people buying gift cards with stolen credits cards, not to enter into any sort of tracking…

They (CVS) require a phone number.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#200

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…

Standing in line at McDonalds, to pick up an online order, made me think that maybe the drive thru isn't that great of an idea during rush hours. The staff needs to handle orders in a very specific sequence, to get the cars moving, meaning that they'll need to priorities drive thru orders. Wolt/DoorDash impose the same problem to an extend. I've notice that orders from in restaurant customers is frequently seems to b…

> Standing in line at McDonalds, to pick up an online order

Oh, mine lets you order online and then pick up in the drive through.

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