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Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

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Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#81

Post by conductr »

Mistletoe wrote: post #73
eco wrote: 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…

I’ve always wondered if that battery spiel paid off. Do you have any stats? I never once was at Radio Shack and was like “yeah let me get some of your batteries” when they asked. Maybe I’m a fringe case.

Their battery business was strong even towards the end though, the "even if you're only buying batteries" part of the GP post subtly telling

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#82

Post by toofy »

autoexec wrote: post #80
toofy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't really like people or interacting with them, but I know that the wage slave taking my order doesn't give a shit about me and will forget about me the moment I leave. A company using AI will be far more likely to be collecting my voice print, analyzing my speech to build a psychological profile on me, A/B testing everything from their word choices, inflection, and sales pitches to get me to spend more, etc. Th…

yeah this should have been on my list as well.

just let me buy an order of fries without the fries having some creepy behind the scenes motivations. just let me order an oreo shake and i’ll give you $4.

the restaurant should focus on making their oreo shake better than the other restaurants, not the stack analyzing my order history.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#83

Post by micromacrofoot »

RogerL wrote: post #76
micromacrofoot wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people rather sit in their car for 15 minutes than walk for 1 to save 10

Or because their kid or dog is in the car. Or because they have difficulty walking. Or because they just want to decompress and scroll their phone or listen to the news for 10 minutes. Or they hate crowds. Or they are immune compromised and don't want to be mingling with a bunch of people around a counter. Or they have social anxiety. Or they have a cold and just don't feel like getting out of their car. Or they are…

people are allowed to make broad generalizations without listing caveats for every exception, this kind of pedantry is exhausting

people on the whole are lazy and bad at math, yes some people are not... that's not who we're talking about

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#84

Post by PapaPalpatine »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #67
PapaPalpatine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

oh central ohio, well in that case it's definitely everyone else that is wrong

Or maybe you and everyone else is of a certain age that y'all need to get your hearing checked more frequently.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#85

Post by jrowen »

I'm gonna be that guy - was this article written by AI? Where were the actual clever/funny/bizarre anecdotes that the (IRL) Darwin awards are known for?

This feels like a regurgitated summary of a run of the mill story...Taco Bell tried out AI ordering, and it didn't quite work (some people even trolled it!), and they had to rethink it. So crazy lol!

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#86

Post by Larrikin »

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…

When I worked at McDonald's in high school, the drive thru times were tracked (for manager shift bonuses) and the in store orders were not. Drive thru was always prioritized over in store if there was a possible wait on anything.

The only time management gave any priority to in store would be the case where a bus load of kids would show up before or after a school trip. That was just to get them out as quickly as possible before they can make a mess.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#87

Post by hackable_sand »

imtringued wrote: post #72
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…

>Knowledge processes are more amenable to automation than physical processes, especially in food service. What is manufacturing.

Food food

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#89

Post by collingreen »

goalieca wrote: post #34
Aurornis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poor quality of drive through communication is a common joke because it’s such a universal experience.

Hasn’t been the case since the 80s. Speaker tech works really well these days.

This is a crazy claim. I still routinely get bad speakers or mics, 40 years after your claimed cutoff. Where do you live? I expect you must have really great drive throughs pretty much everywhere near you in order to make this bold of a refutation of the comment above.

Re: Taco Bell AI Drive-Thru

#90

Post by kadoban »

goalieca wrote: post #34
Aurornis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poor quality of drive through communication is a common joke because it’s such a universal experience.

Hasn’t been the case since the 80s. Speaker tech works really well these days.

Speakers work well if they're set up well, maintained well and used correctly. Most drive thrus sound like shit because none of those are true.
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