McDonald’s is removing artificial intelligence (AI) powered ordering technology from its drive-through restaurants in the US, after customers shared its comical mishaps online.
A trial of the system, which was developed by IBM and uses voice recognition software to process orders, was announced in 2019.
It has not proved entirely reliable, however, resulting in viral videos of bizarre misinterpreted orders ranging from bacon-topped ice cream to hundreds of dollars’ worth of chicken nuggets.
McDonald’s told franchisees it would remove the tech from the more than 100 restaurants it has been testing it in by the end of July, as first reported by trade publication Restaurant Business.
It’s hard enough to get a human to understand your order through those crappy microphones.
Remember when they tried outsourcing that to India?
No, but it doesn’t surprise me.
I also found an article from 2006, but it’s paywalled.
McD outside USA: we have good, simple burger and you can order using app or kiosk McD in USA: wow, ibm treats us nice, let’s make the franchisees give them some monies
“Because it’s 2024. 2026 models are way better!”
“What do you mean each order costs $3 in tokens? We pay those employees $6 per hour!”
If only they could cool data centers with coca cola /s
That’s what they are using the ice cream machine for.
How? It’s broken.
LOL I know for a fact when the “ice cream machine doesn’t work” it either ran out of ‘milk’… cuz refilling requires pouring a 2 gal bag of sugary milk into the top end the chances of spilling and making a massive mess are pretty high.
Or they didn’t do cleaning cycle and it’s won’t turn on until they do.
Go to Diary Queef if you want ice cream.
Diary Queef doesn’t sell ice cream; it’s a frozen dairy product.
Just proves that serving at mcD takes higher levels of cognition than writing code.
Honestly, human communication is insanely complex, we just happen to be heavily optimized for it.
My friend who works at McDs says people at the drive thru dont believe he’s a human no matter how much he tries to reassure them.
He should embrace it.
“Hello. I’m Jake your burger… assistant. I’m here to take your order… I’m here with you until the end. Let’s do this. Would you like… fries… or a large refreshing soft drink… with your order?”
I mean what can you say that doesn’t risk getting you fired?
I hope it cost them a lot of money to implement and then to remove it. As long as it ate into their profits I don’t care
I’m sure they’re putting all those costs onto the franchisees. McDonalds the corporation won’t feel a thing.
This is why McDoubles are like $3 instead of $1.
McSchadenfreude
Bacon topped ice cream sounds good
Handily demonstrating, again, that frontline customer service is skilled labour.
You mean the thing that misinterpreted orders from a small list of choices would potentially identify and bomb an all girls children’s school if used by the military?
The have solid intel to suggest the girls took the burgers.
Worst part about having a dark sense of humor is thinking up punchlines to jokes that are only funny until you get them.
I don’t believe it was ai’s fault at all. I believe they hit that girls school on purpose to kill the kids of a bunch of their leaders and elites.
That sort of thing is right up Israel’s alley, killing the families of people they don’t like. Our president endorsed the same thing at one point campaigning too.
Precisely. Take that clunkers.
translation: we tried to replace the functions of yet more of our employees and can not yet, effectively, automate more of them out of a job. But we’re working on it.
Can’t do a minimum wage job yet they expect it to take over $90k+ salary jobs
There are a lot of salaried people out there that also wouldn’t be able to get my order right in the drive thru
I stopped going to fast food restaurants when they added these dumb AI bots. It barely could function when you wanted to do a simple modification to an order and it basically couldn’t answer any questions about the menu you may have. Seemed like seasonal items or promotions were outside of its training data as well.
I stopped when they started charging sit down restaurant prices for food barely higher quality than what prisoners eat.
Taco Bell has entered the chat.
There’s a Mexican restaurant near us (not a taqueria but an actual sit-down full service restaurant) that was the same price or cheaper than Taco Bell for years.
and when the menu started rotating so that you would awkwardly stand there waiting for the 10-second window to check out a set of items and then have to wait for it to come back around
AI saving lives by failing to sell McRibs was not on my bingo sheet
+1, I also stopped shopping from any market that forces self-checkouts. I waste more time, I scan my own stuff, and for what exactly? So the company can earn more money by kicking out their employees? Why the fuck don’t we even get a discount for “working briefly” in their market? Nothing these companies pull off ever benefits the society.
Offering the option is one thing, forcing it down your throat is another.
You know I’ve had this argument with people so often but yet they’re so ignorantly adamant that they are so much more efficient at scanning and packing their own groceries and plus they don’t want to talk to anybody. It makes me rage. I really hate the direction that society has taken when it comes to communicating to other human beings. Like we live in a society where we’re supposed to be social with each other.
I bet some amount of that was deliberate. Kinda like how they started charging extra for value items “dressed like a mac” when people realized the only real difference between a McDouble dressed like a mac was the central bun and it was much cheaper. So they started charging most of that price difference for a squirt of sauce that replaced a squirt of ketchup because McDoubles were for people too poor to afford a Big Mac, not for people who could afford a Big Mac but thought it was a rip off. At least that’s what I remember from the time before I realized McDonald’s wasn’t ever worth going to. I can’t think of a single fast food place with burger patties as pathetic as McDonald’s (though I have a feeling the US has other chains competing for that spot).
When you’re dealing with a human, they can make customizations that might upset the greedy little piggies at the top that would rather gouge people for any improvements and hate when employees give out freebies even if they cost nothing and generate good will for the business. Hell that might have been the difference between then and now for my willingness to go there at all, as it felt less human and more corporate hellish when they started charging for it.
I can’t think of a single fast food place with burger patties as pathetic as McDonald’s
It doesn’t even smell like food. To my shame, I occasionally crave a double quarter-pounder, as awful as I know they are. I usually eat it in the car, but last time, I took it home and left it on the table while I went to the loo, and the smell filling my flat when I came back was not appetising in the least.
Our children aren’t a concern of their’s. Saving money and resources is. What do you think is going to happen to education quality if they get what they want and AI takes over mental tasks throughout the economy and bureaucracies across society? What actual value with mass education have at that point?
They won’t see the value in educating anyone at all and they’ll push for the cheapest option, filled primarily with lessons on how important it is to do what you’re told.
It’s not satisfying at all to yell at a chatbot. They’d rather yell at an authentic minimum wage worker.
IKR? The staff at rage rooms keep insisting I’m only allowed to hit the inanimate objects. SMH.
