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A firm providing AI drive-thru tech to fast food chains actually relies on human workers to take orders 70% of the time
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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The McDonalds here had an AI prompt for like a week. I don't care because all I need to do is say the number for my mobile order and it was faster. But everyone over 30 would be screaming and yelling shit about "who are you", "what's happening", "am I supposed to talk now?". I still get stuck behind old people that struggle with actual humans at the drive thru.
General technological competence is so far behind what can be offered to consumers. People are the bottle neck, look at bear proof trash can designs. And I don't think it's getting better like it was. With the internet now packaged into 2 click apps, the majority of kids are just doing that instead of getting into FOSS and Linux like the majority of the early 2000s internet users.
You realize that Millennials are over 30, and spent their entire lives speed running through the most significant changes, year over year, of the digital age, right?
I'm 28 and i can barely figure out how to order from the stupid kiosks at McDonald's. It took my brither and I ages to figure out how to order a breakfast meal with a mocha in a road trip, and after a lot of arguing and swearing i still didnt end up with the meal i wanted. I should have just used the bathroom and used the drive through because the attendant actually understands how to use the system.
Sure, youth and/or technical experience isn't going to magically overcome poor UI, bad software design, and shitty voice implementation.
Oh yeah I hate the way it works. If you want a meal, you actually have to choose the option for a meal. You can't just choose the individual items that make up a meal. If you do that, it doesn't work and you have to delete them all and start again.
On the Domino's website though, if you do that, it notices that's what you've done and just automatically changes it to a meal.
But it does work exactly the same way on the website. So most people are used to its crappy design by now.
Cha-ching!
But McDonald's are the ones who make the interface. So there's no reason for them to want the franchise to make more money. So I think it's just a matter of crappy design.
Maybe for the 5% of locations which are company owned? And to satisfy franchisees, who probably already like that people who order items separately at the registers pay more (provided employees don’t help out and combine them).
Their mobile app is hands down the most advanced in the US fast food space, so they def have the tech know how.
But definitely just speculating :)
I'm 100% never going to download an app for a restaurant. I atopped getting my free World Series Taco from Taco Bell the year they required the app.