- cross-posted to:
- pulse_of_truth@infosec.pub
- cross-posted to:
- pulse_of_truth@infosec.pub
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I think those kiosks with the big touch screen and the mobile apps work pretty well already, I always rather use them and see a picture what I can order instead of talking to the person.
tbh I’d rather not see the picture when it comes to mcdonald’s, as it can only lead to a disappointment
To be fair, you’ll be disappointed either way. At least with the menu, they can feel like they’re selling decent food (their pictures do look decent) and you can make sure your order is correct.
I don’t see how one can make sure their order is correct with a fake picture, but whatever floats your boat
Well, if you push the same fake picture you did last time, you should get a similar, disappointing result. If you get a different, disappointing result, you know your order is wrong.
I’ve stopped waiting in drive thrus because it’s faster and more convenient to order it ahead of time and pick it up inside.
I used the Mcdonalds app a few times and the drivethru was always faster, lmao.
They require location services and don’t start cooking until you’re inside their geofence, but IME they seem to still prioritize drivethru customers.
I have disabled location settings because it tracks the drive from my home. I enable it to use any deals and close the app after ordering and taking a photo of the order number. They start cooking after you let them know the code in the drive-thru. No need to open the app. They do prioritize drive-thru’s because their performance is tracked based off that. That’s why they sometimes ask you to pull ahead from the window. I never worked there, I just noticed the timing screen in the kitchen when I used to do DoorDash, which tracked when a car got in and out of the line. They used to act as though I was invisible and only served drive-thru.
I don’t eat at McDonald’s, so I haven’t had that experience. But I love being able to order Sheetz food for the next morning when I’m going on a trip, or schedule it for when I’m going to need a pit stop and just have it ready. Wendy’s is also pretty good about this, too.
I use them but they are definitely made to be annoying.
- Start
- No I don’t use a mobile app
- Takeaway
- Burgers
- Big Mac menu
- Fries
- Cola
- Add to basket
- No I don’t want extra
- Pay
- No I don’t want extra
- Pay here
- Pay with credit card
- Finally pay
- Printer is not working
- Oh what was my number?
I prefer just saying “can I get a medium #2 combo, please.” And being done with it.
That may be fine for regular customers, but what about the rest of us who don’t have the menu memorized?
The menu is 6 foot across, above the counter where you order, glowing, with pictures of each item and number next to it. Even someone who couldn’t read could order food using the normal system.
I’ve literally ordered by signing a number with my fingers to indicate the item I wanted in a country where I don’t speak the language at a fast food franchise I’d never been to before.
The menu is 6 foot across, above the counter where you order, glowing, with pictures of each item and number next to it
And changing pages while you’re trying to parse the cacophony of choices and options.
Most menus are fixed paper with back lighting not changing displays, most of the places that have the new displays added them at the same time as the touch screen stations.
Then there’s more ‘uhm’ and ‘aah’ involved.
Fuck all, I hate those things. Just pay a teenager to take my order with a judgemental expression. I hate self checkouts, I hate self order kiosks, no I do not want to use a phone app to place my order, I just want a double cheeseburger with no pickles GODAMMIT
I can’t use the mobile app because my kid wants a cheeseburger happy meal and it’s impossible to order on the app. Try it! It won’t let you at all.
Technically, cheeseburger happy meals are no longer on the menu because they’ve decided it has too many calories. If you go there and ask for one, of course, they will add a slice of cheese to a hamburger happy meal. But using the app to order one is a bridge too far, I guess.
When it comes down to it, though, we shouldn’t eat that crap anyway.
I checked, just for you. You can pick the hamburger happy meal and add cheese.
Where are you located? I am in the US. I downloaded and logged into the App again (just in case something changed) and I see no option to add cheese to a hamburger happy meal. I can pick a hamburger meal and “customize”, and add everything else – even a second hamburger patty if I wanted – but no cheese.
Maybe it’s just with my local McD?
Massachusetts. Adding cheese is there for the two McD’s near me.
https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/c7323c38-f5d0-47e0-b96d-9264755fb952.png
https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/81a3ab83-85cd-4f5f-8332-3c997c43a5a2.png
Weird. I don’t see that “American Cheese” line at all. Maybe it’s a NY thing.
I see cheese in Buffalo and Rochester, but not in Albany. It’s more localized than NY.
Interesting. I will have to do some more experiments later to see where they will let me order that. Thanks for confirming it’s not just me, though. I wa suspicious that there was some sort of cheesy conspiracy going on.
Checking in from Iowa and I have the option here too when I hit the customize button. I do have to scroll down a bit?
You might try uninstalling and reinstalling. If on android, clear your settings before the uninstall. The mcdee app does tend to be kind of unpredictable.
If that doesn’t work, send an email to them. I actually did email on some problem I had and they responded pretty quick with a temp workaround and fixed it later.
Those kiosks aren’t in the drive-throughs.
AI so bad it can’t get your burger order right.
No wonder people are sinking hundreds of billions into it. As opposed to, say, education.
Why would we need education if there aren’t going to be any jobs to do?
It’s one of those mysteries. Maybe we should ask an educated person.
They’ve redirected your call to an untrained AI that just keeps saying “Hello??? Hello??? Hello???”
Because thats all it ever hears before people hang up on it. So thats sll the language they know.
It’s McDonald’s, no amount of humans or technology will get your order right.
I stopped going to BK because they ALWAYS messed up my order. I finally had it and never went back. I bet the ai is more competent than my local BK. What makes this story more sad is I rarely get fast food, mainly as a treat, and fucking BK always messed it up.
For similar reasons, I stopped ordering with any alterations at all. I used to customize order a little and they always messed it up. It’s pretty rare that I go at all, but I figure that way it’s the standard meal and they can just go in autopilot making it. Less disappointment when things go wrong
Eh…AI messes my order. Some dumbass teenager messes up my order. Whats the difference?
I wouldn’t call it the MAIN reason I no longer go get fast food…but maybe like the lower end of the top 10 reasons I gave up fast food years ago.
At least the dumbass teenager isn’t putting glue on a pizza. Although in my area they will use the pepperoni placement to make a swastica on your pizza…or put their bare feet into the lettice of the burger king lettice bins. I mean sure, THOSE guys got fired, but how many other stories DON’T make the news???
Eh…AI messes my order. Some dumbass teenager messes up my order. Whats the difference?
I mean, I can think of a couple.
Still order like grandpa. I go in and want to talk to a human and order. I hate those gross ass touchscreens. I am probably a minority especially in my age group and working in tech
I am a touch screen enjoyer. At least in theory. I like having time to browse, look at pictures, easy access to customization options and most importantly no feeling of pressure. I am not spending a cashier’s time and potentially blocking someone behind me (at least there is usually less of a line for the self-ordering).
However there are negatives for sure. My biggest annoyance is that these devices are often annoyingly slow and unresponsive. They just display a tiny bit of text and images, they should switch between screens at 60fps, not 2s per click. Also if I know what I want it is often faster to tell the cashier and let them enter the order (on their more expert-optimized and less laggy keypad).
Also, explicit confirmation of your customizations and of your order. You can double check yourself to make sure it’s all correct before submitting the order while the distracted and overworked employee at the counter could hit the wrong button or skip a customization and you often wouldn’t know until you receive the wrong item. Then you have to create more work for the workers to get your order remade.
This is why I tend to just use the mobile apps for places to order. Not laggy and gives the benefits you mentioned of using a touch screen kiosk. A lot of them you don’t even need an account to use the app which is nice if that’s something that bothers you.
Yeah, I like this style but don’t want their apps installed on my phone. A few places have mobile sites which is excellent, I know what access it has and it is shut down completely when I close the tab.
But what if they want to notify you about great deals and coupons? DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT GREAT DEALS AND COUPONS?!?
I just don’t give notification permissions to most apps unless I actually care about notifications from it.
Basically yes. But also they can do that via email or web push notifications. Not that I would allow either.
The apps are super slow though. Like I don’t need a 5 second animation of bouncing fries every time I do anything. Dunkin is another offender.
There’s a reason everyone and their brother want you to install an app these days.
They just display a tiny bit of text and images, they should switch between screens at 60fps, not 2s per click.
I think this is intentional. They want you to take time looking at the pictures so you might think “you know what, actually I’d like some of those fries as well” by making it hard to just quickly select what you want and leave.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if there’s a psychological effect where you feel like ordering more makes this tedious ordering process more worthy. I mean why go through 2 minutes of clicking and waiting just for one stupid cheeseburger.
I find this a bit odd as you make it seem as if ordering is a complicated process that takes some thought and planning. The whole draw of McDonalds is that you get the exact same food wherever you may be and their options are fairly limited. Ham/cheeseburger, chicken burger, fish sandwich, or nuggets is pretty much your array of options.
I personally dislike the ordering screens as they make the process way to drawn out. Let me just pick a #1, the size, and the drink and be done with it in 3 taps. Last time I used one, it wanted me to basically build my own meal as if I was ordering Dominoes online and building my own pizza.
their options are fairly limited. Ham/cheeseburger, chicken burger, fish sandwich, or nuggets is pretty much your array of options
You must not have been to a McDonald’s in a while. Do you want that chicken sandwich grilled or crispy? Spicy? Are we talking the basic value sammich you can wolf down before you leave the parking lot, or the bigger one that comes in a cardboard box? The one with bacon and ranch, or one of the others? Did you want a combo meal? Lettuce is stupid filler on a sandwich, do you want to skip that?
As I said if you know what you want the cashier is usually faster and easier. However I don’t eat at any single fast food place very often. So even if I know sort of what I want I don’t remember exactly what toppings, flavours and sizes are available. If I was ordering I would probably just pick whatever common order I would expect can work, but I appreciate that I can see a list of options and do a bit of browsing.
Always wondered why anyone would rather talk to a person than take their time, have a nice overview of the menu, and pay in advance. I guess they are gross though.
The only time I would rather not talk to a person is if the accent causes a language barrier. Otherwise 9 times out of 10 a person is going to understand what you want better especially if it’s a customization issue
At least in my experience I have more customization issues when taking to people rather than using an app or going through a kiosk. The only time it’s the other way around is when they don’t include an option I want on the digital version but that’s becoming less and less common for me at least. The number of times I’ve had orders just missing customization things I asked for but they didn’t hear or forgot to enter is much higher when I go through the drive through or go in person then when I do it through something digital.
The only time I would rather not talk to a person is if the accent causes a language barrier.
“Gobble gobble goo?”
“Uhhhh…I’m sorry?”
“Gobble…gobble…goo?”
“…what?”
“GOBBLE GOBBLE GOO!!!”
“I have no idea what you mean by that…”
Guy behind you in line: “c’mon man!!! Pay attention! He’s saying CAN I HELP YOU?”
“Really? Those phonetic sounds were supposed to be in any way similar to the thing you said? It’s not even close…”
“English is probably his second language. How well do you speak THEIR language?”
“Which language do you speak?”
“Yjxrjk#@■♡○{rjbzwk!”
“I’m done.”
Because I’m at a fast food place in the first place because my time is important and I don’t want to waste it ordering.
That and the guy taking orders does it 1000x a day and i can easily order that way instead of me navigating ten different menus just to order a simple meal for my family.
I’m OK with my old man status at this point. Tech is good when it improves things for the consumer. The kiosks seem to just improve the company bottom line IMO.
just use your knuckle
A lot of people seem to be misinterpreting the headline given the content of the article:
It told Restaurant Business it was testing whether the voice ordering chatbot could speed up service and that the test left it confident “that a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future.”
This is just saying that they are ending their 2021 partnership with IBM for AI drive thru.
Not that they are abandoning AI for drive thru.
I suspect that even if they were abandoning future plans for AI drive through ordering, they wouldn’t say they were. Saying you’re not doing anything with AI might actually hurt a companies share price right now.
I actually went to a mcdonalds that did this. It was overall way more slow and annoying. I would be willing to make that concession if knew that it was something to worked towards a better future for humans, but all its means is that someone is getting fired under capitalism. Also it failed to understand if I wanted sauce and just referred me to someone actually working.
I’ve heard a few instances in which “AI” is just a bunch people responding to a voice to text feed in the Philippines.
So much of this isn’t really technology. It’s just a new kind of service sector outsourcing.
Amazons Mechanical turk in a nutshell
I think McDs always planned to roll out remote customer service to really maximize capitalism. And wrapping it under AI because that’s a trendy buzzword!
This reminds me of a post I saw once were someone said AI stood for Actually Indian
Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m getting old. But I want to order through a person. Not a touchscreen and not AI.
I feel like society is slowly removing humans from our everyday interactions and I don’t like it.
I like the touch screen ordering systems, but thats probably just because im autistic and find human interaction tough :p Im glad its an option, but it shouldnt be the only one for accessibility reasons.
It’s fine when what you want is on the menu. But as soon as you have a question or need something a little bit off menu (hold the tomatoes, does that have nuts in it? I’m allergic, this food came out cold can I get another?) the glorified vending machine doesn’t work.
The good machines (uncertain about McDonald’s) let’s you customize everything. Want three pickles? So it. Half mayo? Sure. No top bun? Live your life!b And it gives you ingredient listings.
And whose to say the minwage cashier even knows what’s in the food? Not at all a insult, but in my area, many cashiers have English as their third/fourth language.
I like touchscreens because I can spend more time getting my order right without wasting the cashier’s time.
I don’t want to talk to a cashier and have them explain the difference between a bacon sandwich supreme, and a bacon burger deluxe.
I don’t want to confuse them by asking for extra veggies and watch them put it on the side.
I don’t want to argue that I asked for two packs of ketchup and they gave me BBQ.
I want to add onions to my mcchicken and can’t do that with the touchscreen :( literally not an option
I love ordering through touch screens. No mis hearing and everything goes much quicker.
The added value of that human interaction for me personally is 0.
The kinds of places that get touchscreen kiosks often have teenagers taking your order who are not paid or trained enough to give any shits about any of it. The touchscreen saves both of you from doing the worst part of the whole process.
Adding onions to a mcchicken is impossible through a touchscreen. Can easily be done if I talked to a person
I mean if I really need onions on a mcchicken I can still order at the front but then I have to deal with trying to get my specialty order across, which is even more hassle. Mainly I want no salt on my fries and no sauce on my burger.
Trust me, you don’t need that shit. Melted cheese is good sauce and the residual salt in the fries tray is plenty, and you’ll get fresh fries every time.
You don’t like a stoned teenager going, “Uh what?” And mumbling every few seconds?
(Joking of course)
I just don’t want to talk to a robot. Not over the phone, not in a drive-through.
Sounds like a closeted robosexual to me. You don’t need to deny it! I’d fuck a robot too. Maybe just the chick from Tron Legacy
I wouldn’t do that, but I would change my lights from red to blue for her…
You won’t know.
Maybe eventually, but I do now.
I wouldn’t mind letting a “robot” do that kind of work. In a perfect world that would mean less work. In the real world it means they van fire some people and make even more money. But then again, i would never eat at McDonald’s anyway, so it’s hard to boycott
not society, capital owners.
I prefer the touchscreen but not at the expense of somebody’s job.
Given that AI now passes the Turing test, you won’t know it’s AI.
I’m kinda ok with a combination, like hey during the day run with mostly humans but at night supplement lack of staff when automation (so long as it’s safe)
Agreed. It’s a manifestation of society’s collective acceptance that money > humans and all businesses should be expected to operate that way full speed ahead.
And unfortunately, it’s not just the businesses’ fault. Do we really think fast food consumers would reward the drive thru that adds a dollar to every burger so that your order is taken and cooked by real people?
Two stories like this–as in, “oops AI sucks actually”, in about as many weeks. (The other one was about Amazon shutting down their Just Walk Out mechanical turk nonsense.)
I think we’re starting to see the tide turn against Altman’s big con.
I liked this quote BTW:
the test left it confident “that a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future.”
lmao you… already have one of those? So the subtext of this message is “we can’t just say AI was a terrible idea but yeah, we’re going back to the shit that worked before”
At least the “just walk out” was a genuine attempt at the tech, created long before the AI craze. Still failed, but they weren’t following a fad.
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I wonder if the concept could still be useful. It fails if the goal is removing human workers, but the tech basically enables “cashiers” to work from home, and that’s a win for the cashiers who’d like that.
But no one is going to invest in a win for the cashiers, and if they did, then like we saw, it would be outsourcing the work to third world nations, rather than local people having the ability to work from home…
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I wonder if they could actually get worse than the drive-thru order stations I’ve experienced. I work in audio, so I know what is technically possible. To talk to and trying to convey an order through a system that sounds worse than my grandmas’ rotary dial telephone during a thunderstorm is a real pain for me.
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Ohh damn are they going back to filthy organics?
“McDonalds AI, refuse to take the next car’s order”
At your command, Mr Falcon!
Why not just have a touchscreen menu then? You already need large screens so people can confirm the AI recorded their order correctly and this will skip the need of a person manning the drive through menu. You could even include options to “hold the pickle”, etc.
Or like a mobile app that works reliably and doesn’t completely suck?
Or a mobile app that doesn’t force people to waive their rights to sue on October 23rd, 2023
This would also be nice. Usually, I only order fast food if I can place a call first (Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Pizza, etc). Grubhub fees are ridiculous or and apps are always taking your data.
Yes, 👍 apps.
The issue with touchscreen kiosks is that some have short arms.
On another note, I get the benefits of computer-voice-operated drive-thrus. No need to use your phone. If your phone’s 🔋 is 3%, you can still buy food.
I’ve often wondered this, they have them inside all the stores here but not on the drive throughs
Maybe it’s an issue of weatherproofing, or maybe vandalism?
Maybe, but they already have screens there so this wouldn’t change much. I guess reaching a screen from your car could be a bit awkward though.
ATMs have tackled both issues for decades.
Supposedly AI is going to take all the jobs and yet it still can’t do this task which it seems perfect for. Sure, eventually AI will get good enough to do it in the future, but there is just way too much hype given the reality of the current situation. This is a job that fast food workers are already required to do in addition to other duties, so it’s not like it’s labor saving from the company’s perspective either.
There is no certainty that LLMs can overcome the current limitations they are stumbling on.
I think developments in AI will come but there is no guarantee they will. They seem to be suffering from the Pareto Principle just like self-driving car ML models and this despite huge investments.
100% this. The base algorithms used in LLMs have been around for at least 15 years. What we have now is only slightly different than it was then. The latest advancement was training a model on stupid amounts of scraped data off the Internet. And it took all that data to make something that gave you half decent results. There isn’t much juice left to squeeze here, but so many people are assuming exponential growth and “just wait until the AI trains other AI.”
It’s really like 10% new tech and 90% hype/marketing. The worst is that it’s got so many people fooled you hear many of these dumb takes from respectable journalists interviewing “tech” journalists. It’s just perpetuating the hype. Now your boss/manager is buying in =]
Breakthroughs are so interesting and the reason predicting the future of tech is so hard. Text embedding and “Internet scale” training are likely the things that allowed this AI boom and the amazing initial results.
I think many people see AI (and other tech) moving linearly from the current point forward but any software developer knows this is rarely the case. And no one can predict the next breakthrough.
It doesn’t help the hype and confusion around ML/LLM/AGI. And because on the surface LLMs seem intelligent people misunderstand their capabilities (much like politicians). They certainly have fantastic uses just as they are now but a lot of people are overly optimistic (or pessimistic depending on your point of view) of our new “AI overlords”.
Personally, LLMs are absolutely amazing at supporting me in my professional writing. I don’t let it do my work but it helps me play around to find a better way to express some things like if I had a sparing writing partner.
Using AI seems extremely excessive compared to a regular interface or human.
It’s excessive now, but once it works, I’d much rather subscribe to drivethru AI than pay an acceptable living wage to some human. /s
Maybe I’m just really good with talking to robots, but the AI drivethru voice at my local McDonald’s is way, way, way more accurate than basically all of the employees they used to have running it before. A few times it’s been down for whatever reason and an actual human takes my order and I remember how shit they are at their jobs when they get my order wrong yet again, or can’t hear me, or talk with gum in their mouths or whatever.
Is the end of the headline, a threat…
Oh you’ll get McDonald’s AI… You’ll All See! (Clown angrily shakes fist)
