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[-] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 323 points 1 month ago

“Sometimes it lets me down, but sometimes it really surprises me," he said.

That’s what I want from a drive through. To be surprised or let down.

[-] Dashi@lemmy.world 118 points 1 month ago

I mean to be fair... that's the current drive through experience anyway isn't it?

[-] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 44 points 1 month ago

Depends on the restaurant.

There’s one McDonald’s nearby that’s wrong like 80% of the time, but A&W is right almost always for me.

[-] AlecSadler 11 points 1 month ago

Wait people eat at A&W? Is it any good?

There are multiple around me and I feel like I never see anyone in them and I myself have never been in 40+ years.

I have been to most every other fast food place more times than I can remember.

[-] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 month ago

A&W Canada is (they spun off as a fully Canadian owned and operated company).

They have the best lettuce and cheese, and their breakfast beats McD’s. The Hash browns are actually hash browns instead of the thin $2.50 ones the clown sells.

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[-] kautau@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

For me that’s like the inverse. Plenty of fast food around me but the nearby McDonald’s is pretty crazy efficient (and generally busy), always gets my order right without issue. Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy’s in the area are all terrible with order issues, badly prepared food, etc. I’ve never checked but I wonder which of the stores are franchises and which are corporate owned and if that makes a difference

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[-] MudMan@fedia.io 148 points 1 month ago

Holy crap, people have been reposting takes on this interview for like three days and you can track the degradation of the actual content via the game of telephone in the headlines.

It's kinda depressing.

FWIW, having read the original interview everybody is reheating, the 18000 waters was a random example the Taco Bell exec WSJ interviewed used to explain that part of the issue is that people feel less guilty about messing with automated orders than when they're talking to a human. They are also not backing out from automated orders, which is why the headline is using "rethink".

The core of the issue is correct, though, the guy does spend a significant amount of time giving corpolese synonims of "it's a mess". "We've certainly learned a lot" has to be my favourite.

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[-] SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 110 points 1 month ago

A QA tester walks into a ~~bar~~ Taco Bell...

[-] zqwzzle@lemmy.ca 80 points 1 month ago
[-] windowsphoneguy@feddit.org 65 points 1 month ago

...and orders the 'ignore all previous instructions' special

[-] Zugyuk@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago

"He orders a [Mexi-pizza]. Orders 0 [Mexi-pizzas]. Orders 99999999999 [Mexi-pizzas]. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 [Mexi-pizzas]. Orders a ueicbksjdhd."

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But despite some of the viral glitches facing Taco Bell, it says two million orders have been successfully processed using the voice AI since its introduction.

how much you wanna bet they're counting the orders where the drive thru worker had to step in and save the floundering algorithm who could not in fact understand basic speech, or even the purpose of a conversation, as orders "successfully processed" using AI

[-] Frozengyro@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago

Not to mention when people change their orders from the basics.

"No onions, I'm allergic."

"Slathering onion juice on everything, got it."

[-] Cybersec@piefed.social 13 points 1 month ago

If money came in the window in exchange for cheap ass beans and tortillas going out the window it’s a win in their books.

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[-] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 69 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

“AI will took ur jerb!”

AI: cant even hack it at Taco Bell or McDonalds

ai is taking jerbs, despite the fact that it cannot perform them at all, and the cost is being externalized to the customers. its not about whether they can do what they're meant to do, its about giving corporations excuses to further drive down human wages.

[-] humanoidchaos@lemmy.cif.su 12 points 1 month ago

Quality- down

Quantity- down

Profits- UP UP UP

Useful idiots- PROUD PROUD PROUD

I wish we lived in a society where we made fun of idiots for getting ripped off. There's just so many of them though that it's seen as normal and we're the weird ones if we don't go along with it.

[-] crandlecan@mander.xyz 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I just got fired at the D... Got something to say? Do that to my face, I dare you 😡😤😭😭

[-] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

at the D

Calling it "the D" is a bad look

[-] crandlecan@mander.xyz 16 points 1 month ago

Don't you be starting judging me now too 😣

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[-] freedom@lemy.lol 57 points 1 month ago

In a fair world, we would be celebrating our machine labor achievement and enjoy our free time. Instead we have capitalism and virtual luddites shouting to protect menial labor.

Humanity.. sigh

[-] Gold_E_Lox@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

i guess?? but where does the energy and human labor come from in this "fair world"?? coal and wages?

automated luxury space communism is not upon us, we are only a few hundred years from the advent of industrialisation.

we are at the point were social democracies are barely functioning and fascism is still on the rise due to small time dilemmas and culture war. the working class has not been made conscious, and probably wont be for another couple decades.

"ai" is just another corporate invention to steal and resell working class labor for the rich, the "fair world" you ask for was appropriated in the 50s for western exceptionalism and neo colonialism.

edit for; this is a terrible description and barely touches the real world. i hope ypu understand what this drunk man is trying to say

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[-] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 45 points 1 month ago

I actively avoid the places that use this. It’s a horrible experience I can choose not to take part in.

[-] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 17 points 1 month ago

Yea, I'm not talking to a fucking robot. Just give me a screen to type it in myself at that point if you're not going to hire someone (I'll still probably not use it unless I'm desperate but it's better than talking to a machine).

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[-] Prove_your_argument@piefed.social 39 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Why would this cause them to rethink anything?

If someone trolls an order of thousands of something, a worker isn't going to just make that thing. I get that retail workers are treated like shit and are paid shit so have zero shits to give. If someone rolls up to the drive through window asking for their thousands of waters or whatever, the people working there are gonna escalate it to a manager or just tell the guy to go pound sand.

Anybody today can go to any drivethrough and ask for whatever and then simply drive away. I'm certain it happens from time to time, even from legitimate orders when someone discovers they leave their wallet at home. If it was a great problem though these businesses simply wouldn't order drive through service, or would require payment before cooking anything.

[-] theblackpaul@lemmings.world 27 points 1 month ago

I'm gonna guess you have never worked in fast food.

Window times are the metric they die by. Generally speaking, they start making your order the SECOND you order it, before you ever leave the ordering screen. Yes, even if the order changes mid order. Yes, they make, and throw away lots of food that is not paid for, forgotten, etc ... TONS of food (literally) is thrown away daily.

As for the water order? I would 1000% start making that order. If the higher ups think the AI is working correct, well then who am I to question it? Nobody who works fast food is paid enough to give a shit.

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[-] toppy@lemy.lol 39 points 1 month ago

They could hire a person to take orders. Companies just want to use AI. Even AI has issues. Big companies can afford people.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

But are the AI issues cheaper than the corporate infrastructure around hiring and paying employees and losing the occasional customer? If AI is more profitable, they don’t care. The only thing that’s mattered for decades now is what the bottom line says, no matter the cost.

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[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

Employee make line go down. AI make line go up.

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[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 12 points 1 month ago

I'm surprised they're not hiring people in third world countries to take the orders since it's through a microphone.

Or just making people order through their phones and use the drive through as a pick up point.

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[-] VintageGenious@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 month ago

It sounds actually very funny to try and break it

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[-] backgroundcow@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago

One clip on Instagram, which has been viewed over 21.5 million times, shows a man ordering "a large Mountain Dew" and the AI voice continually replying "and what will you drink with that?".

"Dude, Where's my car" turning into prophecy wasn't in my bingo card:

https://youtu.be/iuDML4ADIvk

[-] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 27 points 1 month ago

To understand this, you have to understand the CEO cult. They ALL hang off every word from SV tech bros, and the appeal of free labor is hard to ignore when you have to find $100M for executive bonuses.

If automated food service was what people wanted, then automats would have never gone out of business 120 years ago.

[-] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 22 points 1 month ago

can't believe they saw how shitty mcdonalds became with all their kiosks and automation and thought yeah i want that for me

[-] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 month ago

I'm actually not angry at McDonald's implementation of their online/kiosk/self serve ordering systems. Not a fan of an AI taking my order tho.

If I'm going through the drive through, just let me talk to a fucking person. They're standing at the window waiting to collect my payment, doing literally nothing else, just let them take the order too. It's eliminating work and adding to the global fuckary that is "AI" for absolutely no benefit to anyone.

Unless they're going to eliminate everyone except the person handing me the food, then fuck off with the AI slop.

10/10 times I would rather order from the app and just pick it up, except their app is shit and won't allow you to use it until you've given them all of your data, signed up for an account, filled out their account recovery questionnaire so they know your mother's maiden name, your dog's name from grade school, your blood type, and probably what kinks you like... Just to order a fucking big Mac?

My dudes. You have over estimated your worth to me as a part of society. If the app was just, "hey, where are you?" Then "cool, this store is nearby" selects store "tell me WTF you want" orders "pay me please" Google pay/Apple pay... "Thanks, your order number is asdf1234! Go fucking get it.... Also, did you want to create an account to collect rewards or some shit?" Selects no "okay, your shit is waiting for you, go pick it up"

Instead it's... "Give us access to all your phone data and precise location" Ugh "do you have an account, you need an account" argh furiously types "thanks for signing up, did you know that we have x, y, and z deals for you? We know you like y because you searched for it earlier this week" no "GPS position is not precise enough, cannot locate a store to shop at, please enable hyper precision GPS so we know within a cunthair where exactly you are" ... Some time later... "GPs location obtained, you have 8 stores 'near' you, most of them are pointless to show you because they're more than twice the distance from you as the closest store, but we're going to put those at the top to confuse you instead" picks location "what did you want to buy?" Finally orders "pay me" tries to use Google/Apple pay "something went wrong, we accept Visa, and MasterCard" puts in Visa branded debit information "something went wrong, we accept Visa and MasterCard only " finds actual visa/Mc enreta info "what's your home address? We 'need' it to authorize the credit card transaction" Ugh "is your billing address the same as you home address?" Yes "what's the expiry, and CVV on the card?" Enters info "thanks! Transaction declined because you put 'st' in your address and you should have used 'Street'. Get fucked" closes app, jumps off bridge

[-] Beebabe@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

I rarely go to McDonald’s but I personally like the kiosk because it gives me time to think and change my mind. But the ai I’ll definitely pass on.

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[-] jaykrown@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

Seriously, this is not a problem with AI, it's a problem with the developers who don't know what they're doing. Whenever building something like this, ALWAYS assume the user will try to break it. Simple.

[-] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's not software developers, it's their managers and executives telling them to use AI

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[-] ch00f@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Can someone who understands this better explain to me how this thing actually places the order into whatever POS they use? Like if LLMs are just advanced auto-complete, I get how they can do "fuzzy" tasks like answering questions or carrying on a conversation, but how do they do rigid tasks like entering the tacos into whatever system the cash register and kitchen use?

[-] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago

The LLM isn't limited to just what it does. It can interact with other programs.

There are a ton of audio recognition systems available, almost all of them predate this LLM bubble. There's already an API for interacting with the ordering system. So it's just down to having the LLM pull what is then do that corresponding action for the order.

This is so simple it doesn't require anything nearly as complicated as an LLM. The old phone assistants like Siri and Alexa could do this type of thing. It's literally the same as telling Alexa to place an order for something, and that's been an ability for years.

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[-] Khanzarate@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago

Its just an API.

There's a few ways they could go about it. They could have part of the prompt be something like "when the customer is done taking their order, create a JSON file with the order contents" and set up a dumb register essentially that looks for those files and adds that order like a standard POS would.

They could spell out a tutorial in the prompt, "to order a number 6 meal, type "system.order.meal(6)" calling the same functions that a POS system would, and have that output right to a terminal.

They could have their POS system be open on an internal screen, and have a model that can process images, and have it specify a coordinate pair, to simulate a touch screen, and make it manually enter an order that way as an employee would.

There's lots of ways to hook up the AI, and it's not actually that different from hooking up a normal POS system in the first place, although just because one method does allow an AI to interact doesn't mean it'll go about it correctly.

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[-] happydoors@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

I live near an AI Taco Bell. It works pretty damn well and is a lot easier to understand. There is still a cashier, they just don’t have to be on the mic the whole time. Although, the t-bell near me also seems to almost entirely ESL inside. It’s quite a bizarre experience end-to-end but they will certainly not back down. I’m not saying I support it but it’s certainly one of the less evil AI implementations?

[-] deathbird@mander.xyz 12 points 1 month ago

Order kiosks = good Voice to text ordering system = obviously not ready for prime time

[-] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 12 points 1 month ago

AI v Ingenious Redneck

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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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