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McDonalds removes AI drive-throughs after order errors (www.bbc.com)

submitted 6 months ago by Stopthatgirl7 to c/technology

105 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] qevlarr 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Here's what you do: You have the AI take the order, but the human checks each item. They'll have enough time to work out the kinks

[–] BananaTrifleViolin 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

That is then not a technology ready for mass use. That would be McDonalds paying IBM to let it beta test (or alpha test it seems) its software for them.

And the only way to check the order would be to listen to each order and confirm the order is correct - so totally duplicating the AI's job. It then becomes "what's the point" for McDonalds?

AI tools at present are broken and not fit for purpose.

[–] qevlarr 3 points 6 months ago

AI is a crapshoot, agree. But there has to be more testing before PR disasters like this happen. That isn't "being my suppliers beta test", rather sensible project managers not mindlessly putting it out there because the supplier said it worked. Now people are laughing at McDonald's on top of their cost saving operations being delayed. But I agree overall that AI sucks to replace humans. I'm just criticizing McDonald's jumping the gun

[–] LordKitsuna 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's because everyone is trying to use generic models for every task which is obviously terrible. If you create a custom, naroscope model, you can do some surprising things. But that takes knowledgeable employees, time, and money, none of which companies want to do. Train ann llm exclusively on recordings of drive-thru interactions and it would probably end up being quite good at it.

I mean it wouldn't hurt to also use some microphones that don't sound worse than Dollar Store Windows 98 white beige desktop microphone but that's a different conversation

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

You don't need or benefit from an LLM.

You just need voice recognition that works properly.

[–] Passerby6497 0 points 6 months ago

And the only way to check the order would be to listen to each order and confirm the order is correct - so totally duplicating the AI's job.

Lol, they do this already with humans, and have done so for more than a decade. Back when I worked in the MCD kitchen, wed always have someone with the drive thru headset on to hear what's coming and to make sure the back drive drone wasn't a complete moron (like the kid [hired before me] who in all seriousness asked me if there was bacon on a BLT, then completely missed the sarcasm in a drawn out "Noooooooo" and proceeded to tell the customer 🙄)