In a recent post I have shown how artificial intelligence sometimes is, well, neither artificial nor intelligent. Since then McDonald’s, who were also trialling AI-assisted ordering systems in the US have announced that following a number of rather comical mishaps they are abandoning the tests (at least for now).
The technology developed by IBM has been controversial from the outset, though initially concerns centred on its potential to make people’s jobs obsolete. However, it has become apparent that replacing human restaurant workers may not be as straightforward as people initially feared – and the system’s backers hoped. The AI order-taker’s mishaps have been documented online. In one video on TikTok, a young woman becomes increasingly exasperated as she attempts to convince the AI that she wants a caramel ice cream, only for it to add multiple stacks of butter to her order. In another a person claims that her order got confused with one being made by someone else, resulting in nine orders of tea being added to her bill. Yet another popular video includes two people laughing while hundreds of dollars worth of chicken nuggets are added to their order, while the New York Post reported another person had bacon added to their ice cream in error.
Accents and dialects no doubt play a role, as AI-based systems are quite possibly not sophisticated enough yet to fully grasp such linguistical nuances. I have been able to experience myself, how error-prone voice-recognition based systems can be: Have you ever tried to communicate with a voice-based chatbot in a noisy environment (when for example standing on a busy street corner)? Unless the input required is restricted to a single word (normally ‘yes’ or ‘no’), you will be asked by the system to repeat yourself. Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are good examples of AI working well with voice recognition, and there are already speech-to-text applications where spoken language is converted into written text using AI algorithms. And even some applications quite successfully use AI to recognize spoken language and provide real-time translations.
Just simple tasks such as ordering a Big Mac and french fries might be easier person to person… at least for now.
The grumpy older man 
I normally go for humans in all shopping. It suits my slower pace, these days. And I enjoy saying “hello” to someone, just having that interaction. In McDs I’ve used the screens okay but not tried anything else. But I visit there maybe once a year so they’re hardly going to get rich on my custom.
But it is interesting, I see even in the company I work for. Any attempt to leverage AI is encouraged, just so they can say that they’re leveraging AI. Not particularly for any tangible benefit, just for PR.
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as far as AI is concerned, I think in many (or even most?) companies this is a matter being seen as progressive and, as you rightly say, for PR
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Every time I wonder over the rush to “automate” everything I am reminded it’s all about profit. Never any real concern for the customer, patient, accuracy, or security. If a buck is to be made or saved, corporate signs-on and damn the real results. And this comes from a life-long leading, bleeding edge computist. Interesting read but not surprising.
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Absolutely: not surprising at all… and that’s maybe the saddest part. The corporate mantra nowadays seems to be ‚we don’t need customers, we just need their money..‘
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I feel like when it comes to physical stores, like restaurants and shopping centers, we are always going to need a human-to-human connection. For example, if I go to a restaurant and don’t know what to order, I am going to want to ask the human worker what their go-to favorite is. I don’t want a robot to tell me what to eat; it just feels inhumane.
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