5 ms·

They’re totally different domains. McDonald’s orders don’t have the crazy branching structure of Go, but they also aren’t nearly so self-contained.

CamperBob2 7y ago
How is this not a perfect example of a self-contained problem? There are only so many items on the manu. Each can only be prepared in so many different ways, with so many different ingredients. Never mind Go, this application would have been possible in the days of Zork if speech recognition had been up to the task. It is now. Anyone who doesn't understand that has questionable business on a site called "Hacker News," IMO. Frankly this entire subthread is surreal, as if the site had seen a lot of recent signups from people who've never used a smart speaker before.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Menu ordering can be automated. Customers, however, can't be, and they'll ask for and do the wackiest shit: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromretail/top?t=month https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromretail/top?t=month
- mattkrause 7y ago
  If you can get people to treat it like a voice-activated commandline (“tea, Earl Grey, hot; Big Mac combo, medium, Sprite”), then sure, it’s probably doable. This is how people mostly use Alexa, Siri, etc. It’s not the greatest experience though, especially when there’s “state” to manipulate. On the other hand, humans conversations assume a lot of background knowledge. “I’ll have a coffee if it’s fresh; orange juice otherwise” needs facts the system might not even have access to. You need to know a bit of pragmatics to figure out that “a cheeseburger with nothing on it” should still have cheese and a bun and exactly how many drinks and fries are being ordered when someone says “Two cheeseburger happy meals and one chicken nugget. I’ll have crispy chicken sandwich too. Fries and milk for the kids; just a Diet Coke for me.” It’s obviously not impossible to figure this stuff out, but it might require emulating more of a teenager than you might naively imagine.

CamperBob2 7y ago

How is this not a perfect example of a self-contained problem? There are only so many items on the manu. Each can only be prepared in so many different ways, with so many different ingredients. Never mind Go, this application would have been possible in the days of Zork if speech recognition had been up to the task. It is now. Anyone who doesn't understand that has questionable business on a site called "Hacker News," IMO. Frankly this entire subthread is surreal, as if the site had seen a lot of recent signups from people who've never used a smart speaker before.

9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
Menu ordering can be automated. Customers, however, can't be, and they'll ask for and do the wackiest shit: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromretail/top?t=month https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromretail/top?t=month
mattkrause 7y ago
If you can get people to treat it like a voice-activated commandline (“tea, Earl Grey, hot; Big Mac combo, medium, Sprite”), then sure, it’s probably doable. This is how people mostly use Alexa, Siri, etc. It’s not the greatest experience though, especially when there’s “state” to manipulate. On the other hand, humans conversations assume a lot of background knowledge. “I’ll have a coffee if it’s fresh; orange juice otherwise” needs facts the system might not even have access to. You need to know a bit of pragmatics to figure out that “a cheeseburger with nothing on it” should still have cheese and a bun and exactly how many drinks and fries are being ordered when someone says “Two cheeseburger happy meals and one chicken nugget. I’ll have crispy chicken sandwich too. Fries and milk for the kids; just a Diet Coke for me.” It’s obviously not impossible to figure this stuff out, but it might require emulating more of a teenager than you might naively imagine.