5 ms·

Wendy’s debuts an A.I. chatbot for drive-thru orders

23 points by DocFeind 3y ago

nullc 3y ago
So its a standard voice recognizing IVR but on a sign instead of on a phone?
- brian_herman 3y ago
  I think it is through the app. Google IO had a picture of it.
666satanhimself 3y ago
[dead]
danjoredd 3y ago
"hello, can I get some cheesy bacon fries" >baconator added "no, remove that" >baconator removed "Add cheesy bacon fries" >frosty added
fatnoah 3y ago
Having been in a position to take fast food orders from people, there are a whole lot of interactions beyond just ordering food. People ask a surprising number of questions about the menu, food content, and other things.
- NumberWangMan 3y ago
  That's all stuff that LLMs are really, really good at handling though. All you need is prompts that explain what's on the menu, all the ingredients, allergy info, calorie counts, etc. and it will be able to handle it. And I'm sure they'll be recording questions for which the LLM has no good answer, to improve it. Note that people adjust their behavior as well. As people interact with these more, they'll sometimes be frustrated but they'll adjust. Now, after all that, please don't paint me as a techno-optimist. I think that it's very likely that we're about to cause some massive social problems by making it so that the average human doesn't have many options where they can provide more economic value than a machine, and meanwhile, are there really that many problems today that tech can solve, as opposed to problems of simply coordinating people? And that's not getting into the whole "are AGIs going to make humanity extinct" question, which, after getting into it, I think is pretty darned likely at the rate we're going.
  - sieabahlpark 3y ago
    [dead]
  - BenjiWiebe 3y ago
    I just encountered a case of a hardware OEM adding a LLM chatbot to their parts lookup page. I asked it for the part number of a common failing part for a given model, and it confidently replied - with a part number that does not and never has existed... It was formatted right, and the correct number of digits. It was just that it was wrong.
    - derwiki 3y ago
      Not all chatbots are the same though. This sounds easily explainable by a bug in their implementation, possibly indexing.
joezydeco 3y ago
McDonald's has been testing this one for a while, I encountered a siri-like voice at the drive-thru a year or two ago. Long before that they tried outsourcing the order taking to a central facility somewhere in Minnesota. That was a fun experience. In both cases it looks like they went back to human order takers.
lockhouse 3y ago
I'm just sad that these pushes for over the top minimum wage for low skill jobs has really limited the options of my children for summer jobs. Growing up it was practically a right of passage to get a "McJob" for the summer to pay for movie tickets, keeping gas in your car, and just having fun with your friends in general without having to ask your parents for cash. That little bit of independence and learning the value of working hard for the things you want was so important as teenager, and now I fear it will be gone soon. It was also such a humbling experience that has shaped how I interact with the people I encounter that work customer facing jobs.
- angmarsbane 3y ago
  Lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons still make for a good teenage job, anything that requires physical presence.
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    Yes, but there's not nearly as many of those jobs and they require advanced training. The beauty of the classic fast food "McJob" was that you could learn it in a couple days with no prior experience and make just enough money to be worthwhile as a teenager's summer job.
- deprecative 3y ago
  I honestly have no idea where folks are seeing kids in fast food. I haven't seen anyone less than 40 working in one of these places in years. Yay capitalism.
petee 3y ago
Dunkin Donuts is trying this too; It was a very awkward conversation. They still don't have the tone, cadence, or response time of a human.l At the window they confirmed most people were complaining about it
- DANmode 3y ago
  Which regions are these things cropping up in?
  - petee 3y ago
    Ive seen it once in Rhode Island
LeroyRaz 3y ago
I'd worry about customers asking allergy questions, and getting incorrect answers
- nicenewtemp84 3y ago
  Do you really think you'll get accurate allergy info from the current crop of Wendys employees? Even IF they knew what to recite from the handbook, the odds of surfaces being kept clean enough or incorrect items not making it into a meal are low.

23 points by DocFeind 3y ago

nullc 3y ago

So its a standard voice recognizing IVR but on a sign instead of on a phone?

brian_herman 3y ago
I think it is through the app. Google IO had a picture of it.

666satanhimself 3y ago

[dead]

danjoredd 3y ago

"hello, can I get some cheesy bacon fries" >baconator added "no, remove that" >baconator removed "Add cheesy bacon fries" >frosty added

fatnoah 3y ago

Having been in a position to take fast food orders from people, there are a whole lot of interactions beyond just ordering food. People ask a surprising number of questions about the menu, food content, and other things.

NumberWangMan 3y ago
That's all stuff that LLMs are really, really good at handling though. All you need is prompts that explain what's on the menu, all the ingredients, allergy info, calorie counts, etc. and it will be able to handle it. And I'm sure they'll be recording questions for which the LLM has no good answer, to improve it. Note that people adjust their behavior as well. As people interact with these more, they'll sometimes be frustrated but they'll adjust. Now, after all that, please don't paint me as a techno-optimist. I think that it's very likely that we're about to cause some massive social problems by making it so that the average human doesn't have many options where they can provide more economic value than a machine, and meanwhile, are there really that many problems today that tech can solve, as opposed to problems of simply coordinating people? And that's not getting into the whole "are AGIs going to make humanity extinct" question, which, after getting into it, I think is pretty darned likely at the rate we're going.
- sieabahlpark 3y ago
  [dead]
- BenjiWiebe 3y ago
  I just encountered a case of a hardware OEM adding a LLM chatbot to their parts lookup page. I asked it for the part number of a common failing part for a given model, and it confidently replied - with a part number that does not and never has existed... It was formatted right, and the correct number of digits. It was just that it was wrong.
  - derwiki 3y ago
    Not all chatbots are the same though. This sounds easily explainable by a bug in their implementation, possibly indexing.

joezydeco 3y ago

McDonald's has been testing this one for a while, I encountered a siri-like voice at the drive-thru a year or two ago. Long before that they tried outsourcing the order taking to a central facility somewhere in Minnesota. That was a fun experience. In both cases it looks like they went back to human order takers.

lockhouse 3y ago

I'm just sad that these pushes for over the top minimum wage for low skill jobs has really limited the options of my children for summer jobs. Growing up it was practically a right of passage to get a "McJob" for the summer to pay for movie tickets, keeping gas in your car, and just having fun with your friends in general without having to ask your parents for cash. That little bit of independence and learning the value of working hard for the things you want was so important as teenager, and now I fear it will be gone soon. It was also such a humbling experience that has shaped how I interact with the people I encounter that work customer facing jobs.

angmarsbane 3y ago
Lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons still make for a good teenage job, anything that requires physical presence.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  Yes, but there's not nearly as many of those jobs and they require advanced training. The beauty of the classic fast food "McJob" was that you could learn it in a couple days with no prior experience and make just enough money to be worthwhile as a teenager's summer job.
deprecative 3y ago
I honestly have no idea where folks are seeing kids in fast food. I haven't seen anyone less than 40 working in one of these places in years. Yay capitalism.

petee 3y ago

Dunkin Donuts is trying this too; It was a very awkward conversation. They still don't have the tone, cadence, or response time of a human.l At the window they confirmed most people were complaining about it

DANmode 3y ago
Which regions are these things cropping up in?
- petee 3y ago
  Ive seen it once in Rhode Island

LeroyRaz 3y ago

I'd worry about customers asking allergy questions, and getting incorrect answers

nicenewtemp84 3y ago
Do you really think you'll get accurate allergy info from the current crop of Wendys employees? Even IF they knew what to recite from the handbook, the odds of surfaces being kept clean enough or incorrect items not making it into a meal are low.