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Ok, so we agree that manufacturing is pretty much out. So how about service jobs? How about one of the lowest level service jobs imaginable --- taking orders

Ok, so we agree that manufacturing is pretty much out. So how about service jobs? How about one of the lowest level service jobs imaginable --- taking orders at a fast food drive thru? IBM and McDonalds spent 3 years trying to get AI to take orders at drive-thru windows. Here are the results: https://apnews.com/article/mcdonalds-ai-drive-thru-ibm-bebc898363f2d550e1a0cd3c682fa234 https://apnews.com/article/mcdonalds-ai-drive-thru-ibm-bebc8...

aurareturn 1y ago
It's not clear what the problem is. Is it that the mic quality is not good enough for an AI? Is it that the AI is not smart enough? Is it that people generally don't like AI taking orders? Is the latency not good enough? Or is it that people prefer to preorder on the phone instead and pick up?
- jqpabc123 1y ago
  After years of effort, I'd say that most of the simple non-AI issues were examined. Lots of videos on TikTok illustrate the problem. https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktokers-show-failures-with-mcdonalds-drive-thru-ai-robots-2023-2?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktokers-show-failures-with...
  - aurareturn 1y ago
    How much is it because they were still too early? Would they do significantly better with a model like Claude 4 than I’m guessing something worse than GPT3.5?
- newyankee 1y ago
  Once you incentivise people to use AI by unbundling the costs of using humans vs using AI, you will see a lot of people fall in line. Although legally I do not think it will be an easy implementation. I am sure a lot of people already order via web or app nowadays.
blooalien 1y ago
I can actually see this bein' one task that current levels of language models would excel at, honestly... Given the limited list of items on a typical fast-food menu, and the accuracy of even some of the lowliest modern language models and speech recognition, I see no reason why fast-food order-taking needs to be handled by humans at all anymore, especially if you confirm the final order with the human ordering before proceeding; I could honestly see that bein' much more accurate than a human doing that job. (I can't count how many times over the years I've had a human order-taker completely screw the order up despite them repeating the order back exactly as given. A well-designed LLM-based system likely shouldn't have that problem. What it repeats back should end up bein' exactly the order that the system pushes through to completion.)
- jqpabc123 1y ago
  would excel at, honestly. You would think so --- but well financed tests in the real world suggest otherwise.
- DrillShopper 1y ago
  Typical AI fanatic behavior - presented with the evidence that it doesn't work and goes "hmm, this should work perfectly!" If that doesn't sum up AI hype and apologia then I don't know what does.
  - blooalien 1y ago
    Yeah, no. I'm not an "AI fanatic" by a long-shot, but whatever... I use A.I. sometimes, and other times I don't. When I do use it, I use it for what it's good at. When I don't, it's because it's simply not capable of the task at hand. Simple as that. :shrug:
perching_aix 1y ago
There's no AI needed for that either. Just order on your phone, drive there, scan, machine dispenses your order and goodbye. Much like how when you go to one of these places >>right now<< you just walk up to a kiosk, input your order, pay, then collect your order at the desk. Couple more years and we'll rediscover that vending machines exist.
fzzzy 1y ago
Ok? Taco Bell is taking ai orders at drive throughs right now.
- jqpabc123 1y ago
  Not "full self driving", human supervision is still required. "a Taco Bell employee is still always listening on the other end of the ordering system with the ability to intervene"

aurareturn 1y ago

It's not clear what the problem is. Is it that the mic quality is not good enough for an AI? Is it that the AI is not smart enough? Is it that people generally don't like AI taking orders? Is the latency not good enough? Or is it that people prefer to preorder on the phone instead and pick up?

jqpabc123 1y ago
After years of effort, I'd say that most of the simple non-AI issues were examined. Lots of videos on TikTok illustrate the problem. https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktokers-show-failures-with-mcdonalds-drive-thru-ai-robots-2023-2?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktokers-show-failures-with...
- aurareturn 1y ago
  How much is it because they were still too early? Would they do significantly better with a model like Claude 4 than I’m guessing something worse than GPT3.5?
newyankee 1y ago
Once you incentivise people to use AI by unbundling the costs of using humans vs using AI, you will see a lot of people fall in line. Although legally I do not think it will be an easy implementation. I am sure a lot of people already order via web or app nowadays.

blooalien 1y ago

I can actually see this bein' one task that current levels of language models would excel at, honestly... Given the limited list of items on a typical fast-food menu, and the accuracy of even some of the lowliest modern language models and speech recognition, I see no reason why fast-food order-taking needs to be handled by humans at all anymore, especially if you confirm the final order with the human ordering before proceeding; I could honestly see that bein' much more accurate than a human doing that job. (I can't count how many times over the years I've had a human order-taker completely screw the order up despite them repeating the order back exactly as given. A well-designed LLM-based system likely shouldn't have that problem. What it repeats back should end up bein' exactly the order that the system pushes through to completion.)

jqpabc123 1y ago
would excel at, honestly. You would think so --- but well financed tests in the real world suggest otherwise.
DrillShopper 1y ago
Typical AI fanatic behavior - presented with the evidence that it doesn't work and goes "hmm, this should work perfectly!" If that doesn't sum up AI hype and apologia then I don't know what does.
- blooalien 1y ago
  Yeah, no. I'm not an "AI fanatic" by a long-shot, but whatever... I use A.I. sometimes, and other times I don't. When I do use it, I use it for what it's good at. When I don't, it's because it's simply not capable of the task at hand. Simple as that. :shrug:

perching_aix 1y ago

There's no AI needed for that either. Just order on your phone, drive there, scan, machine dispenses your order and goodbye. Much like how when you go to one of these places >>right now<< you just walk up to a kiosk, input your order, pay, then collect your order at the desk. Couple more years and we'll rediscover that vending machines exist.

fzzzy 1y ago

Ok? Taco Bell is taking ai orders at drive throughs right now.

jqpabc123 1y ago
Not "full self driving", human supervision is still required. "a Taco Bell employee is still always listening on the other end of the ordering system with the ability to intervene"