7 ms·

Many fast food places now have tablet based ordering, so turns out AI wasn’t needed for software to take away jobs. That said, AI could do that job perfectly w

by aabhay 1y ago

Many fast food places now have tablet based ordering, so turns out AI wasn’t needed for software to take away jobs. That said, AI could do that job perfectly well. The reason we still have human to human interaction when you order is that it creates a more interesting environment for employees, who crave at least some kind of human contact. And customers will pay marginally more for the food if they get some human contact as well.

SoftTalker 1y ago
> Many fast food places now have tablet based ordering As an experience though, they could hardly have implemented it in a worse way. A big part of the reason I don't go to McDonald's any more is that the experience of using the ordering kiosks is so awful compared to just telling a human what I want.
- diggan 1y ago
  > A big part of the reason I don't go to McDonald's any more is that the experience of using the ordering kiosks is so awful compared to just telling a human what I want. Huh, for me is the polar opposite. Maybe it's because I mumble, is unclear or don't speak the native language as well as the natives where I live, but I always preferred the kiosks. I seem to always get what I order then, and it's a lot easier to customize things. Generally just feels faster, which I guess is the most important thing about fast-food, I want to be in-and-out of there as quick as possible, the less humans I have to deal with, the better.
  - codazoda 1y ago
    I doubt it. I’m a perfectly capable communicator and I also prefer them.
  - ecshafer 1y ago
    When I worked at McDonalds, a major thing I learned is that when 95% of people say they got an order wrong, the customer ordered it wrong without realizing it. Customer says "I want a cheeseburger, plain", Mcdonalds puts that in as "Cheesebuger, no ketchup, mustard, onion or pickle". Customers will take plain to mean a dozen different things.
    - diggan 1y ago
      > Customer says "I want a cheeseburger, plain", Mcdonalds puts that in as "Cheesebuger, no ketchup, mustard, onion or pickle". Customers will take plain to mean a dozen different things. Isn't it up to the person who is receiving the order to ask clarifying questions then? Since they know it's potentially unclear/ambiguous, why not try to resolve the ambiguity before making the order?
      - bryanlarsen 1y ago
        That'd just annoy the 99% of people that agree with McDonald's on what plain means. People at McDonald's are often in a hurry, and some would get really annoyed at stupid questions. Better to piss off the 1% than the 99%. If you're clarifying at this level, there are likely many other questions that you'd ask.
      - ecshafer 1y ago
        99% of orders are not made incorrectly, and you're being told to go faster and keep times low. Is this the 1 order of the hour that the person will come back and complain that its wrong? Is this person going to come back regardless and say it was wrong to get free food? Its unambiguous enough to not be worth the time.
        diggan 1y ago
        Be a bit smooth about it: as you type in the order, verbally say out loud what you're entering with other words, then ask them to confirm. No lost time, potentially less people to deal with in the future, win-win.
        JohnFen 1y ago
        It's been several lifetimes since I worked in a fast food place (not McDonald's), but at least then, this was how we were trained to do it. Reading the order back like that was required.
    - SoftTalker 1y ago
  - xenonite 1y ago
    Removing the seasoning from a McDonald’s burger is only possible with human contact afaik. So no, not any customization is possible.
    - mh- 1y ago
      You can order a hamburger with "no salt" now via the app (and probably the kiosk?). But I'm not sure if there are other seasonings you're referring to, though.
- Ifkaluva 1y ago
  Also the kiosks are frequently broken.
- quotemstr 1y ago
  I actually prefer the kiosk. No ambiguity.
- blibble 1y ago
  they are quite impressively bad in 2025 how is it so hard to make a user interface that doesn't lag like a bastard on every scroll/click/... it's almost as bad as their terrible, terrible, terrible app
  - franktankbank 1y ago
    They have to upload video of your face to use for sentiment analysis at every click. /s ?
  - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
    > in 2025 how is it so hard to make a user interface that doesn't lag like a bastard on every scroll/click/... Because everything is done in fucking React or Node or Blazor or whatever the newest flavor of this wRiTe oNcE rUn aNyWheRe bollocks is, because it always, always, always the exact same fucking thing: abstracting UI elements to fucking goddamn JavaScript and running it in a browser. And heaven knows McDonald's can't possibly pay for proper software development, they only made like 14 billion last year. They're barely scraping by.
    - sfn42 1y ago
      That's not the issue. All these technologies can be nice and snappy. The problem is that developers suck at making software nice and snappy. I've taken over several react apps over the years and one thing I always end up doing is remove a bunch of spinners because you don't need a spinner when the page loads instantly - as it should. Its very common for pages to take 10-60+ seconds to load, and when I look into it it's always obvious why they're so slow and easy to fix. The devs who made it just sucked.
      - joshstrange 1y ago
        > I always end up doing is remove a bunch of spinners because you don't need a spinner when the page loads instantly I always have to remind people to add spinners, just because it loads instantly on your developer machine with a fiber connection (if not talking to a local container even) doesn't mean it will in the real world. But spinners only show when actively fetching so if it's fast they only show for a split-second. It's the best of both worlds.
- worldsayshi 1y ago
  It started out pretty okay but every time I order on one of those tablets they seem to have added an extra step of trying to sell me something more.
  - baggachipz 1y ago
    That's really the worst part. The upsells are insulting and get in the way of ordering what I want. Classic enshittification, starting with something which people like and slowly deteriorating it in order to make an extra buck. I'm sure the MBAs love it though.
    - bathtub365 1y ago
      “Do you want fries with that?” predates the MBA craze
      - baggachipz 1y ago
        True, but it's so much worse now. Several "special offers" you have to go through, with dark patterns to prevent skipping it.
- JohnFen 1y ago
  > the experience of using the ordering kiosks is so awful compared to just telling a human what I want. Those kiosks are horrific and greatly reduced the number of visits I made to McDonald's. The insane pricing since then further reduced those visits to zero.
- scotty79 1y ago
  I have exactly opposite experience. If tablets are out of order for some reason, I just go somewhere else rather than attempting to talk to a human. And the best way is just sit at the table, order with your phone and somebody brings the tray to you.
metalliqaz 1y ago
In my humble opinion, this kind of thing is the largest blind spot in the current tech economy. Massive LLMs had a breakout moment with chat, and now everyone has invested HARD into that technology while in fact there is really no good reason to think that massive models (billions of parameters, requiring billions of dollars to train, and requiring power-gulping servers to run) are needed or even preferred for most AI tasks. We had algorithmic automation for all kinds of things in the 80s, and that has been steadily improving for everything from chess engines to computer vision to content suggestion ever since. Photo touch-up runs on handheld devices and is nearly instantaneous. Self-checkout is ubiquitous. Digital CNC and 3D printing is no longer to relegated to professionals, the point that amateurs can buy off-the-shelf solutions and start creating products with a few mouse clicks. Billions is being spent on shovels in the current gold rush but are they really needed?
hackable_sand 1y ago
I would love to meet the idiot that believes this. I have some money to make $$$

by aabhay 1y ago

SoftTalker 1y ago

> Many fast food places now have tablet based ordering As an experience though, they could hardly have implemented it in a worse way. A big part of the reason I don't go to McDonald's any more is that the experience of using the ordering kiosks is so awful compared to just telling a human what I want.

diggan 1y ago
> A big part of the reason I don't go to McDonald's any more is that the experience of using the ordering kiosks is so awful compared to just telling a human what I want. Huh, for me is the polar opposite. Maybe it's because I mumble, is unclear or don't speak the native language as well as the natives where I live, but I always preferred the kiosks. I seem to always get what I order then, and it's a lot easier to customize things. Generally just feels faster, which I guess is the most important thing about fast-food, I want to be in-and-out of there as quick as possible, the less humans I have to deal with, the better.
- codazoda 1y ago
  I doubt it. I’m a perfectly capable communicator and I also prefer them.
- ecshafer 1y ago
  When I worked at McDonalds, a major thing I learned is that when 95% of people say they got an order wrong, the customer ordered it wrong without realizing it. Customer says "I want a cheeseburger, plain", Mcdonalds puts that in as "Cheesebuger, no ketchup, mustard, onion or pickle". Customers will take plain to mean a dozen different things.
  - diggan 1y ago
    > Customer says "I want a cheeseburger, plain", Mcdonalds puts that in as "Cheesebuger, no ketchup, mustard, onion or pickle". Customers will take plain to mean a dozen different things. Isn't it up to the person who is receiving the order to ask clarifying questions then? Since they know it's potentially unclear/ambiguous, why not try to resolve the ambiguity before making the order?
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      That'd just annoy the 99% of people that agree with McDonald's on what plain means. People at McDonald's are often in a hurry, and some would get really annoyed at stupid questions. Better to piss off the 1% than the 99%. If you're clarifying at this level, there are likely many other questions that you'd ask.
    - ecshafer 1y ago
      99% of orders are not made incorrectly, and you're being told to go faster and keep times low. Is this the 1 order of the hour that the person will come back and complain that its wrong? Is this person going to come back regardless and say it was wrong to get free food? Its unambiguous enough to not be worth the time.
      - diggan 1y ago
        Be a bit smooth about it: as you type in the order, verbally say out loud what you're entering with other words, then ask them to confirm. No lost time, potentially less people to deal with in the future, win-win.
        JohnFen 1y ago
        It's been several lifetimes since I worked in a fast food place (not McDonald's), but at least then, this was how we were trained to do it. Reading the order back like that was required.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
- xenonite 1y ago
  Removing the seasoning from a McDonald’s burger is only possible with human contact afaik. So no, not any customization is possible.
  - mh- 1y ago
    You can order a hamburger with "no salt" now via the app (and probably the kiosk?). But I'm not sure if there are other seasonings you're referring to, though.
Ifkaluva 1y ago
Also the kiosks are frequently broken.
quotemstr 1y ago
I actually prefer the kiosk. No ambiguity.
blibble 1y ago
they are quite impressively bad in 2025 how is it so hard to make a user interface that doesn't lag like a bastard on every scroll/click/... it's almost as bad as their terrible, terrible, terrible app
- franktankbank 1y ago
  They have to upload video of your face to use for sentiment analysis at every click. /s ?
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  > in 2025 how is it so hard to make a user interface that doesn't lag like a bastard on every scroll/click/... Because everything is done in fucking React or Node or Blazor or whatever the newest flavor of this wRiTe oNcE rUn aNyWheRe bollocks is, because it always, always, always the exact same fucking thing: abstracting UI elements to fucking goddamn JavaScript and running it in a browser. And heaven knows McDonald's can't possibly pay for proper software development, they only made like 14 billion last year. They're barely scraping by.
  - sfn42 1y ago
    That's not the issue. All these technologies can be nice and snappy. The problem is that developers suck at making software nice and snappy. I've taken over several react apps over the years and one thing I always end up doing is remove a bunch of spinners because you don't need a spinner when the page loads instantly - as it should. Its very common for pages to take 10-60+ seconds to load, and when I look into it it's always obvious why they're so slow and easy to fix. The devs who made it just sucked.
    - joshstrange 1y ago
      > I always end up doing is remove a bunch of spinners because you don't need a spinner when the page loads instantly I always have to remind people to add spinners, just because it loads instantly on your developer machine with a fiber connection (if not talking to a local container even) doesn't mean it will in the real world. But spinners only show when actively fetching so if it's fast they only show for a split-second. It's the best of both worlds.
worldsayshi 1y ago
It started out pretty okay but every time I order on one of those tablets they seem to have added an extra step of trying to sell me something more.
- baggachipz 1y ago
  That's really the worst part. The upsells are insulting and get in the way of ordering what I want. Classic enshittification, starting with something which people like and slowly deteriorating it in order to make an extra buck. I'm sure the MBAs love it though.
  - bathtub365 1y ago
    “Do you want fries with that?” predates the MBA craze
    - baggachipz 1y ago
      True, but it's so much worse now. Several "special offers" you have to go through, with dark patterns to prevent skipping it.
JohnFen 1y ago
> the experience of using the ordering kiosks is so awful compared to just telling a human what I want. Those kiosks are horrific and greatly reduced the number of visits I made to McDonald's. The insane pricing since then further reduced those visits to zero.
scotty79 1y ago
I have exactly opposite experience. If tablets are out of order for some reason, I just go somewhere else rather than attempting to talk to a human. And the best way is just sit at the table, order with your phone and somebody brings the tray to you.

metalliqaz 1y ago

In my humble opinion, this kind of thing is the largest blind spot in the current tech economy. Massive LLMs had a breakout moment with chat, and now everyone has invested HARD into that technology while in fact there is really no good reason to think that massive models (billions of parameters, requiring billions of dollars to train, and requiring power-gulping servers to run) are needed or even preferred for most AI tasks. We had algorithmic automation for all kinds of things in the 80s, and that has been steadily improving for everything from chess engines to computer vision to content suggestion ever since. Photo touch-up runs on handheld devices and is nearly instantaneous. Self-checkout is ubiquitous. Digital CNC and 3D printing is no longer to relegated to professionals, the point that amateurs can buy off-the-shelf solutions and start creating products with a few mouse clicks. Billions is being spent on shovels in the current gold rush but are they really needed?

hackable_sand 1y ago

I would love to meet the idiot that believes this. I have some money to make $$$