6 ms·

The videos where people try to do the 10,000+ drinks are pretty funny but the ones where people are just straight up frustrated their order isn't getting interp

The videos where people try to do the 10,000+ drinks are pretty funny but the ones where people are just straight up frustrated their order isn't getting interpreted correctly are also telling [1]. I've also heard of employees intentionally breaking these kiosks or AI things in this way just to make their own job easier because these things messing up all the time are just getting in the way of their burger flipping and making things complicated. I thought they kept beta testing of new flavours to a few locations in Orange County, you think they'd do the same for large software rollouts [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bsTFEgFAAjY https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bsTFEgFAAjY

3eb7988a1663 1y ago
That man's rage and his buddy's laughter made my morning.
- floatrock 1y ago
  It is funny. But the not funny part is the (shitty) use of dark-patterns. Note the prompt-on-repeat is "and your drink?" instead of "would you like a drink with that?" Someone here clearly wrote the prompt as "Be sure to end each order with an assume-yes drink upsell", not considering that some orders may already include a drink. They're so hyper-focused on institutionalizing all the upsells that they don't consider the experience. I mean, I guess institutionalizing the upsells is the only way a system like this can pay for itself (easier to work out the kinks in a single AI system instead of training a million minimum-wage minimally-engaged humans), but these growing pains show how shitty it's all going to become.
  - mrandish 1y ago
    > institutionalizing the upsells is the only way a system like this can pay for itself The vendor that sold the system to Taco Bell probably has "increases average order amount by XX% through upsells" as a main marketing bullet point.
    - r_lee 1y ago
      That's a bit too transparent. More like "increases ROI by 9999% with the power of AI"
  - add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
    I hate the dark patterns. Wendys pissed me off and I stopped going for years after a cashier asked me, "medium or large?" making it sound like a choice you had to make instead of an upsell from small. At some point later they (silently) made medium the default instead of small.
  - tracker1 1y ago
    I kind of like the approach that, I think it was Wendy's tried... which was having better trained, centralized order takers at computers to handle multiple drive-throughs at once. A well-versed, clear spoken, native language speaker with good menu/product knowledge taking orders for 3-4 locations as a sole task is imo a much better option. Of course, the Wendy's nearest me seems to get something wrong with my order every single time. It's not the order taker either, the receipt is always what I ordered, just the person making it or otherwise getting it together just fails in one way or another. On the plus side, between the disappointment and increased pricing, I now get fast food maybe once a month. The cost used to be roughly a wash between buying something at the store and making it myself... that's not nearly the case anymore. And while store pricing has gone up a lot, most of the most massive spikes in prices are junk foods I'm less inclined to keep in the house. win-win.
    - axiolite 1y ago
      Is that even necessary? Is their menu so large that you can't just have a menu with a push-button next to each item? Are fast food companies so mentally locked-in to replicating the old model of verbal order-taking that they can't see how cheap, fast, easy and accurate it would be to switch to photos and buttons? We all manage to use a soda fountain, without needing a person (or AI) to take our drink order... and use vending machines.
      - tracker1 1y ago
        Have you ever used a drive through? Yes, most fast food menus are too large for that to be a practical experience from inside a vehicle.
      - mcphage 1y ago
        > Is their menu so large that you can't just have a menu with a push-button next to each item? Items can be modified, and there's not enough buttons for every combination.
      - const_cast 1y ago
        Orders are very complicated, far too complicated for buttons. Remember everything is customizable down to individual pieces or ingredients. The reality is human are just very fast. A good fast food order taker can processes complex orders almost instantly. The muscle memory developed on the POS is very real.
  - dmonitor 1y ago
    Are you sure he didn't just order a meal that came with a drink? If it's the same kind of point of sale system I used at my fast food job, a meal requires something to fill the "drink" slot (even if it's "exclude item")
  - godelski 1y ago
    And how much of a tip would you like to leave? And would you like to round up your purchase to donate to charity? (A charity we own and less than 10% of the donation goes to the actual charitable thing)
  - const_cast 1y ago
    To be fair, in my experience working food service: the humans have to do that too. The up selling isn't optional. Although we don't ask on repeat...
delfinom 1y ago
I went through phone support hell yesterday with T-Mobile who is also using a bot now rather than a normal phone tree. It even dynamically generated "phone-tree-like" options later on in different orders and depth later on, all incorrect. It was pure wtf. me: "I need to swap sims" bot: "Ok, how do you want to apply your bill payment"? me: "No, sims" bot: "Ok your payment options on file are XXXXX" me: "Are you fucking retarded" bot: "I see you have a trade-in, do you want to help with your trade in?" me: "......" Yea, had to go to a store. I am porting out of shiT-Mobile to Google Fi in a few weeks.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  I never try to deal with phone or internet providers by phone or internet. Always go to the store.
  - delfinom 1y ago
    Went to shiT-Mobile in store. Only two employees working, one preoccupied with a customer that apparently is months late on their bill and demanding to be let back in, and was presenting a expired ID. The second one was a couple which based on their conversations and look, were replacing the phone lines for their mafia crime family. Had a 1 hour wait to basically do a 2 minute fucking ESIM swap. No, fuck that.
    - r_lee 1y ago
      Welcome to the Age of AI
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      From your judgements against the other clients as well as the staff, might this be a case of "if you meet a bastard in the morning, you met a bastard. If you met nothing but bastards all day...?"
      - whatevaa 1y ago
        They are still bastards.

3eb7988a1663 1y ago

That man's rage and his buddy's laughter made my morning.

floatrock 1y ago
It is funny. But the not funny part is the (shitty) use of dark-patterns. Note the prompt-on-repeat is "and your drink?" instead of "would you like a drink with that?" Someone here clearly wrote the prompt as "Be sure to end each order with an assume-yes drink upsell", not considering that some orders may already include a drink. They're so hyper-focused on institutionalizing all the upsells that they don't consider the experience. I mean, I guess institutionalizing the upsells is the only way a system like this can pay for itself (easier to work out the kinks in a single AI system instead of training a million minimum-wage minimally-engaged humans), but these growing pains show how shitty it's all going to become.
- mrandish 1y ago
  > institutionalizing the upsells is the only way a system like this can pay for itself The vendor that sold the system to Taco Bell probably has "increases average order amount by XX% through upsells" as a main marketing bullet point.
  - r_lee 1y ago
    That's a bit too transparent. More like "increases ROI by 9999% with the power of AI"
- add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
  I hate the dark patterns. Wendys pissed me off and I stopped going for years after a cashier asked me, "medium or large?" making it sound like a choice you had to make instead of an upsell from small. At some point later they (silently) made medium the default instead of small.
- tracker1 1y ago
  I kind of like the approach that, I think it was Wendy's tried... which was having better trained, centralized order takers at computers to handle multiple drive-throughs at once. A well-versed, clear spoken, native language speaker with good menu/product knowledge taking orders for 3-4 locations as a sole task is imo a much better option. Of course, the Wendy's nearest me seems to get something wrong with my order every single time. It's not the order taker either, the receipt is always what I ordered, just the person making it or otherwise getting it together just fails in one way or another. On the plus side, between the disappointment and increased pricing, I now get fast food maybe once a month. The cost used to be roughly a wash between buying something at the store and making it myself... that's not nearly the case anymore. And while store pricing has gone up a lot, most of the most massive spikes in prices are junk foods I'm less inclined to keep in the house. win-win.
  - axiolite 1y ago
    Is that even necessary? Is their menu so large that you can't just have a menu with a push-button next to each item? Are fast food companies so mentally locked-in to replicating the old model of verbal order-taking that they can't see how cheap, fast, easy and accurate it would be to switch to photos and buttons? We all manage to use a soda fountain, without needing a person (or AI) to take our drink order... and use vending machines.
    - tracker1 1y ago
      Have you ever used a drive through? Yes, most fast food menus are too large for that to be a practical experience from inside a vehicle.
    - mcphage 1y ago
      > Is their menu so large that you can't just have a menu with a push-button next to each item? Items can be modified, and there's not enough buttons for every combination.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      Orders are very complicated, far too complicated for buttons. Remember everything is customizable down to individual pieces or ingredients. The reality is human are just very fast. A good fast food order taker can processes complex orders almost instantly. The muscle memory developed on the POS is very real.
- dmonitor 1y ago
  Are you sure he didn't just order a meal that came with a drink? If it's the same kind of point of sale system I used at my fast food job, a meal requires something to fill the "drink" slot (even if it's "exclude item")
- godelski 1y ago
  And how much of a tip would you like to leave? And would you like to round up your purchase to donate to charity? (A charity we own and less than 10% of the donation goes to the actual charitable thing)
- const_cast 1y ago
  To be fair, in my experience working food service: the humans have to do that too. The up selling isn't optional. Although we don't ask on repeat...

delfinom 1y ago

I went through phone support hell yesterday with T-Mobile who is also using a bot now rather than a normal phone tree. It even dynamically generated "phone-tree-like" options later on in different orders and depth later on, all incorrect. It was pure wtf. me: "I need to swap sims" bot: "Ok, how do you want to apply your bill payment"? me: "No, sims" bot: "Ok your payment options on file are XXXXX" me: "Are you fucking retarded" bot: "I see you have a trade-in, do you want to help with your trade in?" me: "......" Yea, had to go to a store. I am porting out of shiT-Mobile to Google Fi in a few weeks.

SoftTalker 1y ago
I never try to deal with phone or internet providers by phone or internet. Always go to the store.
- delfinom 1y ago
  Went to shiT-Mobile in store. Only two employees working, one preoccupied with a customer that apparently is months late on their bill and demanding to be let back in, and was presenting a expired ID. The second one was a couple which based on their conversations and look, were replacing the phone lines for their mafia crime family. Had a 1 hour wait to basically do a 2 minute fucking ESIM swap. No, fuck that.
  - r_lee 1y ago
    Welcome to the Age of AI
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    From your judgements against the other clients as well as the staff, might this be a case of "if you meet a bastard in the morning, you met a bastard. If you met nothing but bastards all day...?"
    - whatevaa 1y ago
      They are still bastards.