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If you watch the actual video[0], you'll see that it's not that dramatic. Man says "18 thousand water cups", the AI appears to transfer the customer to an emplo

If you watch the actual video[0], you'll see that it's not that dramatic. Man says "18 thousand water cups", the AI appears to transfer the customer to an employee, who immediately picks up and takes over. There was never an actual order of 18,000 water cups. The AI did exactly what it was supposed to do in order to prevent malicious abuse of the system. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDZj6DCWlfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDZj6DCWlfc

toomuchtodo 1y ago
If users can always fail out the AI, why have the AI? Users will learn and socialize how to obtain a human. The human did exactly what it was supposed to do in order to prevent malicious abuse of their time.
- sib 1y ago
  If you're asking seriously... Because, as the AI continues to improve, more and more users will choose not to fail out intentionally, reducing the required level of human staffing for a certain number of customers / orders. It's just like today - there are some users who will keeping "hitting 0" to get to a human, but many others who won't.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    As a human who always hits 0 or bails out, I think this is yet to be proven. There are even products to help with this. If legislation is required to always provide a human for customer service, that can be done. https://gethuman.com/ https://gethuman.com/ https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/apr/17/the-death-of-customer-service-why-has-it-become-so-so-bad https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/apr/17/the-death-of-c...
    - sib 1y ago
      As a (sometime) economist, if no one ever used the phone tree, companies would stop deploying them.
      - toomuchtodo 1y ago
        People use the phone tree not because they want to, but because they have limited alternatives. Companies deploy them for line goes up ("how can we provide as little value as possible for as much profit as possible without the customer leaving"), not for the benefit of the customer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=enshittification&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
        sib 1y ago
        Yes - and the point is, if everyone availed themselves of the alternative (e.g., escaping the phone tree), as previous post implied, then "line wouldn't go up" and companies would stop.
      - burnte 1y ago
        Actually what happens is companies just make it harder and harder to escape the phone tree.
      - Spivak 1y ago
        You haven't backwards, the user of the phone tree software is the company deploying it. It exists for their benefit, not the customer's.
        sib 1y ago
        That would be the customer of the phone tree software... Of course it exists for their benefit. But, if all customers escaped from it, then it would be pointless and companies would stop - why spend money on something the doesn't reduce costs? So, since companies do, in fact, implement and retain phone trees, they are undoubtedly benefitting from doing so. And, to loop back to the start of this branch, if AI-driven "phone trees" do a better job than traditional ones (and there's no reason to suspect that they won't, over time), then fewer customers would opt out and it would be more beneficial to companies.
- uyzstvqs 1y ago
  The better question is; why deploy AI if you could just use a touch screen kiosk? That would actually be an improvement over having to shout at a box.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    That way you automatically reject orders from people who struggle with reading or managing navigation through interfaces etc.
  - r0me1 1y ago
    Because I don't want to touch the same screen that 1000 other people have touched since it was last cleaned and because I dont want to learn how to navigate a new menu every time I stop at a new fast food place, I just want my chicken chalupa without needing to navigate menus. If you've ever stayed in line at the order kiosk at mcdonalds you'll quickly realize how slow people are to place an order, now imagine that in the drive thru
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      McDonald’s and Taco Bell actually have a great, working solution to this. You order in their app, and they provide a code you give to the drive thru attendant (to pick and place the order into the queue). The customer places their order on their own mobile device at their own pace, but you still have a human for people who don’t use the app or don't have a mobile device. They provide free food and other incentives when placing your order with the app, which I think is fine from a behavioral economics and price discrimination perspective. No AI required.
    - craftkiller 1y ago
      > I don't want to touch the same screen that 1000 other people have touched since it was last cleaned How do you handle doors in public spaces? People have been touching door handles to enter fast food restaurants for decades and we've been fine. > you'll quickly realize how slow people are This, I think, is the real reason we won't see screens at drive-throughs. Screens can work in-store because you can have many screens to compensate for slow people. To apply the same for cars you'd either need the screen move with the car as it moves through the line, which would likely mean placing the order on your phone, or you'd need significant infra to create many stalls where cars can place orders. For the latter, Sonic is well positioned for this with their drive-in stalls but most other fast food restaurants don't have the physical space for that.
- jjk166 1y ago
  Why have an automated phone system if someone can get a human operator by pressing 0? Because the automated system works for typical interactions, and reduces the labor load of the human to only handling edge cases.
- cowthulhu 1y ago
  I think you could say the same about self checkout vs “regular” checkout in a grocery store.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    True, but the self checkout backlash is well documented (including reversals).
somenameforme 1y ago
I don't think that's what happened at all. It sounds like somebody was monitoring the 'AI' and then cut off the software right as it was about to respond. You can hear it start to say something, that sounds a whole lot like 'okay', before the mic swaps over to a person.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

If users can always fail out the AI, why have the AI? Users will learn and socialize how to obtain a human. The human did exactly what it was supposed to do in order to prevent malicious abuse of their time.

sib 1y ago
If you're asking seriously... Because, as the AI continues to improve, more and more users will choose not to fail out intentionally, reducing the required level of human staffing for a certain number of customers / orders. It's just like today - there are some users who will keeping "hitting 0" to get to a human, but many others who won't.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  As a human who always hits 0 or bails out, I think this is yet to be proven. There are even products to help with this. If legislation is required to always provide a human for customer service, that can be done. https://gethuman.com/ https://gethuman.com/ https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/apr/17/the-death-of-customer-service-why-has-it-become-so-so-bad https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/apr/17/the-death-of-c...
  - sib 1y ago
    As a (sometime) economist, if no one ever used the phone tree, companies would stop deploying them.
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      People use the phone tree not because they want to, but because they have limited alternatives. Companies deploy them for line goes up ("how can we provide as little value as possible for as much profit as possible without the customer leaving"), not for the benefit of the customer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=enshittification&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
      - sib 1y ago
        Yes - and the point is, if everyone availed themselves of the alternative (e.g., escaping the phone tree), as previous post implied, then "line wouldn't go up" and companies would stop.
    - burnte 1y ago
      Actually what happens is companies just make it harder and harder to escape the phone tree.
    - Spivak 1y ago
      You haven't backwards, the user of the phone tree software is the company deploying it. It exists for their benefit, not the customer's.
      - sib 1y ago
        That would be the customer of the phone tree software... Of course it exists for their benefit. But, if all customers escaped from it, then it would be pointless and companies would stop - why spend money on something the doesn't reduce costs? So, since companies do, in fact, implement and retain phone trees, they are undoubtedly benefitting from doing so. And, to loop back to the start of this branch, if AI-driven "phone trees" do a better job than traditional ones (and there's no reason to suspect that they won't, over time), then fewer customers would opt out and it would be more beneficial to companies.
uyzstvqs 1y ago
The better question is; why deploy AI if you could just use a touch screen kiosk? That would actually be an improvement over having to shout at a box.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  That way you automatically reject orders from people who struggle with reading or managing navigation through interfaces etc.
- r0me1 1y ago
  Because I don't want to touch the same screen that 1000 other people have touched since it was last cleaned and because I dont want to learn how to navigate a new menu every time I stop at a new fast food place, I just want my chicken chalupa without needing to navigate menus. If you've ever stayed in line at the order kiosk at mcdonalds you'll quickly realize how slow people are to place an order, now imagine that in the drive thru
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    McDonald’s and Taco Bell actually have a great, working solution to this. You order in their app, and they provide a code you give to the drive thru attendant (to pick and place the order into the queue). The customer places their order on their own mobile device at their own pace, but you still have a human for people who don’t use the app or don't have a mobile device. They provide free food and other incentives when placing your order with the app, which I think is fine from a behavioral economics and price discrimination perspective. No AI required.
  - craftkiller 1y ago
    > I don't want to touch the same screen that 1000 other people have touched since it was last cleaned How do you handle doors in public spaces? People have been touching door handles to enter fast food restaurants for decades and we've been fine. > you'll quickly realize how slow people are This, I think, is the real reason we won't see screens at drive-throughs. Screens can work in-store because you can have many screens to compensate for slow people. To apply the same for cars you'd either need the screen move with the car as it moves through the line, which would likely mean placing the order on your phone, or you'd need significant infra to create many stalls where cars can place orders. For the latter, Sonic is well positioned for this with their drive-in stalls but most other fast food restaurants don't have the physical space for that.
jjk166 1y ago
Why have an automated phone system if someone can get a human operator by pressing 0? Because the automated system works for typical interactions, and reduces the labor load of the human to only handling edge cases.
cowthulhu 1y ago
I think you could say the same about self checkout vs “regular” checkout in a grocery store.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  True, but the self checkout backlash is well documented (including reversals).

somenameforme 1y ago

I don't think that's what happened at all. It sounds like somebody was monitoring the 'AI' and then cut off the software right as it was about to respond. You can hear it start to say something, that sounds a whole lot like 'okay', before the mic swaps over to a person.