McDonald’s will stop testing AI to take drive-thru orders, for now

I think those kiosks with the big touch screen and the mobile apps work pretty well already, I always rather use them and see a picture what I can order instead of talking to the person.
- tbh I'd rather not see the picture when it comes to mcdonald's, as it can only lead to a disappointment
  
  To be fair, you'll be disappointed either way. At least with the menu, they can feel like they're selling decent food (their pictures do look decent) and you can make sure your order is correct.
- I've stopped waiting in drive thrus because it's faster and more convenient to order it ahead of time and pick it up inside.
  
  I used the Mcdonalds app a few times and the drivethru was always faster, lmao.
  They require location services and don't start cooking until you're inside their geofence, but IME they seem to still prioritize drivethru customers.
- I fucking hate them.
  They're designed for people who are about 5'0". They take so much longer than speaking the order to a person, especially if you have any customizations to add/remove.
  0/10, avoid at all costs.
  
  For me it's the exact opposite, most of them have the possibility to change the language to English, even though it's only partially translated I still can see the pictures of what I'm trying to order. If I need to look at the Korean menu and then speak Korean to the person to order, then I would just go away, especially if they don't have pictures on the menu.
  For me it's use 10/10 (even the crappy ones)
  
  I like customizations on the touchscreen. I've had several experiences where I tell the cashier what I want including customizations only to get my order and realize that the order wasn't entered in properly. The touchscreen ensures that the order is at least entered properly.
  
  Can I get a McCrapwich? That's it, no drink.
  <tap>
  . It's like 10 seconds.
  
  They're designed for people of average (male) height, like everything else from default seatbelt position to doorways. Sounds like yet another tall person complaint to add to the pile.
  In any case, I find them comfortable (probably because I'm average height lmao) and I like to take my time ordering to combine the best deals possible without having a cashier staring waiting on me so they can go take care of all the other things that McDs overworks their employees with.
  IME (I've worked FF before) you "Fuck these machines" people generally trend towards annoying karen-type and take FOREVER ordering.
- I use them but they are definitely made to be annoying.
  Start
  No I don't use a mobile app
  Takeaway
  Burgers
  Big Mac menu
  Fries
  Cola
  Add to basket
  No I don't want extra
  Pay
  No I don't want extra
  Pay here
  Pay with credit card
  Finally pay
  Printer is not working
  Oh what was my number?
  
  I prefer just saying “can I get a medium #2 combo, please.” And being done with it.
- Fuck all, I hate those things. Just pay a teenager to take my order with a judgemental expression. I hate self checkouts, I hate self order kiosks, no I do not want to use a phone app to place my order, I just want a double cheeseburger with no pickles GODAMMIT
- I can't use the mobile app because my kid wants a cheeseburger happy meal and it's impossible to order on the app. Try it! It won't let you at all.
  Technically, cheeseburger happy meals are no longer on the menu because they've decided it has too many calories. If you go there and ask for one, of course, they will add a slice of cheese to a hamburger happy meal. But using the app to order one is a bridge too far, I guess.
  When it comes down to it, though, we shouldn't eat that crap anyway.
  
  I checked, just for you. You can pick the hamburger happy meal and add cheese.
- Those kiosks aren't in the drive-throughs.

AI so bad it can’t get your burger order right.
No wonder people are sinking hundreds of billions into it. As opposed to, say, education.
- Why would we need education if there aren't going to be any jobs to do?
  
  It’s one of those mysteries. Maybe we should ask an educated person.
- It's McDonald's, no amount of humans or technology will get your order right.
- I stopped going to BK because they ALWAYS messed up my order. I finally had it and never went back. I bet the ai is more competent than my local BK. What makes this story more sad is I rarely get fast food, mainly as a treat, and fucking BK always messed it up.
  
  For similar reasons, I stopped ordering with any alterations at all. I used to customize order a little and they always messed it up. It's pretty rare that I go at all, but I figure that way it's the standard meal and they can just go in autopilot making it. Less disappointment when things go wrong
- Eh......AI messes my order. Some dumbass teenager messes up my order. Whats the difference?
  I wouldn't call it the MAIN reason I no longer go get fast food......but maybe like the lower end of the top 10 reasons I gave up fast food years ago.
  At least the dumbass teenager isn't putting glue on a pizza. Although in my area they will use the pepperoni placement to make a swastica on your pizza........or put their bare feet into the lettice of the burger king lettice bins. I mean sure, THOSE guys got fired, but how many other stories DON'T make the news???
  
  Eh......AI messes my order. Some dumbass teenager messes up my order. Whats the difference?
  I mean, I can think of a couple.

Still order like grandpa. I go in and want to talk to a human and order. I hate those gross ass touchscreens. I am probably a minority especially in my age group and working in tech
- I am a touch screen enjoyer. At least in theory. I like having time to browse, look at pictures, easy access to customization options and most importantly no feeling of pressure. I am not spending a cashier's time and potentially blocking someone behind me (at least there is usually less of a line for the self-ordering).
  However there are negatives for sure. My biggest annoyance is that these devices are often annoyingly slow and unresponsive. They just display a tiny bit of text and images, they should switch between screens at 60fps, not 2s per click. Also if I know what I want it is often faster to tell the cashier and let them enter the order (on their more expert-optimized and less laggy keypad).
  
  Also, explicit confirmation of your customizations and of your order. You can double check yourself to make sure it's all correct before submitting the order while the distracted and overworked employee at the counter could hit the wrong button or skip a customization and you often wouldn't know until you receive the wrong item. Then you have to create more work for the workers to get your order remade.
  
  This is why I tend to just use the mobile apps for places to order. Not laggy and gives the benefits you mentioned of using a touch screen kiosk. A lot of them you don't even need an account to use the app which is nice if that's something that bothers you.
  
  They just display a tiny bit of text and images, they should switch between screens at 60fps, not 2s per click.
  I think this is intentional. They want you to take time looking at the pictures so you might think "you know what, actually I'd like some of those fries as well" by making it hard to just quickly select what you want and leave.
  I wouldn't even be surprised if there's a psychological effect where you feel like ordering more makes this tedious ordering process more worthy. I mean why go through 2 minutes of clicking and waiting just for one stupid cheeseburger.
  
  I find this a bit odd as you make it seem as if ordering is a complicated process that takes some thought and planning. The whole draw of McDonalds is that you get the exact same food wherever you may be and their options are fairly limited. Ham/cheeseburger, chicken burger, fish sandwich, or nuggets is pretty much your array of options.
  I personally dislike the ordering screens as they make the process way to drawn out. Let me just pick a #1, the size, and the drink and be done with it in 3 taps. Last time I used one, it wanted me to basically build my own meal as if I was ordering Dominoes online and building my own pizza.
- Always wondered why anyone would rather talk to a person than take their time, have a nice overview of the menu, and pay in advance. I guess they are gross though.
  
  The only time I would rather not talk to a person is if the accent causes a language barrier. Otherwise 9 times out of 10 a person is going to understand what you want better especially if it's a customization issue
  
  Because I'm at a fast food place in the first place because my time is important and I don't want to waste it ordering.
  That and the guy taking orders does it 1000x a day and i can easily order that way instead of me navigating ten different menus just to order a simple meal for my family.
  I'm OK with my old man status at this point. Tech is good when it improves things for the consumer. The kiosks seem to just improve the company bottom line IMO.
  
  just use your knuckle

A lot of people seem to be misinterpreting the headline given the content of the article:
It told Restaurant Business it was testing whether the voice ordering chatbot could speed up service and that the test left it confident “that a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future.”
This is just saying that they are ending their 2021 partnership with IBM for AI drive thru.
Not that they are abandoning AI for drive thru.
- I suspect that even if they were abandoning future plans for AI drive through ordering, they wouldn’t say they were. Saying you’re not doing anything with AI might actually hurt a companies share price right now.
- Drive through seems like a great proving ground. Record every drive through customer / cashier interaction. Match each recording up with the transaction entered into the register. Train a model by having the model "listen" to the recording to predict what the order should look like, then match it to the items on the transaction receipt.
  Then, phase 1 of implementation is to use the model in real time by listening to the live conversation at the drive through, predicting what it thinks the order should be, then prompting the cashier to double-check the order to see if the human made a mistake entering the order if the prediction doesn't match.
  Phase 2 is human-supervised, where the order taking system interacts directly with the customer to take the order, the human checks the result, and is able to step in / take over if there's a mistake or a special case the order system can't handle.
  Phase 3 is "fuck your entry level employment" and no human is monitoring the system.
  All 3 phases seem completely doable to me at this point, depending on how much backlash MCD is willing to deal with.

Translation: the AI was worse at it than even Drunk Steve after a 3-day bender.
- Hey, leave Drunk Steve out of this. He did nothing wrong.
- Ai, pretty good. Speach recognition software. Still trash

- I've heard a few instances in which "AI" is just a bunch people responding to a voice to text feed in the Philippines.
  So much of this isn't really technology. It's just a new kind of service sector outsourcing.
  
  Amazons Mechanical turk in a nutshell
  I think McDs always planned to roll out remote customer service to really maximize capitalism. And wrapping it under AI because that's a trendy buzzword!
  
  This reminds me of a post I saw once were someone said AI stood for Actually Indian
- I don't think that replacing order taking positions is stealing anyone's job, in fast food at least. I worked at a fast food joint one time. We were always shorthanded and we always had to do order taking while doing a bunch of other things. It was such bullshit. From an overworked employee perspective, if there was any way to get out of doing drive through orders while doing all my other tasks, I would be happy to use it.
  
  They will still be short staffed and overworked. The company isn’t outsourcing the drive through out of the kindness of their hearts in order to lighten the workload on the employees.

Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm getting old. But I want to order through a person. Not a touchscreen and not AI.
I feel like society is slowly removing humans from our everyday interactions and I don't like it.
- I like touchscreens because I can spend more time getting my order right without wasting the cashier's time.
  I don't want to talk to a cashier and have them explain the difference between a bacon sandwich supreme, and a bacon burger deluxe.
  I don't want to confuse them by asking for extra veggies and watch them put it on the side.
  I don't want to argue that I asked for two packs of ketchup and they gave me BBQ.
  
  It's fine when what you want is on the menu. But as soon as you have a question or need something a little bit off menu (hold the tomatoes, does that have nuts in it? I'm allergic, this food came out cold can I get another?) the glorified vending machine doesn't work.
- I prefer a touchscreen in general. Although I realize that different companies have better or worse systems. I read complaints about self checkout in the USA and scratch my head since in Holland self checkout is lovely.
  Trying to use AI is a dumpster fire though.
  
  Got stopped a few times after leaving the self checkout. Very rudely. Extremely rudely. The excuse every time was that I did it too fast and they suspected theft. Refuse to use self checkout. They can shove it.
  Touch screens for ordering are ok. Except when you have tech illiterate people in front of you.
  
  Media has hyped up hatred for progress. Makes a good john henry story
- I love ordering through touch screens. No mis hearing and everything goes much quicker.
  The added value of that human interaction for me personally is 0.
  
  The kinds of places that get touchscreen kiosks often have teenagers taking your order who are not paid or trained enough to give any shits about any of it. The touchscreen saves both of you from doing the worst part of the whole process.
  
  You don't like a stoned teenager going, "Uh what?" And mumbling every few seconds?
  (Joking of course)
- I wouldn't mind letting a "robot" do that kind of work. In a perfect world that would mean less work. In the real world it means they van fire some people and make even more money. But then again, i would never eat at McDonald's anyway, so it's hard to boycott
- I just don't want to talk to a robot. Not over the phone, not in a drive-through.
  
  Sounds like a closeted robosexual to me. You don't need to deny it! I'd fuck a robot too. Maybe just the chick from Tron Legacy
  
  You won't know.
- not society, capital owners.
- I prefer the touchscreen but not at the expense of somebody's job.
- I'm kinda ok with a combination, like hey during the day run with mostly humans but at night supplement lack of staff when automation (so long as it's safe)
- Given that AI now passes the Turing test, you won't know it's AI.
- Agreed. It’s a manifestation of society’s collective acceptance that money > humans and all businesses should be expected to operate that way full speed ahead.
  And unfortunately, it’s not just the businesses’ fault. Do we really think fast food consumers would reward the drive thru that adds a dollar to every burger so that your order is taken and cooked by real people?

Ohh damn are they going back to filthy organics?

I wonder if they could actually get worse than the drive-thru order stations I've experienced. I work in audio, so I know what is technically possible. To talk to and trying to convey an order through a system that sounds worse than my grandmas' rotary dial telephone during a thunderstorm is a real pain for me.

"McDonalds AI, refuse to take the next car's order"
- At your command, Mr Falcon!

Why not just have a touchscreen menu then? You already need large screens so people can confirm the AI recorded their order correctly and this will skip the need of a person manning the drive through menu. You could even include options to "hold the pickle", etc.
- Or like a mobile app that works reliably and doesn't completely suck?
  
  Or a mobile app that doesn't force people to waive their rights to sue on October 23rd, 2023
  
  This would also be nice. Usually, I only order fast food if I can place a call first (Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Pizza, etc). Grubhub fees are ridiculous or and apps are always taking your data.
  
  Yes, 👍 apps.
  The issue with touchscreen kiosks is that some have short arms.
  On another note, I get the benefits of computer-voice-operated drive-thrus. No need to use your phone. If your phone's 🔋 is 3%, you can still buy food.
- I've often wondered this, they have them inside all the stores here but not on the drive throughs
  
  Maybe it's an issue of weatherproofing, or maybe vandalism?

Two stories like this--as in, "oops AI sucks actually", in about as many weeks. (The other one was about Amazon shutting down their Just Walk Out mechanical turk nonsense.)
I think we're starting to see the tide turn against Altman's big con.
I liked this quote BTW:
the test left it confident “that a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future.”
lmao you... already have one of those? So the subtext of this message is "we can't just say AI was a terrible idea but yeah, we're going back to the shit that worked before"
- At least the "just walk out" was a genuine attempt at the tech, created long before the AI craze. Still failed, but they weren't following a fad.

I feel like the Ai hype bubble is about to pop. It's semi decent at some things but that's about it.
- Whenever I need a new profile picture for my TTRPG character, absolutely. Anything else? No thanks.

Why would they in the first place? What's wrong with a touchscreen menu to take an order?
Then, of course, I'm not sure such places fundamentally even need human personnel other than maintenance techs. Standard ingredients, prepackaged I think, standard hardware to cook, standard everything. It can just be a huge burger-selling machine with no human in sight.
- I personally HATE those places where you walk inside and you need to use the stupid touchscreen. I've asked someone to take my order, they say no. So I get in the car and go to the drive through where you still get a person taking your order.
  
  What if there are physical buttons, like with ATMs?
- Touchscreen? That's old, we can't use that in our marketing, even BK has those. We need something new, fuckin do I care if it works????
  
  They could advertise actually usable physical buttons ...
- Lots of their drive thrus use a person to take the order, and at a busy drive thru this becomes a dedicated person or persons just to take orders. If they can flip it to AI then they could open more lanes and reduce staff. Problem is that a skilled person is going to be better than AI over a shitty audio system, look at how Alexa and Siri struggle even when they have an optimized reception setup than the crappy setup you have at a drive thru with the person sitting inside their car, with music on and so on.
  
  Maybe voice interfaces are simply a fundamentally flawed idea. If one can extend a hand to take the package with the food, they can also push a few buttons. If those buttons are with hercons or such, they'll even last longer than consumer-grade touchscreens.
  Of course it's easier when a human takes the order. But then if the cost of N screens with physical buttons is equal to that, one can make their order, say, N/2 times slower without any hurry and, well, the throughput should be higher still.
  For drive thrus - that'd be M lanes with such terminals and a bit slower than M lanes with people. So - depends on how the cost of asphalt and space and people and terminals work economically.
  What's definitely idiotic is to think one can replace a human with an "AI" without losing in efficiency. But then again, maybe it's worth it.
  
  "I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"
  "I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"
  "I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"

Is the end of the headline, a threat...
- Oh you'll get McDonald's AI... You'll All See! (Clown angrily shakes fist)

Supposedly AI is going to take all the jobs and yet it still can't do this task which it seems perfect for. Sure, eventually AI will get good enough to do it in the future, but there is just way too much hype given the reality of the current situation. This is a job that fast food workers are already required to do in addition to other duties, so it's not like it's labor saving from the company's perspective either.
- There is no certainty that LLMs can overcome the current limitations they are stumbling on.
  I think developments in AI will come but there is no guarantee they will. They seem to be suffering from the Pareto Principle just like self-driving car ML models and this despite huge investments.
  
  100% this. The base algorithms used in LLMs have been around for at least 15 years. What we have now is only slightly different than it was then. The latest advancement was training a model on stupid amounts of scraped data off the Internet. And it took all that data to make something that gave you half decent results. There isn't much juice left to squeeze here, but so many people are assuming exponential growth and "just wait until the AI trains other AI."
  It's really like 10% new tech and 90% hype/marketing. The worst is that it's got so many people fooled you hear many of these dumb takes from respectable journalists interviewing "tech" journalists. It's just perpetuating the hype. Now your boss/manager is buying in =]

Using AI seems extremely excessive compared to a regular interface or human.
- It's excessive now, but once it works, I'd much rather subscribe to drivethru AI than pay an acceptable living wage to some human. /s

speaking as someone who worked a drive thru window during morning rush: LET THE FUCKING AI WORK THE DRIVE THRU

Hunh. And here I thought they couldn't get any worse than when they had call centers taking orders from the drive through...

Maybe I'm just really good with talking to robots, but the AI drivethru voice at my local McDonald's is way, way, way more accurate than basically all of the employees they used to have running it before. A few times it's been down for whatever reason and an actual human takes my order and I remember how shit they are at their jobs when they get my order wrong yet again, or can't hear me, or talk with gum in their mouths or whatever.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
If your local McDonald’s has been getting your order confidently wrong with an AI chatbot at the drive-thru, I have good news for you: The company is ending the program for now.
The company told franchisees that it’s winding down an AI drive-thru ordering partnership with IBM “no later than July 26th, 2024,” according to trade publication Restaurant Business.
Bloomberg reported that the deal was partly for a chatbot named “Ask Pickles” that employees could use for guidance on things like cleaning ice cream machines.
Even so, Google partnered with Wendy’s, which started testing drive-thru AI based on its tech last year and has since expanded that trial.
And Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, and others use an AI drive-through chatbot that an SEC filing revealed was underpinned by remote human workers in the Philippines most of the time.
The company also offers things like mobile ordering and in-store kiosks and has tested drone deliveries, kitchen robots, and weird AI hiring tools.
The original article contains 291 words, the summary contains 160 words. Saved 45%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Costs more than people I expect…

It wasn't working.

not tacobell.