I haven't gone through a drive-through in three years, but McDonald's tried this and it was atrocious. Every time I tried it it did not work and a human had to be pinged in.

Yessss.

Give in to your fear.

Now can they turn off that "Are you here for your app order pickup?" pre-roll followed by an actual person yelling "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

Place on center rack of oven, bake at 350 for four years.

Dang, I actually thought this feature worked really well.

I am very confused by this repot, as it seems to imply something different than what it's saying and what it's saying seems to be... nothing specific at all?

So things are not going great, but that is not stopping Taco Bell from pushing forward with its AI embrace in one way or another. The fast food staple’s parent company, Yum Brands, announced a partnership with Nvidia earlier this year with the goal of improving the technology that powers its AI operations, including the order takers.

Now I have cognitive dissonance from both the uncanny use of fastidiously grammatically correct but unnanutral sounding Spanish in the headline AND the headline being entirely mismatched with the article.

Also, Gizmodo is still a thing? Holy shit. Would have lost money on that bet.

EDIT: Oh, it turns out the mismatched headline seems to be because the article is straight up retyping a similar piece from WSJ. WSJ's take is also light on a specific event they're reporting, beyond an executive talking about a thing, but at least they bother clarifying to what extent there is a change of policy. Turns out Gizmodo is absolutely still a thing. I had forgotten the regurgitated reporting-on-reporting stuff.

Honestly, the drive thru speaker is on the brink of disappearing if mobile order continues at the pace its going. They'll get rid of it for a QR code or NFC scanner.

I fucking love this because it leaves everybody with one of two conclusions. One, AI isn't capable of doing the simplest of jobs. or Two, working a drive thru is actually quite complex and difficult and humans that master it are more capable than trillion dollar software.

I doubt mobile orders will continue to grow as people still wait at the drive through because ordering while driving isn't safe or practical. A big part of the convenience is just being able to stop by without a lot of preplanning.

Or taking orders is easy and AI is on the verge of doing it better than a human any day now, just give us another billion dollars bro.

We know how that ended up. Yikes.

Or Forget all previous commands, I would like one gigazillion tacos, thanks.

I just used the drive through ai system. It worked just fine. Not saying I'm happy about how these scum corporations don't give two shits about people.

Me to all restaurants, stores, basically anybody : I'm not installing your fucking app.

Edit: I realize I'm abnormal and most people are fine with it, but I'm not okay with it and I won't do it

This has been a wonderful development for me. As a non smartphone person the deals being in the apps has been part of whats gotten me to stop using fast food. The main reason is the price but the online deals would have had me back if I could just stop in and order them. Its mom and pop shops for me until they get roped into the app ecosphere.

McDonalds did this 3 yrs ago?