18 June 2024

Yeah, About that AI

There is a stereotype that unskilled people end up taking jobs where they ask, "Do you want fries with that?"

Having worked in food service as a dishwasher at a seafood place, (my cats loved me after work) and delivering pizzas, (only mugged once) I have to say that there is a lot more this work than many people think there is.

In any case, it appears that asking, "Do you want fries with that?" is too difficult for large language models (AI) to do, as McDonalds has decided to shut down its attempt at AI drive through attendants:

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.

The company will reportedly remove the tech from the over 100 restaurants it’s been testing the system in after partnering with IBM in 2021. It’s not clear why the company is ending the IBM deal, though. 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 entire AI frenzy appears to be a lot like the Dot Com mania of the late 20th century or the Tulip Mania of the 17th century.

Seriously, this is even more transparently a fraud than anything at the top of the Dot Com Bubble.

It's like the second coming of Razorfish.

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