McDonald’s Customers Will Get Their Meals With a Side of AI

I DESPISE AI in fast food restaurants... as well as just about everywhere else... but in fast food it really pisses me off.

I crave salty trash food every once in a while, but when my local Taco Bell greeted me with an obviously AI drive-thru, I just drove away and never came back.

Fast food and retail were the places you went to get your first job with no experience or school necessary. Using AI to 'take their jobs' in the pursuit of 'efficiency' is just adding velocity to our plunge into dystopia. I mean no disrespect to those working those currently jobs, though, as the 'were' in that sentence is carrying a lot and the article is right that the jobs are stressful and relentless, and it angers me that your livelihood is yet again being threatened by corporate greed.

If there were compensating factors, like UBI, free higher education and better worker protections, then sure, let's let "ai" take over the things that we don't want to do... but I don't think we're going in that direction.

My days of never going to McD’s sure are coming to a middle

Another reason not to go there.

Making better food never crossed their mind.

I think this is just an attempt to shoehorn the words "AI" in McDonald's business plan in order to attract investors. What would they even use it for? I think developing and using AI for the applications they describe in the article would be too much hassle for little profit. Add in the notorious unreliability of AI, and you got a big McNothing Burger.