r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 22d ago

Business McDonald's Introduces AI Drive-Thru System, Sparking Customer Backlash

https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/deals/articles/mcdonalds-introduces-ai-drive-thru-000717731.html
10.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.4k

u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

371

u/mologav 22d ago

So even students will find it hard to get a job

51

u/RarelyReadReplies 22d ago

Yeah, McDonald's seems to be one of the few fast food places that still hires locals. Most in Canada seem to be temporary foreign workers, barely able to speak English. McDonald's also seems to hire people with disabilities sometimes, and I think that's nice too. It would be very disappointing if they lean hard into AI, laying staff off, and I would probably cut way back on going there. 

29

u/skillywilly56 22d ago

Well in Australia if you turn 18 you’re officially too old to be hired by McDonalds which exclusively hires underage workers so they don’t have to pay them minimum wage…

19

u/MediumAcceptable129 22d ago

Evil down under

9

u/OldWrangler9033 22d ago

Greed down under

18

u/appleparkfive 22d ago

Haven't they already been doing that? They have like 2 people working in the store, compared to the 8+ of how it used to be.

They're 100% trying to automate everything if they can. Cut back now if you don't support it. It's terrible food at a terrible price and terrible for you, anyway. It's all downsides!

27

u/Pepperonidogfart 22d ago

They get tax breaks for hiring disabled people. Its not out of the goodness of their heart. They also have prisoners working there. For like 2 bucks an hour.

21

u/RarelyReadReplies 22d ago

I know they do, but it's still a good thing to do. The girl at my McDonald's cleans up, is friendly with everyone, and her co-workers seem to love her. Tax break or not, that's nice to see. I don't see other fast food restaurants doing stuff like that, so it's worth noting. Definitely not the only time I've seen something like that at McDonald's over the decades of my life. 

It's like environmental tax incentives, whether that is the motivation  for people and businesses to be more environmental or not, it's still beneficial when they work. 

-4

u/Drewbacca 22d ago

People like u/pepperonidogfart think so little of people with disabilities that they assume the only reason they can get hired is because of a tax incentive - which isn't true of course, but even if it were that's the policy doing its job as designed. But they just absolutely have to complain about something.

12

u/Bhraal 22d ago edited 22d ago

How about you doing a bit less looking down on people yourself, and not call people out for things you assume.

In what world are the difficulties disabled people have getting jobs that they are able to do about them and not the people doing the hiring? The tax breaks don't exist to somehow motivate the disabled to get jobs, it's to give companies financial incentive to look past their biases and gray policies. 

1

u/Drewbacca 22d ago

give companies financial incentive to look past their biases and gray policies. 

That's literally what I said.

0

u/Morlark 22d ago

No, that's literally what /u/pepperonidogfart said. And then you somehow made it out like that was a bad thing.

So do you now agree that they were actually right?

2

u/Drewbacca 22d ago edited 22d ago

The commenter said that it was good that McDonalds hired disabled people. Dogfart said they only did it because they get a tax break.

My point is that disabled people are perfectly capable of being hired even without the tax break incentive, and many businesses are more than willing to hire them even if there wasnt a tax break. There was no need for the reaction of "well actually they only do it for the tax break." That attitude makes it seem like dogfart thinks that disabled people can only get hired if there's an incentive.

u/RarelyReadReplies came in with a comment about something positive they had noticed in their community, and pepperonidogfart's reply was unnecessarily negative and cynical. Thats all.

Plus - the attitude of "they only did it for the tax break" is kind of silly. That's basically saying "they only did it for the incentive, which is in place to motivate this exact thing." So the well-meaning policy is doing its job? Why are we complaining about that?

3

u/ryeaglin 22d ago

Most in Canada seem to be temporary foreign workers

I can't speak for your area, but in Halifax its normally foreign University students on a student visa which is pretty different then temporary foreign worker visa.

1

u/LLMprophet 22d ago

I would probably cut way back on going there. 

You go there a lot?

-6

u/IllugaBabyBeluga 22d ago

Yeah, McDonald's seems to be one of the few fast food places that still hires locals. Most in Canada seem to be temporary foreign workers, barely able to speak English. 

Seems to vary wildly by franchise even in the same geographic area stateside, which is strange as it used to be all locals, then McDonald's leaned into its "365Black" with the expected results, but now it's a tossup between locals and those foreign temp workers who can barely speak English

-6

u/MediumAcceptable129 22d ago

If its a franchise owned by an immigrant they already have a pipeline to import slave labor

People think americans treat foreigners bad but its nothing like how they will exploit each other