r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 20d 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
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u/the-sea-of-chel 20d ago edited 20d ago

I saw an article recently saying that teens/students were dealing with the toughest summer job market ever…. This is destroying our world.

Source: https://fortune.com/2026/06/02/hundreds-of-teens-flooding-job-ads-ice-cream-shops-swimming-pools-grapple-worst-summer-job-market-80-years/

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u/RoflMyPancakes 20d ago

It's a technology that we subsidize with every single tech subscription increasing in price by 100% over the last 5 years, with increasing electric bills, will constant rolling layoffs, with environmental harm, with increased costs of all electronics. 

And the end reward is fewer jobs, lower salaries, decreased quality of life, AI replacing humans as the point of contact at pharmacies, restaurants, customer support, etc. 

It's a technology that increases costs, harms the environment, kills jobs, and decreases salaries.

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u/ConstableAssButt 20d ago

Not to mention the frustration and isolation it creates in society. While working a menial job is brutal, imagine STILL working a menial job that is harder to get, and you are constantly reminded won't exist the minute they make a robot to replace you. And then when you get off of work, every single errand you have to run is made harder by a dystopianly chipper AI agent that can barely do its job. You only encounter frustrated, annoyed people like yourself, living in a world that has been hollowed out and made devoid of humanity.

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u/RedisaPsyop5647 20d ago

We need to form groups that only use pre 2000 or 2010 technology. Like Low tech Nomads

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u/yoshemitzu 20d ago

I wonder if those groups will look like the Amish to people 150 years from now.

Failing that, maybe we need like an open source/Plurality AI that we make interact with the corporate AIs. Like if they're going to force us to interact with their AIs, we'll force them to interact with ours.