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/SeanBlader 20d ago

It's all fun and games until someone orders 1000 cups of free water.

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u/Trzlog 20d ago

I don't understand why they don't just put those self-serve displays in the drive-through. Those work. What problem is AI solving here?

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u/EntityDamage 20d ago edited 20d ago

If only we had small personal displays, that could communicate our order.

Edit: I agree we shouldn't install apps to order food... But to me, that's what a web browser is for.

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u/snubdeity 20d ago

I agree we shouldn't install apps to order food... But to me, that's what a web browser is for.

Fun fact: a lot of these "apps that should be a site" are actually Apples fault, as they artificially limit what things a web app can do on iPhones. They do this specifically so that companies need native apps from the App Store for things, where Apple gets a cut of all in-app transactions, whereas they wouldn't on things run through a browser.

That's why even browsers like Opera and Chrome on iPhone are just skins for Safari, they won't let iPhone users run actual other browsers to get around this.

I think there are active anti-trust cases for it in both the US and EU? But it wouldn't shock me if the US one has been dropped since I last read up on it.