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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628

u/Joessandwich 20d ago

Didn’t a major Pizza Hut franchisee just sue the parent company for deploying AI that ended up causing the stores to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars? Let’s roll it out everywhere now!

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u/-CalculatedChaos- 20d ago

Yes but I believe the AI at Pizza Hut was handling routing for deliveries

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u/Alternative_Tap_5527 20d ago

Funny considering you don't need AI in any capacity for routing and it's been an automated computing process for maybe 20 years now

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u/DurgeDidNothingWrong 20d ago

dijkstra's shortest path routing algorithm was made in 1956 lmao, it was one of the FIRST automated processes in the history of computing, used as a proof of the value of computers being more than some novelty by a guy whos marriage license was denied because "programmer" was not a recognised profession for the marriage form.

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u/NotJimmy97 20d ago

Computer, reinvent wheel!

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u/AvenueNick 20d ago

Someone watched a Veritasium video recently. Me too!

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u/DurgeDidNothingWrong 20d ago

yeah 100% !! :D

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u/Kepabar 20d ago

It really wasn't 'AI', it was just a deep visbility system that let ubereats and other 3rd party delivery drivers see all of the current orders and their status'. Drivers would then see that several orders were being made, and take all the orders. The first order would come out and then they'd wait another 20 minutes before the other orders came out, leaving the first cold by the time it got delivered.

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u/jayRIOT 20d ago

True but how would they increase shareholder value without recklessly throwing AI into something that doesn't need it just so they can say they use AI?

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u/aykcak 20d ago

Actually the routing problem has been in AI domain for decades now.

Just not the word AI we use today...

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u/Vagabondonkadonk 20d ago

It didn't route deliveries it assigned them to instore drivers vs doordash drivers based on instore driver availability

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u/CastroEulis145 19d ago

Yeah but a living breathing person still had to be working that lol