Fast food giant McDonald’s is in the process of removing technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI) from a selection of its restaurants in the United States, following a series of unfortunate order mishaps that went viral on social media.
The AI-powered system was announced back in 2019 and was installed in a select number of drive-thru restaurants in the US for testing. The tech involved AI taking the orders of drive-thru customers, as opposed to a human attendant.
However, McDonald’s has now notified its franchisees that the technology is set to be removed from restaurants by the end of next month, stating that:
“After thoughtful review, McDonald’s has decided to end our current global partnership with IBM on AOT [Automated Order Taking] beyond this year.”
When the tech was first announced, it was met with scepticism, with many worrying of the impact it could have on jobs and potentially making drive-thru attendants obsolete.
However, it seems that these fears were unfounded – for the meantime, at least – as the AI tech didn’t prove to be Employee of the Month material when it came to taking orders. In one video shared on TikTok, a customer had 200 McNuggets added to her order, totalling over $200, as opposed to the 10-McNugget order the customer had asked for:
@typical_redhead_ I thought TikTok would appreciate this 💀 #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #comedy #fail
♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
Other orders from customers, as reported by the BBC and The New York Post, included an ice cream topped with bacon, and butter being added to an order of a water and ice cream.
This all shows that while AI is making significant advances, and indeed it does have its advantages in certain areas and industries, there are some tasks it just isn’t up to scratch with and can’t compete with humans on just yet.
Another of those tasks is writing quality content for use online. Here at Engage Web, we ensure all of our content is human-written, using language our clients’ target customers will engage with and understand. If you’d like to have a chat about the ways we can help engage your audience online, reach out to our team today to learn more.
- Facebook removes followers from personal profiles - December 18, 2024
- Should I be the only admin of my Facebook page? - November 7, 2024
- Meta makes questionable audience targeting change for ads - October 3, 2024
