Bacon Ice Cream and Nugget Overload Sees Misfiring McDonald's AI Withdrawn
owl writes:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c722gne7qngo
Archive Link: https://archive.is/4eOAc
McDonald's is removing artificial intelligence (AI) powered ordering technology from its drive-through restaurants in the US, after customers shared its comical mishaps online.
A trial of the system, which was developed by IBM and uses voice recognition software to process orders, was announced in 2019.
It has not proved entirely reliable, however, resulting in viral videos of bizarre misinterpreted orders ranging from bacon-topped ice cream to hundreds of dollars worth of chicken nuggets.
McDonald's told franchisees it would remove the tech from the more than 100 restaurants it has been testing it in by the end of July, as first reported by trade publication Restaurant Business, external.
[...] "After thoughtful review, McDonald's has decided to end our current global partnership with IBM on AOT [Automated Order Taking] beyond this year," the restaurant chain said in a statement.
However, it added it remained confident the tech would still be "part of its restaurants' future."
"We will continue to evaluate long-term, scalable solutions that will help us make an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year," the statement said.
/me now has visions of interacting with just about any telephone voice recognition assistant ever....
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