Burger King already was doing this at their drive thru to check if employees were saying keywords like "you rule" and determining the customer's mood. Also saving a recording of the interaction for who knows how long. BobDaHacker got into their system with an auth bypass and exposed it[1]. It's very draconian.
The screenshots of the backend “Assistant” in [1] pretty much seem like this is what Burger King is expanding upon. It seemed already able to determine out-of-stocks and was gathering cleanliness data for the bathrooms.
It also sounds like they’re basically confirming [1] as well out loud — “He adds that the company is currently testing the AI drive-thru technology in fewer than 100 restaurants.”
Of note, I recall back in the mid-2000s there was a swing-down device near the order packing zone in the Burger King kitchen and it had a screen and a keypad on it and was labeled the “Manager’s Assistant” (or maybe “Kitchen Minder”?) device. From what I understood it was tracking production, providing reminders to check the bathroom, and providing projected order volume information.
> Cyble Inc. is an AI-powered cybersecurity platform and DMCA takedown service startup backed by Y Combinator. Their complaint specifically states that our use of the "Burger King" trademark was unauthorized and creates "a high degree of confusion among the public that the website is in some way endorsed by/or linked with our Client."
Way to reinforce the stereotype about their clients.
This is very stupid. No one wants this. People don't like false sincerity. Even when we know that it's someones job to be nice, we appreciate when it feels genuine.
If you want people to genuinely be nice, give them reasons. Make them happy. Help them stay motivated. Otherwise you cheapen "please" and "thank you" even more than is already the case and get zero value out of it because no one will appreciate it knowing that it's forced.
A world where everyone says "please" and "thank you" isn't a better world.
When I used to do a lot of phone tech support and my employer hired a company to do customer satisfaction surveys. I got a 0 out of 5 on several occasions with the comment "Stop calling me at this phone number, I don't know who you people are.". Someone gave the wrong phone number to the survey company and they hadn't called the customer I worked with.
I was told by my managers there was nothing they could do about it because nobody was allowed to edit the total scores or remove obviously bad records because someone might do that for the wrong reasons. So I just had to live with it.
I have it in my head that a lot of these problems core issue is a lack of faith / effort in creating good front line management. At a food place a good front line manager keeps everyone going, the mood light, and can really make all the difference in the world, but rather lazy middle, upper managers, would slap some survey or metrics or AI on things.
In that way it's no really an AI issue, just the typical bad management issue.
>Because it’s integrated with the new cloud point-of-sale system, the AI assistant will also alert managers if a machine is down for maintenance or when an item is out of stock. “Within 15 minutes, the entire ecosystem will remove it from stock
If you're out of fries ... taking 15 minutes to reflect that on the menu doesn't seem very fast.
I always thought we were a step away from Manna when we had voice-based picking in warehouses. Guess we’ve finally taken it all the way to the actual full-on Manna.
Yup. It is mildly funny how we were full steam ahead for building one too until, suddenly, investors realized it could wipe out their other investments..and then it kinda stopped. Instead, Gartner is listing universal orchestrator ( or whatever the official name was ) as a path forward.
Burger King is not in the "too big to fail" category. Writing letters to people in the company would probably be pretty effective here. Even if you don't eat at Burger King, when AI takes over all software jobs, you might end up making more money by working there someday. Protecting your interests is important.
I know things are bad in tech, but it's still about 50% people stoned out their gourd everytime I go to a chain drive through. These chains are not in a position to meaningfully enforce how the interaction happens, they are barely in a position to meaningfully enforce that the worker is sober enough to form a sentence.
> Burger King is not in the "too big to fail" category.
How the hell have they survived this long. It’s consistently been the worst fast food burger restaurant I’ve been across the various states I’ve lived.
What's wrong is the micromanaging, and also the "operationalization" of politeness into the metric of "these specific words and these specific times." Both are dehumanizing with or without AI - both on the employee side and my side - what is the point of politeness if it's basically at gunpoint?
I would equally have a problem with a manager who is threatening to write people up if they don't meet some count of saying the words "please" and "thank you."
I don't want AI to enable micromanagement of stuff that doesn't really need to be micromanaged. How it should be done is this: Print a QR code on the receipt. If I feel the drivethru conversation was bad, let me scan it and notify you. Then you can have AI review that conversation, and we'll also find out who the people are that just like to complain too much and ban them from the establishments.
When a human makes sure employees are being polite, they're reinforcing the social contract that comes with employment. When you remove the human from the equation it's literally dehumanizing. That's it. Thats the why.
Can they use AI to check if their employees actually assemble the burger before slapping it into the box? I don't know why burger king and mcdonalds have this problem when every other burger shop manages it fine. Basically what I'm saying is if burger king management is concerned about customer experience, or even if they don't give a shit and just want AI on their resume, there are better approaches..
Sadly, I think this is only the beginning. Once video monitoring becomes cheap and easy we will see "shirts folded per hour", "distance swept per annum", "steps deviating from optimum path between van and front door", "customers approached per shift" etc
'but I took time off because I was injured and Beth asked if I could come in and cover Mannie's shift. You can't lower be pay compensation because of my metrics that shift'
'sorry, the system says this is your new pay rate. If you meet quota without failing to meet quota for the next 6 months, you will be eligible for a rate promotion if your manager requests it'
I used to work for a company that did "Electronic Monitoring", the nice name for monitoring people with ankle bracelets. One thing that never ceased to amaze me is how almost everyone I talked to about it or showed the device (I wore one occasionally for testing purposes) assumed or asked there was a way to shock the person wearing it.
I guess on the face of it that's not a crazy thing to think but I was always struck by how "normal" people seemed to think that would be. Maybe it's TV/Movies that have done something like that and make people think it's a real thing but more importantly (disgustingly?) that it's perfectly reasonable.
Readit News
[1] https://archive.is/fMYQp (BK DMCA'd the original article offline[2])
[2] https://bobdahacker.com/blog/rbi-hacked-drive-thrus/
It also sounds like they’re basically confirming [1] as well out loud — “He adds that the company is currently testing the AI drive-thru technology in fewer than 100 restaurants.”
Of note, I recall back in the mid-2000s there was a swing-down device near the order packing zone in the Burger King kitchen and it had a screen and a keypad on it and was labeled the “Manager’s Assistant” (or maybe “Kitchen Minder”?) device. From what I understood it was tracking production, providing reminders to check the bathroom, and providing projected order volume information.
https://www.goicc.com/kitchen-minder-tech-support
https://bobdahacker.com/blog/rbi-hacked-drive-thrus/
> Cyble Inc. is an AI-powered cybersecurity platform and DMCA takedown service startup backed by Y Combinator. Their complaint specifically states that our use of the "Burger King" trademark was unauthorized and creates "a high degree of confusion among the public that the website is in some way endorsed by/or linked with our Client."
Way to reinforce the stereotype about their clients.
If you want people to genuinely be nice, give them reasons. Make them happy. Help them stay motivated. Otherwise you cheapen "please" and "thank you" even more than is already the case and get zero value out of it because no one will appreciate it knowing that it's forced.
A world where everyone says "please" and "thank you" isn't a better world.
Sad thing is, probably BK reckon its average customer is dumb enough to mistake it for genuine.
Sadder thing is, probably they're correct.
And if not, well, this latest move will help make it so.
I was told by my managers there was nothing they could do about it because nobody was allowed to edit the total scores or remove obviously bad records because someone might do that for the wrong reasons. So I just had to live with it.
I have it in my head that a lot of these problems core issue is a lack of faith / effort in creating good front line management. At a food place a good front line manager keeps everyone going, the mood light, and can really make all the difference in the world, but rather lazy middle, upper managers, would slap some survey or metrics or AI on things.
In that way it's no really an AI issue, just the typical bad management issue.
>Because it’s integrated with the new cloud point-of-sale system, the AI assistant will also alert managers if a machine is down for maintenance or when an item is out of stock. “Within 15 minutes, the entire ecosystem will remove it from stock
If you're out of fries ... taking 15 minutes to reflect that on the menu doesn't seem very fast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice-directed_warehousing
How the hell have they survived this long. It’s consistently been the worst fast food burger restaurant I’ve been across the various states I’ve lived.
I would equally have a problem with a manager who is threatening to write people up if they don't meet some count of saying the words "please" and "thank you."
I don't want AI to enable micromanagement of stuff that doesn't really need to be micromanaged. How it should be done is this: Print a QR code on the receipt. If I feel the drivethru conversation was bad, let me scan it and notify you. Then you can have AI review that conversation, and we'll also find out who the people are that just like to complain too much and ban them from the establishments.
(probably killing a dead horse posting this again in this thread but it's the best response)
'sorry, the system says this is your new pay rate. If you meet quota without failing to meet quota for the next 6 months, you will be eligible for a rate promotion if your manager requests it'
Deleted Comment
I guess on the face of it that's not a crazy thing to think but I was always struck by how "normal" people seemed to think that would be. Maybe it's TV/Movies that have done something like that and make people think it's a real thing but more importantly (disgustingly?) that it's perfectly reasonable.