Fight for Fifteen, or Fight the Future?

Fast Food Workers of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your jobs!

"At a McDonald's drive-thru in a Chicago suburb, customers may notice something different about the voice that takes their orders for Big Macs and fries.

"Welcome to McDonald's, what can I get for you?" it asks in a welcoming, unmistakably feminine tone. While the voice sounds helpful, it's also stilted and monotonous enough for the average customer to figure out they're being served by a computer, not a human. It's a lot like Alexa or Siri, but for a drive-thru: a system driven by artificial intelligence that McDonald's is testing out to speed up its service."

The article touts the features and benefits of these ordering systems...

""Humans sometimes forget to greet people, they forget, they make mistakes, they don't hear as well," Lucy Brady, McDonald's chief digital customer engagement officer, explained to CNN Business. "A machine can actually have a consistent greeting and remain calm under pressure.""

...without mentioning some key ones: They'll never ask for a sick day or a smoke break...or a raise.

It looks like smaller chains, such as White Castle, want a piece of this action, too.

"[White Castle Marketing VP] Richardson said the AI voice system (which also has a computerized, feminine voice) is connected to a digital menu board and can take orders and make food suggestions. Over time, it will also consider the weather and time of day. The company will also use a camera for license-plate recognition to personalize orders at the drive-thru — customers must opt in to share their plate number through White Castle's app-based loyalty program, Craver Nation, so software can pull their order history. The point of all this tech, Richardson said, is to personalize the experience and keep customers coming back.

"The thought is to make sure that it's friendly. 'They remember me, they know who I am'," he said."

Don't worry, I'm sure that if you haven't opted in to their customer loyalty program, the license plate scanner will totally forget that it scanned yours and it won't in any way affect the flow of junk mail at your house or anything.

You might also remember White Castle from an earlier story along these lines:

White Castle is introducing a burger-grilling robot.

The privately held restaurant chain has announced a partnership with the Pasadena, California-based startup Miso Robotics to introduce Flippy at one of its Chicago-area restaurants in September. https://t.co/wHO3aY8mtB

— CNN (@CNN) July 16, 2020

I guess burger flippers and fast food order takers should have learned to code.

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