I know we're dooming and glooming about artificial intelligence taking our jobs and replacing human interaction at a tremendous speed ...
But there's one job that, for now at least, is insulated from the threat of robot takeover.
Angsty teenager: your job as the order taker at your local Taco Bell is safe!
Somehow, the restaurant that's two main patron types are retired people and wasted teens was unable to get AI to cooperate well with consumers.
Last year, Taco Bell made a simple bet that Alexa-like voice assistants could handle the drive-thru window. It didn't consider whether people could handle dealing with AI. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company embedded AI in the drive-thru boxes at more than 500 locations across the country and quickly found that it made mistakes, creeped people out, and got very easily manipulated.
'We're learning a lot, I'm going to be honest with you,' Taco Bell Chief Digital and Technology Officer Dane Mathews told WSJ. One of the lessons: People really like messing with AI, like ordering '18,000 cups of water, please.'
In Taco Bell's view, it's just too messy still. Too many mistakes are being made, and people really just don't like the voice bots.
Taco Bell also knows that humans handle customers better than AI.
(Again, for now.)
So things are not going great, but that is not stopping Taco Bell from pushing forward with its AI embrace in one way or another. The fast food staple's parent company, Yum Brands, announced a partnership with Nvidia earlier this year with the goal of improving the technology that powers its AI operations, including the order takers.
We don't have the technology yet, but one day the robots will be able to mimic the laziness of your typical Taco Bell order taker!
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