Incident 475: McDonald's AI Drive-Thru Ordering System Failures Frustrate Customers

Responded
Description: Customers of McDonald's AI drive-through ordering system, deployed in June 2021, have been experiencing order-taking failures causing frustration.

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Alleged: IBM developed an AI system deployed by McDonald's, which harmed McDonald's customers.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
475
Report Count
5
Incident Date
2021-06-02
Editors
Applied Taxonomies
MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

7.3. Lack of capability or robustness

Risk Domain

  1. AI system safety, failures, and limitations

Entity

AI

Timing

Post-deployment

Intent

Unintentional

'This is exactly why a person should take your order': Customer says McDonald's AI accidentally added 9 sweet teas to her order
dailydot.com · 2023

Since 2021, McDonald’s has been experimenting with artificial intelligence-powered ordering systems in their drive-thrus.

It’s intended to work as follows: a customer approaches, places their order, and then the AI-powered machine confirms …

TikTokers are roasting McDonald's hilarious drive-thru AI order fails — and it shows that robots won't take over restaurants any time soon
businessinsider.com · 2023

Fast-food chains like McDonald's, Sonic, and Chipotle have been experimenting with AI-powered voice bots for taking phone and drive-thru orders for a few years.

But some McDonald's customers on TikTok are expressing frustration – and in som…

TikTokers are not lovin’ McDonald’s new AI-powered drive-thru
today.com · 2023

McDonald’s has a new AI ordering system and, well, some customers are not lovin’ it.

On Feb. 10, TikTok user Ren Adams (@resinsbiren) posted a video decrying McDonald’s new artificial intelligence technology, which the company has deployed …

McDonald's drive-thru robot made a mistake. Then it all got ridiculous
zdnet.com · 2023

It's not been a wonderful few weeks for AI.

Both Google and Microsoft presented their new AI-powered chatterboxes and both seemed to make fundamental mistakes.

Yes, in the launch presentations.

Then Microsoft's Bing with ChatGPT took on les…

260 McNuggets? McDonald’s Ends A.I. Drive-Through Tests Amid Errors
nytimes.com · 2024
Hank Sanders post-incident response

In the nearly three years since McDonald's announced that it was partnering with IBM to develop a drive-through order taker powered by artificial intelligence, videos popped up on social media showing confused and frustrated customers tryin…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
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