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According to ZDnet.com, McDonald's will begin using robots and AI to take orders in Chicago stores. Here's my big question: how will this AI deal with regional accents and idioms?

Already, the robots are operating with 85 percent accuracy. While that may be a decent score on a math test, it's pretty dismal for order accuracy. That means 15 out of 100 people who order will have an issue with their order being taken properly. You just know that person will either be you or someone in front of you when you are in a hurry.

The ZDNet reporter brought up another great point:

I know that you've already enjoyed so many fine conversations via phone with artificially intelligent customer service beings that you'll be looking forward to repeating yourself three times before you get your Big Mac and fries.

I know that many, many times in my life I've ended up losing it on those stupid things and just screamed 'operator!' over and over until I got a human, which is likely what will happen here. They will still need a human to fix the robot's issues.

Of course, all of this is just an experiment for now, but it's something we've all seen as an inevitability. And I firmly believe it has nothing to do with humans demanding a living wage. It's something that would have eventually happened anyway. But whoever has to talk a customer off the ledge after a frustrating robot experience should get paid handsomely.

Oh, and the robot repair guy? You know they'll get plenty of calls to fix those machines and make hundreds of dollars an hour.

Honestly, I can't see this being too successful, especially as the U.S. has a wide range of accents and colloquialisms. Here in Texas, we sound almost like we're speaking a completely different language from a place like Philly.

Will this AI tech be able to navigate that? I guess it's highly likely will find out sooner than later.  

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