マクドナルドは、顧客を喜ばせようとしていると述べた。 それから真実が抜け落ちた

私は信じたい。

I want to believe that technology is making the world better. Just.

I want to believe that we are all becoming more aware of the world's truths.

And I want to believe that when companies say things, they really mean them.

That's why I was so, so moved when McDonald's began experimenting with robot ordering at the drive-thru. Yes, it looked like a perfectly awful experience, but I wanted to believe that, over time, the robots would come to understand our accents and our quirky individualistic orders.

Not so long ago, McDonald's announced it was selling its McD Tech Labs — formerly known as Apprente — to IBM. The company declared that IBM had more of the core abilities needed to expand robot drive-thrus to everyone and, one imagined, making everyone happier.

In making this sale, McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski 主張 that the tests the company had performed in Chicago had revealed “substantial benefits” to both customers and employees.

I emitted a brief hosanna. Could this really be a case of technology improving everyone's lot?

But then I drove through a recent interview at JPMorgan's 50th Annual Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference.

Here was IBM's senior vice-president of global markets, Rob Thomas giving his view on helping McDonald's become pre-eminent in robot ordering at the drive-thru.

He said that McDonald's had “kind of struggled” around ordering. 

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「私たちは、マクドナルドの技術を強化するのに非常に優れた自然言語処理技術を使用できると信じ、論文を作成しました。現在、マクドナルドの多くの店舗、最終的にはすべての店舗に展開し始めています。店」とトーマスは言いました。

Ah, so everyone really is going to get naturally linguistic robots? That should be interesting.

What was even more pulsating, however, was Thomas's next thought: “And this is a great application of technology, wage inflation and quick service restaurants.”

An application of wage inflation? Do you mean it's not so much about improving the customer experience but more about pure, non-human money-making?

Ah, so that's the real motivation? Fewer people want to work at McDonald's for relatively little money, so voilá, technology meets quick-service restaurants and squashes wage inflation.

トーマスは次のように続けました。 時々、何かが人間に衝撃を与えますが、ソフトウェアの力と AI と創造的な構造を通じて、フランチャイジーに大きな経済効果をもたらします。」

There's nothing like the human being kicked to as they stand, perhaps all alone, making burgers all night.

I wanted to believe in technology bringing substantial benefits to all. Yet the painful reality seems to be that the substantial benefits accrue to the franchisees far more than to, say, customers or employees.

So when you encounter one of these robots, and they don't understand your more personal order, just remember that they're just cheap labor. Nothing more.