Hacker News Reader

Comment by torginus | Hacker News Reader

Yeah this sounds strange to me - every drive thru has had an intercom system like this working outside for decades. Doesn't seem like an insurmountable challenge to me.

View on HN

You're not entirely wrong, but often these AI systems need some pretty clear audio to work. It's kinda shocking how good we are at working around bad audio when it comes to conversation, and I'm certain most people know how bad these intercom systems get. The issue isn't that they need to be fixed at all, it's how far they can go before they must be fixed. And the one thing we can do that AI can't is have face-to-face conversations. If the speaker simply doesn't work, it's a bit of a drag, but you can just pull up to the window directly and skip the entire audio system. Or just walk inside. Both options eliminate the problem hardware, where as AI would need additional hardware to do those jobs.

Humans have more work arounds in failure cases, at least. Of just the ones I can recall seeing:

1) Sign taped to intercom: "Drive up to window to order". Order at window.

2) Worker standing at the intercom with a notebook and pen and a runner trading sheets between them and the kitchen.

3) "Drive-Thru Closed; Order Inside"

4) Restaurant's phone number posted over intercom.

I'm sure there are a lot more variations I haven't seen. Humans are pretty resourceful when machines fail them but they still want to get paid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com