I'll take the burger, the fries, and a large Orwell, please

 

Photo by Bonnie Burton, reprinted under a Creative Commons License

I've got no beef with technology.  That said, the increasingly automated nature of certain segments of the food industry does give me pause. A recent article from the Canadian Broadcasting Centre (CBC) introduces us to HyperActive Bob, a robot designed to minimize the involvement of actual people during the fast food experience.  According to the article's author, "Despite being one of the world's largest industries, fast food restaurants still depend far too much on human involvement..."

Far too much on human involvement, eh? Without human involvement a fast food restaurant is essentially a vending machine.  With a drive-through.

Enter Bob, a robotic sensor mounted on a restaurant's rooftop that detects incoming traffic and tells the staff to start cooking.  I know you haven't decided what to order yet, but Bob isn't concerned with such trivialities.

"While early versions of the system tried to profile vehicles and guess what the occupants might order -- a minivan entering the lot could indicate children approaching, for example -- Bob now works on statistics derived solely on traffic volumes."

Woah, not so fast there, Sally.  This early version may have been abandoned, but it still provokes THE SHIVERS that someone tried to predict my order based on the make and model of my car. 

And there's more.  McDonald's in Venezuela uses biometrics -- sensors reading fingerprints and handprints -- to confirm that employees have actually reported to work.  "'You'd save not just on payroll expenses but on supervision,' says Peter Cheesman, marketing director for the International Biometric Group in New York.  'If you don't need someone watching people clock in and clock out... you can save thousands of man hours.'" 

I bet you can. And we may very well be at a point in our society where biometrics have their place -- in airports, perhaps, and certainly at nuclear power plants.  But at a burger joint? 

Really?

Comments

[Andrew Pearlman]

Will I really miss the human contact if my local McD's decides to automate? Why *shouldn't* a fast-food restaurant be like a vending machine? After all, I'm not there for leisurely conversation with the staff.

Anyway, it sounds like (for now) Bob is just hanging out on the roof giving the kitchen a heads-up that customers are coming. Seems like a good idea to me. The restaurants are always making food to have ready for customers who haven't arrived yet; it seems like Bob will allow the kitchen to wait a bit longer, so the food doesn't languish under heat lamps for 20 minutes before someone orders it. Seems like a good idea to me.

Of course, Bob 2.0 sounds like the really cool tech. Make better predictions based on what type of car shows up? Man, I want to do that data analysis. I'll bet the hard part is to get the computer to recognize what type of car it's looking at.

[Colin]

I'm all for Bob's helping to ensure that my burger not sitting under heat lamps for hours, but describing food prep as a "manufacturing enterprise" is pretty unappetizing. I'm not surprised modern fast food is saturated with dozens of industrial chemicals if those entrusted with its production consider the process more like injection molding than baking a cake.

Why can't we use technology to make food tastier and healthier, instead of using it to make production processes 1% more efficient? I bet if you asked Bob that's what he'd rather be working on.

rah

[Heather]

I suppose I'm being dense but I can't quite figure out how Bob sensing that I've just pulled up in a minivan will efficiently start the RIGHT cooking process. Will he sense the weight of the car to know that I'm pulling in with all 4 kids or alone hoping desperately for an illicit Diet Coke and fries? Will he start cooking vats of nuggets only to discover that my daughter really only wants a fruit salad and yogurt? Then poor Bob has needlessly fired up some nuggets and back under the heat lamps they go.
Of course, I'm also loving the idea that they could make "Bob" with different personalities..."Juan" the eager trainee, "Marsha" the bitter divorcee, "Veronica" the slightly vacant but well-meaning teeenager...

[Cheryl]

Now THIS is what I call a good debate. Anyone else care to take a swing at it?

[Andrew Pearlman]

Poor Bob. Apparently he doesn't read this blog (yet), or I imagine he'd be defending himself.

Forgive me for presuming to speak for Bob, but if he could come down from the roof of McDonalds, I imagine he would express the following opinions.

1. Fast food already is manufactured food. The injection-molding industry WISHES they could be as efficient as your local burger & fries factory. All the machines are carefully designed so that a new human employee can use them correctly on the first day of work. Soda machines fill the cup and shut off. Would the dining experience be less healthful or pleasurable without these innovations? If it's going to be a factory, then let it be the most efficient factory they can possibly design.

2. Food that spends less time under a heat lamp IS tastiER, isn't it? Everything's relative.

3. True, Bob doesn't know whether your minivan is full or empty, but he can take a very good guess based on the time of day (during school hours?) or even based on whether the previous few minivans were full or not. Marketers can learn amazing things about your preferences based on other brands you buy; knowing what's in your closet or on your Tivo, they can tell you what's likely to be in your fridge. And like those marketers, I'm sure Bob isn't anywhere close to 100% accurate, but he doesn't have to be. Any information he can provide will be better than having a random assortment of foods available for whoever happens to drive up. It's like a weather forecast. Never perfect, but better than nothing.