I worked on this project at my former employer for nearly 8 months

Thanks for sharing, everything makes sense except this: > The problem is all of the real world interface challenges, keeping speakers and microphones working outdoors across many different climates and weather conditions, and temperatures and humidity is incredibly expensive. I thought this was a solved problem already, by McDonald’s in fact?

Why can't the hardware problem solved with just a phone and an app? Also what ML model did your company use?

Doesn't surprise me in the least. McDonald's is such a bad company on many levels, even from its founding roots. They make fast food (an industry notorious for craping all over their employees) and it was usurped by a greedy business man (Ray Kroc) from its original founders. Their food is okay, but I would never, ever do work for them.

McDonald's has screwed up my order less than any other restaurant, provided better, warmer food than any other restaurant, is cheaper for the quality than any other restaurant, and their Ronald McDonald House charity rescued my family during our darkest hour. Sorry your AI partnership with them failed, guy.

Having worked for a variety of corporate structures, I'd agree that franchise models tend to have... a bit more ruthless approach to everything. (Even unintentionally) When "the business" is literally outside your company, you get the same dynamics as when it's in another org structure, except even worse.

> The problem is not bad AI nor a lack of data. The problem is all of the real world interface challenges, keeping speakers and microphones working outdoors across many different climates and weather conditions, and temperatures and humidity is incredibly expensive. That's a great point. Shazam, which has a "simpler" challenge, still trips up with identifying music in challenging environmental conditions.

> The problem is all of the real world interface challenges, keeping speakers and microphones working outdoors across many different climates and weather conditions, and temperatures and humidity is incredibly expensive. This sounds like a problem for humans too - are humans just better equipped to deal with bad audio?

> keeping speakers and microphones working outdoors across many different climates Pretty common for two humans to have trouble understanding each other through the microphone setups, too.