What I’ve Learned: Stephen King (esquire.com)

I’d like to be known as somebody who was just a decent human being.

Stephen King is a treasure that, I think, we don't fully appreciate. I love his writing, but I get that not everyone does. Beyond the books, though, he genuinely seems like a wonderful person. This brief article (it's not an interview, or not presented as one anyways) gives real insight into that, I think.

He'll of course be remembered as "the scary guy," but I think he's got the "decent human being" thing down, too.

McDonald’s pauses AI-powered drive-thru voice orders (engadget.com)

IBM has given us confidence that a voice ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurant’s future.

To be clear, McDonald's isn't walking away from "voice ordering" technology altogether. It looks like they're walking away from IBM with enough confidence to make a final decision on fully implementing it by the end of the year. Does someone have a better solution than the IBM system? Is McDonald's going to roll its own?

Who knows, but it seems like AI will be handling fast food ordering in the not too distant future. This could actually be a great "real people" test for AI – we all know what it's like to have a drive-through order get messed up, for whatever reason. It's frustrating, and having the restaurant fix the mistake is usually not worth the time and effort of driving back. Will AI improve order accuracy? If it does, "real people" will notice and AI will earn a victory in the public eye. Real people will also notice if it doesn't, or if it makes things worse. Either of those situations would be a major loss for AI.

Do you want fries with that?