Chapter 1: What is the role of AI in fast food employee training?
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In concerning and exciting news, which I feel like is the main reason we bring on tech expert Carmi Levy for its Time for Technology time every week, we've got AI headsets monitoring everything fast food employee workers do. Carmi, welcome to the show. Good to be with you, David. Thanks for having me. And for the record, it's human carmy, not AI carmy. I mean, I don't know.
You could be faking this video and faking your voice, but probably not. Probably not. Look, I think drive-thru and fast food employees, I worry for their jobs in the next five to 10 years. Already they're replaced with touchscreen kiosks. If you go to a McDonald's here in New York, not all of them, but many of them have like touchscreen ordering things.
So there's less employees to begin with taking your order. It's mostly just people in the kitchen. I see the kitchen being replaced by, you know, physical robots making the items. I find the ordering process might be an AI agent. I'm not saying McDonald's is going to do this, but who knows what the next 15 years in fast food will look like.
But right now, if we go to Burger King in Canada, voice assistant coaches are in their ears now during their job. This seems dystopian, Carmi. Oh, it is. And of course, the name, they gave it a friendly name. It's called Patty AI. So, you know, Patty. That is cute. Lovely, lovely inside joke, Restaurant Brands International. Well played.
So they're going to be rolling out this app over the course of the rest of the year to all of their Canadian restaurants. Basically what it is, it's a voice assistant, so essentially a voice-based chatbot that plays in the employee's headset. So any employee who would be in the restaurant who would be wearing a headset will have access to this.
And basically what it'll do is it'll track them as they go through the day, it'll listen in on their conversations, it'll make suggestions, you know, how to be more attentive, how to be more efficient, how to be friendlier.
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Chapter 2: How is misinformation impacting the perception of the Iran conflict?
It'll remind them to smile, among other things. It'll also provide guidance on how you make a food order or how do you upsell them. You know, do you want fries with that? So basically, it's designed to improve efficiency within the restaurant. I mean, all these things we've heard before.
We heard them when McDonald's introduced AI into their drive-thrus a few years back, and that lasted about six months before they canceled it because it was getting all the orders wrong. So Hopefully the technology technology is a little bit better now. My concern is that this is a it's AI and it isn't just trying to improve efficiency. It's also collecting information on how employees work.
And so you want to talk about mass surveillance state in your place of employment. I think Burger King is about to become ground zero for that. And it's something I'd be watching for if I were an employee. Not exactly the kind of thing you want to be wearing on your head all day. I got to be careful because Burger King, I'm sure, has deep pockets.
So I'll just throw the word allegedly in there, as I often do. I imagine the future of drive-thru and ordering will be AI chatbots. They need a wealth of data to train on to get these bots perfect. You are being monitored as you do your job, potentially, not definitely, but potentially, to train the models properly. that are then going to replace you. What am I saying?
All these conversations are going to be recorded, archived, and then future AI ordering systems could train on these live conversations. That's a scary thought. I don't know that it's true, but that's a scary thought. Oh, and I think that's inevitable. And I think that's an easy assumption to make, especially because, and this is technology, by the way, that comes to us from OpenAI.
So they are providing the chatbot platform to RBI for their Burger King restaurants. And so I think it would be silly to think that that wouldn't be the case. This is a training opportunity for them to collect very specific data from a very specific use case, a very specific situation in restaurant service provision.
And I think as far as the Burger King is concerned, this is a good thing for them. As far as OpenAI is concerned, it's a good thing for them as well, because when you and I use ChatGPT, it's general information. It isn't specialized. But in the restaurant, that can be a goldmine.
That can, from their perspective, can be used to replace employees or free them, as they like to say, from doing all the drudge work so they can add more value, they can move up that food chain. How will that play out? I don't know, but I've gone to my McDonald's lately. There are a lot fewer people working the front counter because now everything is ordered by kiosk.
Wouldn't surprise me if you add AI into the mix and that continues that trend. These jobs aren't amazing. It's honest work, but they don't pay amazingly well. And so it just, it kind of sucks to hear that like, okay, you don't have this amazing paying job. You're working the counter at Burger King. And now every move is being monitored.
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Chapter 3: What are the dangers of AI-generated recipes?
Someone in your ear is telling you to smile, be polite. I feel like I would crack in that, like just constantly being watched. Can I take it off to go to the bathroom or does it need to listen to me there? Oh, you're probably going to get some coaching there too. Maybe, you know, tell you how to go to the bathroom more effectively. I don't know. Or take less time. Yeah, that's right.
Or if you get exactly it times you based on how long you're away from it. So all of these things are in scope. And I mean, it wouldn't surprise me. The headlines are almost going to write themselves. We'll be watching for this because remember, RBI doesn't just own Burger King. They own Tim Hortons, Firehouse Subs, and Popeyes. So this technology could very well be popping up there as well soon.
So asking for a double-double could be an entirely new experience before long. Now, with the current conflict in Iran, what are we seeing online in terms of like misinformation, like, you know, clips of things happening that are just AI generated that didn't happen in an attempt to sway public opinion, both over in the Middle East and here in North America and in Europe? What are we seeing?
Is it I imagine there's no misinformation. This is a perfect world. And all the things being reported about this, this horrific conflict are true. Oh, you're so naive, my friend. No, it's the exact opposite. It is off the charts. I mean, I was just looking at my own feeds on the weekend, and it's just filled with AI slop. I mean, there are some cases.
In one, there was an explosion claiming to be from an Israeli nuclear facility, but it was actually footage from Ukraine in 2017. There was another one. It's supposed to be from a strike on Tel Aviv, but it was actually a Chinese chemical warehouse that blew up in 2015. And
the and the galling one for me is uh there's a purported iranian plane strike that actually was sourced from a video game and that's often the case video games are increasingly high fidelity they're being used to generate ai slop as well and then share it online and so uh you literally like you have to check the source for these things and increasingly even if you lean in the fidelity is so great that it's impossible to tell that it's synthetic and in some cases it is real footage just from somewhere else
And so lean on conventional media. They have fact checking teams, digital investigation teams that are looking into the fidelity. Look for watermarks, both visible and digital.
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Chapter 4: How is Instagram addressing mental health concerns for teens?
And then also, if you only see it on social media and you cannot trace that asset, that video or whatever it is back to a trusted source, you have no business engaging with it or sharing with it or otherwise amplifying it. The vast majority of content in my feed as of today is in fact AI generated and it's probably going to get worse.
I think it's an important moment to make the distinction between myths and disinformation. There are bad actors, you know, trying to influence public opinion and then a well-intentioned person who doesn't want to lie to their friends if they believe a video and then share it on their account.
The primary source trying to influence public opinion, the fake accounts, the person who created the fake video, That's someone spreading disinformation. But if you then share it to your network and you get your network to believe it, even if you made a mistake, even if you thought it was true, you're now spreading misinformation. And that's the goal of these bad actors.
They want people like you to reshare this fake stuff, these fake videos, this AI slop, because... The original source, like, yeah, people won't believe it. But then if you share it, your friends are likely to believe you. If a well-intentioned reporter accidentally reports on something is true using their like, I don't know, clout or their believability at that point, like that is the goal.
And so just be very careful what you share and you believe. Yeah. And I appreciate you drawing that differentiation. Misinformation is the quote unquote better of the two because it's unintentional. But, you know, any kind of... But it's more damaging because misinformation can come from well-intentioned sources. Precisely.
And it gets within our circle of trust because it comes from people that we know and trust. And so ultimately, the end result is the same. It means that we are misinformed and that can lead to some, you know, obviously suboptimal outcomes and bad decisions. So... Lean in, check sources, and resist the urge to click on the share button. Carmi, are you a gourmand? Do you cook a lot?
Oh, I eat a lot. What I cook is, and so I appreciate good food. My wife is a virtuoso cook. I make really good grilled cheese and coffee.
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Chapter 5: What unique features does the MWC 2026 phone have?
I am here with not professional cook, but professional delicious food eater, Carmi Levy, to discuss AI slop polluting your recipe feeds. It is time for technology time. It's the time of the week that Carmi Levy joins us for some time. Carmi's a tech analyst. Carmi, welcome to the show. Thanks. Thanks for making the time, David. I appreciate it. I'll make the jokes around here. Okay. AI slop.
It comes for you in new and creative ways. It seems like every day now. I get called kind of a food snob by my friends and my girlfriend and the people I cook for because I do dinner parties because I prefer to get a recipe from like the New York Times cooking section or like Bon Appetit or one of these fancy, you know, YouTube channels or blogs. So highfalutin. Very impressed. I know.
I don't want to just go to some random cook's website, you know, where they've got a blog and who knows if they know how to write a recipe. That's the online equivalent of fast food. Don't go there.
I agree, but it looks like my snobbery might actually end up with me cooking things that are legit and not just like fake recipes because AI slop is now maybe not dominating, but it's very prevalent online with food stuff. Tell me what's going on there. Yeah, the Globe and Mail did a bit of a deep dive investigation into this, and they found that AI-generated, they call it AI food slop.
So AI slop is just low-quality AI. AI sloppy joes, huh? Hey, there's a recipe I'd eat. But what they're finding is increasingly the recipes themselves, as well as even the videos that are based on those recipes, are increasingly AI-generated. And of course, that allows them to cover a wider audience. It allows them to basically feed fill your feeds and fill subscription channels with content.
But they also found that increasingly a lot of the stuff is just bad. So there'll be glitchy imagery. The imagery is distorted. The recipe isn't quite right. It looks like a reasonable recipe, but one of the ingredients is just off enough that if you try to make it, it will be terrible. It will taste awful and it will fall flat. And so this is becoming the numbers as a percentage of overall
food content, AI food slop content is growing. And increasingly that could ruin your party if you choose to use that. And I think you touched on it at the beginning is make sure that you know the source, right?
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Chapter 6: How does AI contribute to the spread of misinformation?
So does it trace back to a culinary website or app or service that you know and trust. If it's just some random YouTube channel that you came across and it looks like a high quality video, but you can't figure out quite who it is, that could be a tell that this isn't all it claims to be. And you may be in for trouble if you try to use that as the basis for your next dinner party.
You know, you might see something like, add the leaves from rhubarb raw into your salad. Rhubarb leaves are poisonous. Exactly. Or the fugu fish from The Simpsons, right? Like, you know, do not cut it at all. If a recipe says, find a really old thermometer, make sure it has mercury in it, break open the thermometer and add the mercury to your meal. I saw it online. It must be true.
It sounds funny, but like certain food things, if you don't cook them, can be like, OK, what if it tells you to cook the chicken to too low a temperature? You know, like cook your chicken to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It'll be delicious and medium rare. Which is why we never rely on those AI summaries that appear at the top of a search. And oftentimes people will do that.
You're in the kitchen, you're searching for something. Maybe you have a smart speaker, you've got your phone on the counter next to you. And so you ask a question. You ask Google Gemini a question or you ask Siri a question or whatever. And it spits up an answer based on your search results. But you read the AI summary. That could also be wrong.
And that could be, even if it isn't poisonous, it'll just taste terrible. But either way, you don't want to go there. Keep scrolling until you get to the sources that you trust. Click through on those links to the original source website, web page. That way, at least, you can minimize the potential that you're actually consuming AI food slot.
But like, okay, if you didn't know anything about cooking and you followed a recipe to make like a cake and it says dust the cake with some raw flour as a garnish, raw flour can have E. coli and salmonella. Like you can hurt yourself if you follow a recipe. Like food obviously can be dangerous.
And like undercooking chicken, raw flour, like people who don't know what they're doing might not know these things. And an AI slop recipe might not just be disgusting, but it could be harmful for you. Yeah, it's just sad. But like, There are great blogs out there that have been out for like many, many years. I go to Smitten Kitchen. That one's like a 20-year-old blog.
I think it's even mentioned in the article that you sent over covering this topic. So like, yeah. Just, I don't know. Google like what are some reputable food sources. There are many. Yeah. And I find myself doing that now in this age of AI. I'm getting back to populating. I'm making favorites, identifying website favorites in my browser.
And I'm organizing them into folders and all that because, again, I've got to go with what I trust. And unfortunately, AI makes it really difficult to tell what we trust. Let's get back to basics the way it used to be. Here's kind of an interesting one that plays into privacy for kids. Now, kids on social media are always kind of a worrisome thing, I guess. There are studies saying no big deal.
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Chapter 7: What measures can parents take to protect their children online?
I don't have a kid, but if I had a 14-year-old searching for these kinds of things, I would want to know. What do you make of this? Is it a good thing? Is it invading kids' privacy? Maybe a bit of both. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I say this as a parent as well of three kids, although they're in their 20s now, so they're beyond that age.
But we went through this with them with Instagram when they were of that age. And so I don't think it's an invasion of their privacy. I think parents need to have more visibility into their kids' social media use. And certainly this qualifies. And this just adds to the growing list of services, features available to both parents and kids to help keep kids safer online.
And so by that definition, in that context, it is a good thing. It's another tool to add to the toolkit, and it's another thing for parents to talk about with their kids. Again, we're not spying on them. We are alongside them in this social media journey to make sure that it is a safe one for them.
And so if your kid is using Instagram and searching on suicide-related topics repeatedly within a short time period, I think it's a good thing that that flags to mom and dad and a caregiver so that it can, in fact, serve as the basis for necessary conversation. Awareness is the key to this and anything that raises that is a good thing.
I think we should laud Meta for introducing it on Instagram and hopefully it'll come to their other platforms, other apps in the months to come. It's available in Canada, the US, the UK and Australia rolling out now. And they're going to add it'll go global at some point eventually. And yet again, the more the merrier, because up until now, social media use has largely been a quiet thing.
Kids kind of get into trouble on their own without parental awareness. This helps address that and it kind of allows help to be brought in in a timely fashion before a tragedy occurs. Now, while the messaging to parents is a good thing, that's step number one. Step number two is talking to your kids.
And I'm glad we brought this up because tomorrow night on this show, we're going to have a psychologist on to discuss this topic exactly. How to approach your teen if they've been searching for suicide or self-harm content online. Because this is just a first step. I think it's a decent feature of Instagram. I have some privacy concerns, but they're sort of minimal, I think.
All in all, this is a great thing, but how to talk to your kids is important too, and that's what we'll cover on the show tomorrow night. Carmi, I want to get to our last story here. It's a fun one. There's a new phone that has been announced at some tech conferences at MWC. Yeah, MWC stands for Mobile World Congress. It just happened it was in Spain.
It was the world's largest conference of the newest phones on the market. It's kind of like, where's the smartphone market going this year? It's like CES for smartphones. Got it. And one thing everyone didn't know they needed, but once they hear about it, they'll just love is a phone that can start fires on purpose. It's a lighter phone because I've always wanted a lighter phone.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can we learn about verifying online information?
Mission accomplished. Fair enough. It's a publicity stunt and a phone for the rugged outdoorsmen. It reminds me of the camera phone from Flight of the Conchords, which was just a camera and a flip phone duct taped together. It's just like a device we don't need. Two things not mixed together. I got matches. They're good. I'm here with Carmi Levy. It is time for Technology Time.
Carmi joins us every week to discuss the tech stories of the day you need to know about. Carmi, it's been a joy having you on the program. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much, David. Great being with you.
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