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China AI Privacy

China 'Smart Restaurant' Uses Facial Recognition To Make Meal Suggestions (techcrunch.com) 61

Posted by EditorDavid from the how-about-chicken dept.
An anonymous reader quotes TechCrunch's report about Baidu's newest project: The search giant sometimes referred to as the 'Google of China' partnered with KFC to open a new "smart restaurant" in Beijing, which employs facial recognition to make recommendations about what customers might order, based on factors like their age, gender and facial expression... image recognition hardware installed at the KFC will scan customer faces, seeking to infer moods, and guess other information including gender an age in order to inform their recommendation... And the setup also has built-in recognition, so if you're a return customer, it can 'remember' what you ordered before and suggest your past favorites.
Baidu has also worked on another KFC restaurant in Shanghai where the orders were taken by a voice-activated robot.
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China 'Smart Restaurant' Uses Facial Recognition To Make Meal Suggestions More

China 'Smart Restaurant' Uses Facial Recognition To Make Meal Suggestions

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  • Robo-waiter recommends water and a salad (Score:5, Funny)

    by lxs ( 131946 ) on Sunday December 25, 2016 @08:39AM (#53551485)

    Based on the roundness of your face.

    • Based on the roundness of your face and the profit margin. They don't care about your health.

      • Please read TFSummary until the expression : "return customer".

        They don't care about your health.

        They DO care a tiny bit about the customers' health. Not as much as to earn a Nobel price, but just barely enough to make sure that customer lives long enough to return again and spend their money again.
        (That's why they don't outright actively try to poison their customers)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by c ( 8461 )

          They DO care a tiny bit about the customers' health. Not as much as to earn a Nobel price, but just barely enough to make sure that customer lives long enough to return again and spend their money again.

          True enough, but I'm willing to bet that the point where the health versus profit curve peaks is not a place where the average person should or wants to be.

          If the industry has any brains then that curve and any research behind it will be buried deeply enough that the inevitable obesity epidemic fast food ind

          • I work as a programmer for KFC. Here is the source code for the recommendation algorithm:

            String
            getRecommendation(Customer customer)
            {
                  switch (getCustomerPreference(customer.facialImage)) {
                    default:
                            return "Chicken";
                    }
            }

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They have had something like this in Japan for years. They have vending machines with facial recognition that estimates gender age. It then recommends a drink, based on trends like "middle aged women on the train platform on a hot day like to drink fruit juice".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      Robo-waiter recommends go easy on the chilli for the Round-Eyes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Robot-waiter: (musing to itself) looks like Kim Jung-Un.

      Lil'Kimmy: I'd like a salad and a diet coke.

      Robot-waiter: Whoa there, Big Guy, would you feel better with a supersized Mc-Steak-O-Fat sandwich, lard induced fries, and an 80 ounce Jolt cola.

      Lil'Kimmy: Hehehe....just kidding, I'd like 800 McDoubleQuarterPounders with the extra layers of cheeze and a case of Jolt....to go.

    • water

      In other words, a liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea?

  • You have your customer in the store they are going to buy something if China KFC is anything like the American version most people when they get to the checkout knows what they want. At best you may recommend some up sales or push food with a higher probability. But I don't see the need for all that technology for such a small advantage.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )

      if China KFC is anything like the American version most people when they get to the checkout knows what they want.

      Yes, and that is the problem they attempt to solve. The goal would be changing what people want towards what gives the most profit in the least amount of time, or new items that they want customers to sample at least once.

      A little nudge, a little reminder of other items, but within what has a higher likelihood of being acceptable.
      It doesn't have to work on all or even a majority of customers; as long as it works on just a small percentage, it's still going to increase profits. As long as it's not alienati

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      if China KFC is anything like the American version most people when they get to the checkout knows what they want.

      Perhaps not. In the US fried chicken is comfort food you grandma may have cooked. In China it's exotic foreign swill.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by E-Lad ( 1262 )

      This, plus the aspect of us steadily outsourcing personal decisions and choices. Makes me wonder if the future General Public will actually be capable of thinking for themselves without having some technological crutch be a part of it.

  • On your next visit it might just put in an order for a knuckle sandwich.

    I hear the robotic maître d' has a wicked uppercut.

  • I bet it always recommends the customer upsizes their meal.

  • If you look Asian, all the Chinese food. If you look western, only the meals the westerns like (because there is a lot of stuff in the Chinese food we don't like!)
  • If I'm at KFC, I want chicken of some kind. I'll decide what, based on what I have a taste for, not what a programmer typed into an algorithm.

  • Funny story (Score:3)

    by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Sunday December 25, 2016 @11:27AM (#53551879)
    When KFC first kame to China in 1987, the slogan was mis translated. Instead of "Finger Lickin' Good", it was "eat your fingers off". http://www.oddee.com/item_9773... [oddee.com]

    Wonder how this could go wrong.....

  • Let's start a patreon to fund a visit from Danny John-Jules dressed up as the Cat, and have him go in there and repeatedly ask for "Fish!"

  • John Anderton! You could use a Guinness right now!

  • I was thinking it would be funnier if it was:
    China 'Smart Restaurant' Uses Fecal Recognition To Make Meal Suggestions

    "So, Chang Li, it seems you need more bran in your diet. Ditch the won ton and have a muffin, k?"
  • Theres not to many options at KFC.... There's chicken, chicken or Chicken burger..

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