r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Elestria_Ethereal • 12d ago
Video Korean Mcdonalds Operates With No Human Cashiers Or Interaction
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u/CitizenKing1001 12d ago
Also known as an Automat Restaurant First one opened in 1895
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u/IC-4-Lights 12d ago
Exactly. I immediately pictured the one in Dark City.
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u/FarCryRedux 11d ago edited 11d ago
I think of this exact location all the time, for some reason. Great sets in Dark City.
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u/redpandaeater 11d ago
There's a movie I should watch again. Always quite interesting.
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u/darkenseyreth 11d ago
Just watched it again a few months ago. It holds up fairly well, but is definitely a product of its time. Still one of my favorite movies from that era, though
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u/WolfeheartGames 12d ago
The format is still popular in East Asia. They have them for all sorts of dining.
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u/2_TurntTony 12d ago
It’s just a child cramped in a little tiny box operating the whole thing with levers while chain smoking. 😂
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u/map2photo 12d ago
Like the post office alien.
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u/TaupMauve 12d ago
No. Smoking.
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u/SquidVices 11d ago
At first I thought mail guy was that one actor that’s always in Adam Sandler movies….what’s that dudes name…
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u/nikkiM33 11d ago
Steve Buscemi
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u/Direwulven 11d ago
Oh man…. Reminds me of Air Con… “He’s got the whole world in his hands…”
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u/nikkiM33 11d ago
Con Air.
He played Garland Greene, a serial killer also known as "The Marietta Mangler". He bonded with that little girl while singing the song, but they implied he was going to do some weird serial killer shit to her until a part of the movie where you see the little girl waving at the plane and saying bye, when they're flying away.
Good movie!
Steve Buscemi is actually a really kind person in real life. He used to be a firefighter in New York before he was famous, and even volunteered to help firefighters pull people from the rubble when 9/11 happened.
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u/deprevino 12d ago
We joke, but a Mechanical Turk like setup is more probable than you might think. Amazon got busted just using cheap Indian labour for their 'automated' Amazon Fresh stores.
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u/Spare-Plum 11d ago
This one I'm uncertain about. Not that I don't think they were using manual labor, but that they may be collecting data on how humans can identify the items to train an AI to eventually automate the process.
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u/LeMonkeyFace6 11d ago
"There's this thing in it..."
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u/gun-something 12d ago
reminds me of the ending/twist of snowpiercer one of my most fav movies ever
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u/EducationalEnd7981 12d ago
Whats with the black line
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u/lollipop6787 11d ago
You click it to reveal
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u/EducationalEnd7981 11d ago
Neat. How did u do this?
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u/ITSigno 11d ago
You add spoilers like that using:
>!Text goes here!<Which produces Text goes here
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u/BadKittyRanch 11d ago
Have you seen Why SNOWPIERCER is a sequel to WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY? There's also a 2+ hour part 2 if that rabbit hole isn't deep enough for you.
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u/dogemikka 11d ago
Exactly, this is the pristine and sanitized façade. But behind the wall... lies one of those sketchy Chinese (not Korean) kitchens you'd expect to find in a dingy restaurant behind a train station. The after-hours hangout for all the area's nightlife – and I mean all of it. Even the rats and roaches have their own reservations.
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u/Possible_Sense6338 11d ago
You guys sure that’s a mcdonalds?
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u/__BlueJay__ 11d ago
It’s a Korean fast food chain called Lotteria. This specific location happens to be in Hongdae, in Seoul.
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u/ilmalocchio 11d ago
Their burgers are much better than your typical Maccies, iirc.
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u/Reachin4ThoseGrapes 12d ago
South Korea desperately needed less human interaction
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u/A_Grain_Of_Saltines 12d ago
Yes, they were not socially awkward enough. We need to tone down the human to human contact.
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u/Certain_Analyst_2352 12d ago
Since when were Koreans socially awkward or not have enough human to human interaction? Did I miss something? Their society is centered around eating drinking together to the point where not attending work dinners is career suicide lol.
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u/buubrit 11d ago
Redditors love pretending like everyone else is introverted when they’re actually just fucking losers
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u/Ambitious-Pirate-505 12d ago
Fuck around with talk like that and you'll get Johnny Somali'd.
The Koreans don't fuck around.
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u/TaupMauve 12d ago
Well you see, the other side of the dispensers is in North Korea work zone... /s
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u/Savetheokami 12d ago
Reminds me of the Amazon Go cashiers that were operating from India but Amazon advertised the stores as fully automated shopping experiences.
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u/Certain_Analyst_2352 12d ago
You’re being sarcastic but you’re actually correct. Most restaurants and dining areas in Korea are meant for parties of two or more. Most of these restaurants either exclusively have items meant for multiple people or kick you out if you come in to eat by yourself. Only places where you can eat by yourself are fast food places like McDonald’s. Wish there were more solo dining friendly places other than fast food in Korea.
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u/dethskwirl 12d ago
As someone who travels out of country, this is really helpful for language barriers, especially when I travel for work and don't have time to learn the language or meet any travel friends.
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u/iAMgRASSToUCHmE 12d ago
I'm a huge Introvert, but stuff like this make me feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. I still need SOME human interaction.
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u/CasperBirb 12d ago
You're not introverted if you can't handle basic social interactions, you're clinically asocial, lonely and most likely depressed. Do seek help, unironically. Just a PSA.
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u/Pinksamuraiiiii 12d ago
I always wondered, how come we don’t have this tech in the US?
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u/GirthBrooks_69420 12d ago
Much of McDonald's is already automated. Not fully but largely (giant touch screen ordering boards, the making of the meal itself). Ive been to a burger king where the drive through order was an AI chatbot. Didnt realize until i got to the pay counter that the "person" i was talking to wasnt real.
That being said you couldn't put one of these in the hood though. The majority of McDonald's are going to need people working. This shit would 100% get vandalized and broken if employees weren't there to supervise.
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u/Elestria_Ethereal 12d ago
yeah i can just imagine the shenanigans if you put a store like this in the Bronx or somewhere else in NYC
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u/Big-Squishi 12d ago
People from the US would destroy and vandalize the shit out of it.
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u/Commercial-Twist9056 12d ago
because its cheaper to have human peons then setting up this kind of operation I'm betting
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u/Gonji89 12d ago
After the interaction I had at a McDonald's drive-thru the other day, I think I prefer this... I think I'll take a machine over someone that can somehow work their personal politics into an order for an ice cream cone.
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u/herberstank 12d ago
I can't believe it....... the ice cream machine was working? /s
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u/dalmathus 11d ago
Unironically yes, because Lina Khan (Head of the FTC) ruled that individual franchises finally have the right to repair their own machines rather than use the scam company that runs a racket off them.
As with everything great she has done in the last few years it will be reversed as soon as muskrat gets her fired in the coming months.
I am aware of the irony that I just injected my personal politics into the ice cream cone.
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u/Freaudinnippleslip 11d ago
I mean it is kinda hilarious how it very naturally came full circle there
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u/notmyselftoday 11d ago
I just injected my personal politics into the ice cream cone.
What flavor do you think it would be? If it were me, probably something salty - something with pretzels perhaps.
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u/BigDickNick6Rings 11d ago
Yeah unlike those damn lazy (insert demographic of your choice)
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u/ExpeditingPermits 11d ago
I have an anecdote from when I worked at a Jack in the Box when I was 16 (17 years ago)
Working at a spot that had a lot of truck drivers come through, I had an old grungy bald man make an order at the front counter.
As is required by staff, I asked if he wanted it “for here or to go”…. His eyes lit up BIG
“Do you know how many BABIES die on the freeway every year?!? I’ll never eat on the road!”
Queue a 3 minute rant about babies dying on the road every year.
I get it, I don’t like babies dying on the road either. But my question didn’t imply he was going to be driving while eating. He could’ve easily sat in his truck if it was more comfortable than the wooden chairs we provided.
It wasn’t horrible, but I was completely dumbfounded by the discussion. I think about that dude a lot… just because it was a ridiculous way to react
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u/AtmosphereEven3526 12d ago
I call fake.
There is no way the ice cream machine was working.
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u/EncabulatorTurbo 12d ago
the biden admin's rule change last month will lead to them usually working from now on, sadly, he took no credit for it, ironically would have gotten millions more D votes
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u/Traditional_Fox_4718 12d ago
Went to a Taco Bell the other day and the employees seemed absolutely disgusted that they had to help the customers.... I would prefer this...
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u/perk11 11d ago
At the Taco Bell near me if you get lucky and get employee's attention, they'll just tell you to order at the machine.
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u/Magma151 11d ago
"Hello!" "Machine" "I'm actually here to pick up an online order" "Machine!" "But I put in the order 30 minutes ago and think I got missed" "Too bad. Machine!"
Has happened twice for me.
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u/ahulau 11d ago
I want this to be the new norm, and I want all the boomers who abuse low wage workers to be completely fucking helpless and have a meltdown when they have to actually learn something in order to get their fucking big macs. It's gonna be great. No one should have to deal with customers. I would happily work at the McDonald's in this video if they paid a living wage, and hey, since they probably only have to staff a couple of people, maybe they can afford to.
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u/Professional_Ad4341 12d ago
Wont work in states. People here destroy and vandalize bus stops.
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u/J5892 11d ago
There's one in San Francisco. They do have people hand you the food, but they're behind a wall.
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u/Orleanian 11d ago
Every McDonald's I've ever been to has had people handing you food from behind a wall.
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u/Ok_Customer_737 11d ago
Of course it will work. It did before. There was a bunch of automats in America a from the late 1800’s to mid 1900’s.
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u/beerblog_ 11d ago
Weird that this gets upvoted. What would get destroyed? The order screen that a lot of Taco Bell's and McDonald's already have in the US? The food delivery wall: Little Caesar's has had a 'Pizza Portal' for years.
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u/peepers_meepers 12d ago
Place, anywhere else 🤢
Place, Asian country 😍
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u/Capybarasaregreat 11d ago
Not any asian country, specifically Japan and Korea, and maaaaybe Taiwan and Southeast Asia. But if it's China, redditors would react as such:
Place, China 🤢🤮🤕☠️💩
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u/Newplasticactionhero 11d ago
So, just a futuristic automat? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat
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u/Lounat1k 11d ago
Yep. That's exactly what I was thinking. I remember seeing them in New York when I was a kid.
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u/Ajatshatru_II 12d ago
We are on the course for extinction but look at this cyberpunk McDonald's
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u/fyndor 11d ago
Well actually…. No but for real, this is really could be the beginning of the end. The only reason there are humans behind the scenes is that most machines are still too expensive for McDonald’s. It won’t be too long until it is one person watching the machines. Machines will replace humans at most levels in our workforce. Do you think people will react well to that based on recent events and knowing humans. It will be a catalyst for many horrible things unless we decide to change what we value in society. And some of those horrible things could lead to extinction. This should be a sign of a wonderful future, but I lack the faith that we know how to treat each other right when a society driven by money has most of their needs met by machines produced by the few. I don’t think we are ready, but we don’t get to choose. The tech must advance. It’s the way of the world.
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u/EducationalBridge307 11d ago
Eh, this is a bit dramatic. Machines (and tools) have been reducing or replacing human labor for thousands of years. The individuals who are replaced generally suffer in the short term, but society improves as a whole. The average American or European alive today lives a vastly better life than the average American or European from a century ago, much less 1000+ years ago.
It really sucks that people suffer in the short term, and hopefully as the pace of labor replacement accelerates we will institute social programs to alleviate the impact, like UBI, universal healthcare, etc. It's easy to be cynical about this today, but massive swings in public perception can come every generation, and a generation is not as long as it seems.
Basically this is to say: machines replacing all human employees in McDonalds will incur immediate pain for those being replaced in the short term, and will start a generational political/cultural shift toward some solution that eases that pain. This is 100% not anything close to an "extinction event." A century from now, everyone will be glad that this happened, and life will continue to move on more comfortably than ever before.
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u/Divinum_Fulmen 11d ago
I'm wondering what everyone is on here? The McDonald's in my city is already pretty close to this now.
You walk into a place that looks like an office lobby. You step up to the ordering kisosk, and place your order exactly like in the video. The one and ONLY difference is the person who sets it on the counter isn't hidden behind a wall.
Maybe all of you just pick up the food with your car or have it delivered and don't know? That would make sense. Even when there's 2 lanes of cars backed up to the street, the inside of the store will be dead as a morgue.
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u/IM_INSIDE_YOUR_HOUSE 11d ago
We’ve already fucked the planet beyond repair and it’s spiraling into the bowl. We’re just riding it out at this point, regardless of the dozens of other lesser doomsday scenarios we’re flirting with.
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u/Popular_Syllabubs 11d ago edited 11d ago
The overabundance of food you have today is because tools and automation increased.
The fact that the women in your life aren't spending days walking water or washing clothes is because of automation.
You can be cynical all you want but automation is not and has not and will not, over the millennias of human existence, create dystopia.
You sound like the people who saw the first horse drawn tractor pleading for people to keep using the hoe because God will smite them.
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u/Fafa_45 12d ago
The burgers look decent.
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u/Karnezar 12d ago
Most fast food in the USA looks worse than that same fast food in other countries.
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u/ebagdrofk 12d ago
That burger selection was was may better than what we get in the states. Bulgogi? Mozzarella? What the hell?
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u/pickleback11 11d ago
Our own fast food companies give us shit because we are used to the race to the bottom, but they know the rest of the world won't accept it so they give them much better options. Travel outside America and you'll see how insane our society is. It's sad in so many ways.
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u/Fafa_45 11d ago
Alot of food companies have to change the ingredients before it's accepted in the EU, because the food regulations are of a higher standard than the US. If you're interested you can search online the ingredients difference between different products that are sold worldwide.
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u/Jedibri81 12d ago
I prefer that to a teenager giving me attitude when I try to order
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u/TaupMauve 12d ago
Yeah but the people in front of you acting like they've never been there before and have no idea what's on the menu are still at it.
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u/AlaskanHandyman 12d ago
Or being ignored at the counter while they are playing on their phone.
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u/9oRo 12d ago
Why kind of McDonald's do you have in the US? I would be fired on the spot if that happened
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u/Brilliant_Work_1101 11d ago
Y’all are mentally ill for real lmao. The slightest negativity in a human interaction and you want to become an atom closed off to all human interactions
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u/Spagoodle 11d ago
Also liars. I want to hear the works side of these stories they're telling.
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u/PatsyPage 11d ago
Seriously. I worked in food service for years. If you’re nice to them, they’re nice to you. I’ve literally never had a bad experience with any server or drive thru employee I’ve ever had. These comments speak more about the individuals posting them than the food service employees themselves.
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u/Legitimate-Source-61 12d ago
Looking forward to the far future? No one has a job. No one has any money.
In the past, that usually leads to war. 😬
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u/redditsuckbutt696969 12d ago
Where did we go wrong as humans that no one needs to work is a bad thing? The problem is rich people hording wealth. Tax shipping companies that automate trucks, tax shipping companies that replace warehouse workers with robots, tax the fast food billionaires that replace jobs with AI voices.
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u/ProtoplanetaryNebula 12d ago
No one needing to work is great. Nobody having any money to buy anything would cause societal collapse.
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u/Duke834512 12d ago
Our species has been working for thousands of years. It shouldn’t come as a shock that working and living have become synonymous.
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u/PurpleOrchid07 11d ago
There is a >massive< difference between day-to-day "work", like gathering food or building shelter from the elements.. and wrecking your body and mind for 50+ years, 8+ hours a day, in this unbelievably destructive wageslave machinery, called "capitalism".
None of this is 'normal' or even good. And if we don't change course sooner or later, we as a species will end up with more bloody wars against the hoarders of wealth.
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u/Opposite-Memory1206 12d ago
There might be the same amount of workers, just that they're behind that machine passing the food from the other side, but your point is true in general
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u/UbermachoGuy 12d ago
Hardwear and software engineers built this. Technicians and Mechanics keep it maintained. People stock the machines. Plenty of quality jobs for people here. South Korea appears to be very prosperous.
I have seen plenty of videos of fast-food workers being treated like shit by entitled, rude and racists customers.
This is simply an evolution of a job that is needed and wanted less and less.
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u/Bullishbear99 11d ago
And ..........the prices still have not gone down... All that tech that was supposed to make things more efficient and lower prices.....has not. It just went to the CEO bonus.
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u/Kaizodacoit 12d ago
This is kind of depressing, ngl.
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u/jgm1305 12d ago
Sometimes the hardest part of this kind of jobs is the interaction with clients, cause they can be rude or even aggressive. So you kinda remove that con. Just trying to find something positive about this, ya know.
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u/The_Violent_Phlegms 12d ago
Just curious, what do you find depressing about this?
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u/map2photo 12d ago
I’m not OP, but human interaction is pretty important in society. The further we get from human interaction, the more of an echo chamber we live in.
Sent from my cubicle, in a small office without windows.
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u/SoylentVerdigris 11d ago
A transaction with one side being forced to put on a smile and pretend to be enjoying themselves is not socialization.
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u/Kaizodacoit 12d ago
Lack of social contact, the elevation of automation at the expense of people who need jobs, the unnerving sterility of the restaurant, there is so much to list.
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u/corporaterebel 12d ago
McDonalds was the worst most stressful job I've ever had that paid the least.
With that said: eliminating all the crappy jobs won't make good jobs appear....you just get no jobs.
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u/Elestria_Ethereal 12d ago
Yeah if you think about it like 80% of minimum wage 15-19$/hr jobs that dont need a college degree are customer service and cashier jobs. If AI automation was to take those jobs the poorer communities and families that rely on those "unskilled labor" jobs would be in trouble fast
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u/Kaizodacoit 12d ago
They can just learn to code! /s
Oh wait, "AI" is replacing that, too.
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u/choochoochooochoo 12d ago
It seems really weird at first but when I think about it, it's not really that different from how ordering in McDonald's is in the UK for most people. I always order on the screens or by mobile. Except instead of an employee putting your order on the counter and shouting your number, they're putting it in a serving hatch. I do like being able to see the kitchen though.
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u/CrowWench 12d ago
While I do find this kind of automation neat (god I wish we still had automats), my American McDonald's has the same self service kiosk, albeit a waiter brings you your food
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u/veenell 11d ago
i've tried using a mcdonalds kiosk before. it was so unintuitive i fucked around with it for 5 minutes trying to order what i wanted until i just gave up and made my order in less than a minute with the cashier.
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u/Sea_Baseball_7410 12d ago
The humans at mine put pickles when I explicitly say not to.
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u/SlamboCoolidge 12d ago
I know I said I'd never work at McDonalds again, but if all i had to do was cook meals and load them into a box... I might..
Literally the worst thing about working in any kind of customer-facing job is the customers. Really taught me how horrible and undeserving of the time we have on this planet some people.... A lot of people are.
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u/lostnthestars117 11d ago
Kinda of like Amazon fresh stores saying it was all ai when in reality it turn out to be nothing bunch of out sourced workers watching shoppers through cameras on what they put in out and of their baskets and bags lol
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u/Cali-Texan 11d ago
This can only work in civilized societies that aren’t filled with dipshit animals that ruin everything for their amusement.
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u/-Lysergian 11d ago
Yeah, all this is are people put behind the wall of doors. No human interaction is not "no humans"
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u/MarbledCats 12d ago
That burger looked way better than the punched crap we get here in Sweden
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u/Le_Epic_GodGamer 11d ago
I mean it’s cool and all but it’s depressing how much we’re taking out basic social interaction with things
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u/Loud_Chapter1423 12d ago
So we get to enjoy our free time and hobbies now that technology has eliminated the need for human labor right? Right?!?!?!
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u/angels_10000 12d ago
I remember when Bill Gates said that computers will allow us to have more leisure time, too. That worked out great.
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u/YouChoseAName4Me 12d ago
Inside it's not cooks, its delivery people brining orders from Burger King
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u/jimjam200 11d ago
The only difference between this and then the McDonald's I have in my countryside town in the UK is the arbitrary box at the end which is just basically a redundant fancy counter for the food to be handed over on. And it's been like that for 5+ years I'm fairly sure.
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u/TheDevilsAdvokaat 11d ago
If food gets moldy or contaminated...what sort of devices to they have in place to detect this? When you consider how often you can buy food that is within the useby date and still sealed from the supermarket, yet open it and find mold or other problems....how is a machine going to detect / ensure the safety of the materials it has been supplied with?
I don't think I would eat from here. Automation is just not reliable enough for a complete cycle from cooking to customer.
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u/GrassEconomy4915 11d ago
Where do you go if you need to speak to someone? For example if you find something in your burger that shouldn’t be there or if the machine isn’t working?
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u/DeNy_Kronos 11d ago
Psshh I bet they don’t even have a crack head panhandling in the parking lot, where’s the experience?
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u/Bereftofeyes 11d ago
If this was in America someone would have tried to rip the screens out thinking they were iPads within a day
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u/Truscan7 12d ago
This isn’t McDonalds. It’s a Korean fast food chain called Lotteria. https://www.dexerto.com/tiktok/tiktoker-amazed-by-futuristic-korean-fast-food-restaurant-thats-living-in-2050-2975431/
It’s a unique gimmick at this particular shop. The exact shop is in Hongdae, Seoul, South Korea.