[cstavish]

The example of the pizza ordering is technologically impressive, yes... But from an end-user perspective it is at best "as hard" as calling the pizza place and talking to a human taking your order.

There are many use cases where it could actually provide value, but I found it funny that they chose to demonstrate one to the press that really afforded end-users no advantage.

[chongli]

The point they emphasize in the article is that Viv is supposed to allow you to say "get me pizza, flowers, a bottle of wine, and two tickets to the opera" and then it helps you figure out all that stuff and handles everything for you without you having to make any phone calls, type anything, or open any apps.

[dfischer]

That's like saying it's just as easy to call a taxi company than use Uber. (It's about the ux).

[miguelrochefort]

It's like these fools forgot that natural language sucks as an interface.

Look at the whole bot/messaging craze. The way people get excited by this is beyond me.

Surely, all of this is a symptom of howuch people hate software fragmentation. Fortunately, there are other ways to fix it.

[dfischer]

That's a temporary problem that is getting better as the years go by. Conversation is the most natural interface.

"Wish it, and it is done, my genie."

[redplasticcup]

What if the pizza cost half as much now because it didn't require a human to standby and take the order?

[grogenaut]

I can already order my pizza with an app or with Yo Dominoes... and they cost the same...

Not sure if it's because the person on the phone is doing other stuff at the same time or if it's more like eBooks where they cost the same as Paperbacks because "more profit".

[ams6110]

That is the case. Only when the store is very busy will they have dedicated phone order takers. The rest of the time the drivers who are waiting for the next delivery, the pizza makers, and/or managers handle the phones.

Used to work at a Dominos, though it was pre-internet days. Not sure how much online business the typical store now gets, I know I still always call when I order pizza because it's faster than dealing with the website.

Annoyingly at Dominos they now also have an automated attendant answer the call initially, which reads off the daily specials. That's a big reason I don't often order Dominos anymore but instead call a competitor who still has live humans answering the phone.

When I was at Dominos we had a standard of no more than two rings before a person picked up. People would sprint across the store to get the phone before the third ring.

[seanp2k2]

Why not get headsets like they have at fast food places? Edit: I feel like that would be a lot cheaper than even one worker comp claim slipping on a flour-covered floor in a pizza place.

[bagacrap]

I think it's optimistic to think the pizza making process at Domino's involves any loose flour. I would have imagined frozen and/or refrigerated lumps of premade dough on a rack.

[drabiega]

I don't know about Dominoes, but when I worked for Papa Johns many years ago loose flour was involved in the process of shaping the refrigerated lumps of premade dough into a pizza crust.

[calbear81]

The real savings would come if you have a pizza bot that made pizzas without much human intervention and a drone picked it up and dropped it off and flew back to base.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Automated pizza making machines already exist[1] (skip to near end of video to see it in action). Proof of concept: Simply take the end product and pick it up with a multi-rotor and have it autonomously deliver it to the next room.

I've definitely eaten some frozen pizza that were as good as or better than the $5 pizza's from Dominos, I'm in Australia, YMMV.

I imagine if this was more profitable than the existing technology - humans placing toppings and delivering them - it would already be done.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZzRL_9_zJA

[PeterisP]

As with many other jobs, the only advantage humans currently have is that they can do it cheaper than robots. For now.

[dzhiurgis]

Dominos and Pizza Hut are awful in Australia and New Zealand. $5 here is pretty much poverty food; even McDonalds cost way more. In UK Domino's is ok, but cost around 15 pounds delivered.

[ams6110]

I agree that Dominos is awful now. I always thought Pizza Hut was pretty bad.

I think when Dominos changed from real baking ovens to what they now use (effectively a conveyorized giant hair dryer) there was a marked change. They had to change the dough so it would not bubble, because the point of the automatic oven is that you would not need a skilled person to monitor the baking.

The conveyor ovens do save labor. When you have 600-degree baking ovens stacked in decks, and you have to watch for and pop bubbles and turn the pies halfway through, and the difference between a pizza being "done" and "burnt" is about 30 seconds, it requires an attentive and coordinated person (sometimes two or three if they are busy) to manage it all. But the pizzas taste better.

[pessimizer]

People who work at pizza places make far less than a dollar a minute (assuming you have a very complicated, very small order.)