this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2025
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Taco Bell's app would probably work better if it was vibe coded.
Lmao yeah, I mean I haven’t used Taco Bell’s, but so many websites and apps are total garbage.
In my experience, the large self-service kiosks at McDonald's are pretty decent (unless they crash, which happens too often). Many people (including myself) use them voluntarily, because if it is nice to have more control of and visual information about your order (including prices, product images, nutritional information, allergens etc.). You don't even need to wait in line anymore if their staff brings your order directly to your table. You don't need to use any tricks to speak to a human either, because you can always go to the counter and order there instead. However, this only works because the kiosks are customer-friendly enough that you don't have to force most people to use them.
I know that even those kiosks probably aren't great in the sense that they may replace some jobs, at least over the short-term. However, if customers truly like something, this might still lead to more demand and thus more jobs in other areas (people who carry your order to your table, people who prepare the food itself, people who code those apps - unless they are truly "vibe-coded", maintain the kiosks, design their content etc.).
However, the current "breed" of AI bots is a far cry away from even that, in my impression. They are really primarily used as a threat to “uppity” labor, and who cares about the customers?
By the way, I know there is an argument that "low-skilled" jobs should not be eliminated because there are supposedly people who are unable to perform more demanding and varied tasks. But I believe this is partly a myth that was invented as a result of the industrial revolution, because back then, a very large number of people were needed to do such jobs. In addition, this doesn't even address the fact that many of these jobs require some type of specific skill anyway (which isn't getting rewarded appropriately, though).
The best example to this day are immigrants who have to do "low-skilled" jobs even though they possess academic degrees from their home countries. In such cases, I believe that automation could even lead to the creation of more jobs that match their true skill levels.
Another problem is that, especially in countries like the US, low-wage jobs are used as a substitute for a reasonable social safety net.
AI (especially large language models) is, of course, a separate issue, because it is claimed that AI could replace highly skilled and creative workers, which, on the one hand, is used as a constant threat and, on the other hand, is not even remotely true according to current experience.