AI Is Fired: Starbucks Takes U-Turn After It Couldn’t Count Milk Cartons

The

debate over artificial intelligence taking over jobs is picking up pace once again. While tech leaders often echo the sentiment that AI will further create job opportunities, a new incident shows how AI tools are still capable enough to identify milk cartons. Starbucks has terminated an AI-led initiative nine months after it deployed it across its stores in North America, as per Reuters.

Here’s What Happened

As per Reuters, Starbucks deployed an AI-powered technology to solve the coffee chain’s product shortage issues, which were hurting the company’s sales. Part of the CEO Brian Niccol’s idea, the technology could have helped workers with a tablet to scan inventory, replacing manual counting with what seemed to be a faster and more accurate approach. The AI programme was using cameras and LIDAR tech.Unfortunately, the technology reportedly failed, and it miscounted items. Moreover, it was found to be mis-labelling products. It also could not find the difference between different milk types and missed several products altogether. This incident reflects a major issue that shows how relying on technology may also increase the work of staff members rather than helping them. AI systems might help users to spot hidden flaws, but there are still a lot of tasks it cannot perform accurately. It needs context and data to process a lot of instructions given to it. The coffee chain decided to stick to the older methods. Reportedly, an internal newsletter read, “Starting today, automated counting will be retired. Beverage components and milk will now be counted the same way you count other inventory categories in your coffeehouse.” It simply means that humans will take the responsibility once again AI is assigned.

What lies ahead is the balance that humans need to strike with the AI. This episode shows how AI technology still has a lot of limitations. AI could help users write code, but there is still time for how it eventually replaces most of the white-collar jobs.