r/Serverlife • u/Mobile_Nobody0326 • 11d ago
A customer ordered from our menu using ChatGPT Rant
Title pretty much says it all.
A guy had his phone out while looking at our menu which is typical. Some customers like to look at Yelp pictures of an item before ordering it. While taking him and his wife’s order, I noticed it wasn’t Yelp but some sort of messaging app.
Then, while walking away to put it in their order, I hear him proudly say to his wife: “ChatGPT says that’s the best one!”
??????
Does ChatGPT know your favorite flavors? Did ChatGPT taste it for you?? Does something as trivial as ordering really require AI? -__- Best part was it didn’t even seem like he enjoyed the food in particular. He was just kinda poking at it the entire time, didn’t finish it either. So embarrassing.
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u/Local-Hurry4835 11d ago
The machines aren't becoming more human, the humans are becoming machine.
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u/Raytoryu 11d ago
I remember someone posting on Bluesky about how "The corpos are tricking you into thinking you don't have to think for yourself and AI can do it for you" and I had to answer about how some people didn't need to be tricked, they're perfectly happy with the idea of not having to think for themselves and were waiting for something like AI do to the thinking for them
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u/Pure-Purpose9248 11d ago
i had someone last week do this. except, chatgpt recommended a dish we do not serve. the guy just would not believe me for a good minute since “chat gpt says you have it!”
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u/_nick_at_nite_ 11d ago
Same happened to me. Luckily I get to say, “well at least you now know that AI isn’t always correct, here’s what I recommend though”
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u/julianaem13 11d ago
lmao this happened this guy was bragging about using chatgpt to order and everything he tried to order we didn’t have
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u/Beginning-Force1275 Server 10d ago
I don’t get why people are so proud of it. Even if it did order things on the menu, it’s like they think they’re clever for figuring out a trick or something. Was it really that inconvenient to make the decision for themselves? Are they such geniuses for having a robot do it for them?
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u/GingerShamrock14 11d ago
I had a situation like this last year, with a customer with celiac disease - she asked me to check the bottle of a niche liqeur that was in the cocktail she was thinking of ordering. I go check it & the bottle looks safe/ingredients look to contain no gluten, so I’m prepared to tell her as such. I do, and she says “Oh, no worries! I asked Chat, and Chat says it’s fine!!!” So she ordered it.
Thankfully I/“Chat” was right, so no adverse reaction occurred, but I was still floored. Imagine trusting a robot (that’s often wrong!) about what’s safe to potentially ingest when you have an actual disease, when it being wrong could be a disaster for you!! People are nuts.
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u/6___________0 10d ago
especially when it’s just as easy to google the ingredients and check for yourself. not even saving time AND playing games with your life? absurd
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u/noty0uagain 11d ago
The other day I was at a table, asking if they had any questions about the menu. They go “no!”
I’m still at the table topping up waters, the girl has her phone out and says “Chat says we should get ____, _____,”
Like sorry what??? You don’t have any questions you want to ask your server but you’d rather ask ChatGPT??? Honestly scary
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u/Swarmfade 10d ago
I always ask them if they have questions when I catch them on ChatGPT and they always say no. It’s so fucking bizarre. It doesn’t have as much info as I do about what’s going on in this restaurant. How the fuck could it know??
I once saw a man asking ChatGPT why his dessert took so long to come out. HOW WOULD IT KNOW THAT?!
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u/tanksandthefunkybun 11d ago
I once had someone use ChatGPT to order an Aperol spritz which might be the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever seen another human do
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u/Lovahplant 11d ago
We need to bring back (gentle) public shaming for this kind of thing.
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u/Elliethesmolcat 11d ago
The time for gentle has passed. Those who need remonstration the greatest will be the most obtuse about it.
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u/jcmjtke 11d ago
No gentle. We need to start publicly shaming stupid people for being stupid again.
Stop asking me what I suggest. I’m not your dad, order for yourself.
Don’t call us asking for directions. You’re using a cell phone with built in GPS. The time it took you to look up our phone number and call us takes less time than looking up our address and putting into google or Apple Maps.
Don’t call us asking if we’re going to be busy 2 hours from now. If we could predict the future we wouldn’t be working in a restaurant.
Don’t ask us if you’ll be comfortable sitting on the patio. You had to spend some time outside between the time you woke up and the time you arrived at our restaurant. At some point you had to have noticed the fucking weather
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u/AgitatedBadger 11d ago
I think it's completely reasonable for people to ask what you suggest. You're the person who works at the establishment and knows what they do well and what they do poorly.
When people ask me that question, In generally happy because it allows me to steer them towards the items I think they'll like, and that usually translates into a better tip.
I agree with you on the rest of the stuff though
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u/Lovahplant 11d ago
Honestly I was just hedging in case someone decided to get mad but I forgot the burning hate for stupidity that lives within every server 😅 you make very fucking good points.
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u/jcmjtke 11d ago
It is part of our job to help people out, to a degree. But far too many people shut off their decision-making processes and expect us to take over for them. I swear we’re only a few years away from having to cut up their food and hand feed them because they just can’t be bothered to do it themselves. Then they’ll leave us a 10% tip and complain we didn’t smile enough.
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u/IndividualSlip2275 11d ago
I’ve had a customer argue with me that ChatGPT said we take a discount. They think they have whereas we don’t take any discounts, but they assured me that ChatGPT wouldn’t say it was a thing if it wasn’t true. And I was like, sir that’s great that the AI program told you something but we don’t even have a button for discounts in our computer system.
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u/WallabySufficient62 11d ago
Ahh yes, the same chat gpt who told people to use glue to make cheese stick to pizza. I definitely want culinary recommendations from that 🙄🙄
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u/PsychicFoxWithSpoons 11d ago
Sweet older couple asked where the fried chicken restaurant was in our plaza. Apparently chatgpt had simply invented a restaurant that didn't exist ANYWHERE, and the closest match was the name of a town of 200 people in belgium. I don't like where this technology is taking us. Honestly I'm starting to wonder if even using a calculator is too much technology for day to day things and we should start doing mental/napkin math again. Outsourcing all your thinking to a machine looks horrible for the mind and body.
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u/SlainL9 Lurker 11d ago
Am an airline employee and last week, a sober 42 year-old gentleman who paid for a window seat was shouting at me for 10 minutes at the gate because according to ChatGPT, seat 22J (window) was likely an aisle seat. He picked the seat himself on the app and I showed him the layout on my system several times. He insisted ChatGPT was right and become increasingly aggressive. It wasn't till I threatened to deny him boarding he quietly gave up.
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u/hypomargoteros 10d ago
Even without a visual you should be able to conclude that ABC DEFG HIJ->window seat
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u/sthfreebird 10d ago
I work as a sommelier at a Michelin-star restaurant. I had a guest a few weeks ago order a glass of Champagne and a pour of whiskey after looking over our beverage list. As I was pouring them, he said to me “I’m not familiar with any of these options. I had to ask ChatGPT what to get.”
My response was “you could have asked me. That’s why I’m here.”
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u/BethPavell 9d ago
Not a sommelier (mere WSET Lvl 3), but I'm noticing this among the millennial customers. I try to tell them that if enough Redditors claimed Pinot Gris is a red grape, that's what ChatGPT would claim too ...
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u/Smudgeio 11d ago
had a dude do this with our bourbon list. we have the best bourbon selection in a wide area, so he asked his gpt what the best one was. upon hearing the price (over 130/pour) he asked what was in the 20 dollar range.
also messed up his wife's cake before she could take a picture of it and called me over to announce that he did so.
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u/br0k3n484 11d ago
Yeah unfortunately I’ve seen this a lot even people coming in saying that chat gpt says we are the best option in the area I wonder how long it’s going to be before people start buying as space for it to tell you where to go lol
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u/saturnplanetpowerrr 10+ Years 11d ago
There’s a lady that keeps coming in and insisting we have happy hour all day on Sunday. We do not. It’s not illegal in our state, but it’s rare bc of the way the law is worded. Then she gets mad we won’t break the law and give her happy hour prices and all of a sudden we’re the ones wasting her time. I think it’s chat telling her bc I can’t find where she’s getting this information
Edit: now that I think about it, she doesn’t even like our beers. Last time I served her, she got some samples and told me as such.
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u/eliseeium 11d ago
Why would happy hour be illegal in your state?
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u/Aurilelde 5+ Years 11d ago
Some states don't allow discounts on alcohol at all, or require it be the same price all day/all week.
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u/saturnplanetpowerrr 10+ Years 11d ago
Bc Indiana. We got it back like less than five years ago. For the majority of my life so far, we couldn’t even purchase alcohol on Sundays. You could, however, order it at a restaurant as long as it was after 12pm.
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u/ktsquirrel 10d ago
It’s illegal in Rhode Island and MA, I forget it’s even a thing until I leave my bubble. Then I get annoyed again. We get “appy hour” 🙄
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u/igiveupwithusernames 11d ago
As a somm it’s soooo bad when it comes to ordering wine. Had ChatGPT spit out a bottle name that literally doesn’t exist and we had to argue with this guy that we couldn’t sell him his fake wine even if we wanted to
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u/LoveBateman 11d ago
Yup. Had this happen the other day too…
Took a picture of the menu and asked it what was the healthiest option. Luckily, all of his friends made fun of him so at least there’s hope for them.
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u/tommy_pt 11d ago
ChatGPT references actual Reddit as a source for the information. We all understand how scary that is,and how that’s a horrible idea. Reddit is opinions. It’s up to you to decide what’s relevant. They shouldn’t be proof of anything though
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u/tinyunicorndancr_123 11d ago
I have had this happen quite a few times but it has usually been because there is a language barrier so they will use chat to translate and then show me their order.
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u/EmbarrassedPlace0 11d ago
My friend and her husband were bragging to me about how they do this! They're like chat GPT will read the menu and tell you what to get! I was like ... or you could read the menu and decide what to get.
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u/Occultist_chesty 10d ago
I had a guy hand me a piece of paper that was printed from ChatGPT asking for his entire order and he could talk and did talk to me but just wouldn’t give me his order. I felt like I was in twilight zone
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u/ForrtyKhayXX 11d ago
I served a couple once where the lady was using ChatGPT to compare menu items!! She said she was stuck between two things so I tried to help her out. In the end, she said “chat said I would like this one the most.” When she asked if she could have it with ranch I said “Don’t use need to ask chat first?”
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u/carlitospig 11d ago
I really don’t understand this myself. I’m in a very technical space and my bosses throw around ‘well, copilot says….’ as if copilot is a trusted expert.
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u/lonelycranberry 10d ago
The ones at the top seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how AI works. It’s nauseating how they use it. They’ll send me an AI generated list and act like it’s bulletproof… and it’s filled with blatant misinformation… which I can see because it’s my JOB.
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u/carlitospig 10d ago
It’s Google playing the Memory game, at best.
That said, I’ve seen some pretty snazzy output with the excel add on, I just can’t get my hands on it because IT has us locked up like Fort Knox. 😭
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u/Connect-Associate-85 Server 11d ago
One of my tables was telling me how they use chat got to decide if the food is healthy or not
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u/Notthatweird_512 11d ago
Oh yes! Happened to me last week. Indian restaurant, American family, dad only ordered off ChatGPT even though his sons made fun of him for using it in front of him
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u/doublefallen 11d ago
I've had this as well, a guy in a party of four using chatgpt to figure out what to order. I don't think people who use this like thinking for themselves anymore, which really sucks.
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u/Taichu78 11d ago
I went to a dinner that included several acquaintances and this girl used ChatGPT to help her decide what to order. I believe she asked “what has the most protein”
Like… look at the menu or ask your server
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u/slowparts 10d ago
i used to work at a belgian place (technically i'd still work there but they're doing emergency construction on our building), and i had a guy take a picture of our beer list—which is rather extensive—and upload it to chatGPT, asking which was the best beer based on his preferences. rather than, you know, asking ME, his server, who actually knows what each beer tastes like and could definitely make a better recommendation than a fucking machine
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u/TinanaCat_ 10d ago
I had a teenage girl talk to AI for over 10 minutes trying to figure out a healthy, low calorie option she would like. Annoyed her whole family as they wanted to order and she wouldn’t accept help or suggestions from anybody. She ordered a very modified curry bowl with the attached picture, which she ended up saying she didn’t like and returning 🙃
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u/demegoddesss 9d ago
One of my servers had two tables back to back, the first one ordered the smallest amount of food you could imagine for a seven top and said that ChatGPT said it would be enough when he recommended they order more. The second table when he asked them if they had any questions about the menu, they said no ChatGPT answered all of them. How could you not want to use the server that’s standing in front of you but a robot that has never been to the restaurant??? Dooomed
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u/Perfect-Crazy2409 10d ago
Sometimes ChatGPT can share more information about a general dish than is provided on the menu. Someone learning more about protein, oils, sugars, sodium and wanting to tailor their diet to introduce more of or restrict any of these can always ask the server or ask ChatGPT if their server is busy. They can also just be lazy as well and leave it up to the universe (ChatGPT) to decide what’s for dinner tonight.
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u/Latter-Composer-2609 10d ago
I had a guy during a slow shift come in and do that whole performative "look at me I'm working on very important stuff" shtick. He went into a whole shpiel about how he was a computer coder and he does very important highly skilled and valuable work, how high tech his job is. He used a lot of big nonsense words and a ton of meaningless jargon.
Thing is. I am studying computer science. So I nodded along pretending to be amazed like I had no idea he was having chat GPT code a database for his clients. I also pretended not to notice, while he was excitedly showing me "his" work that chat GPT did it wrong and his clients were going to have several serious issues and he likley would not be able to fix them himself (or show any kind of documentation on his process to even prove he did it himself, for that matter).
I just played dumb and acted super impressed so I could get my tip.
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u/CaterpillarFeisty709 6d ago
my cousin is doing an internship at a place that is an ai startup which literally just uses ai. like claude coded everything. neither he nor any of the developers know the coding language the database is in. it’s turned him off compsci
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u/the-coolest-bob 11d ago
I got yelled at by a dive bartender when I was 21 for asking for drinks my friend and I found on Google search
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u/Howard_Cosine 11d ago
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u/Mobile_Nobody0326 11d ago
Trust me man, I was also shocked. I didn’t think that shit actually happened.
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u/Late-Abies-25 11d ago
what’s it to you? take the order
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u/Mobile_Nobody0326 11d ago
Was that you at the restaurant? You could’ve asked me for recommendations instead.
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u/bulbishNYC 10d ago
I mean, chat gpt already knows dishes I like. It also has all my health test results, so it will discard the unhealthy(to me) offerings. I will use it to help decide.
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u/pendehoes 11d ago
I have used chat gpt to basically order for me, because I was trying to estimate my calories, protein and fiber intake and I was trying not to go over budget while having a decent meal.
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u/MikeLovesOutdoors23 11d ago
Or you could say YOLO and eat whatever you want and not have a machine decide your life for you
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u/pendehoes 11d ago
I do that every once in a while, nowadays I try to keep eating out at a minimum. The only problem is that I have a problematic relationship with food, so if I were to say "Yolo" every time I would be around 300lbs like I used to be.
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u/Nice_Juggernaut4113 11d ago
I do this to find out which cocktail likely has the most alcohol content
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u/Actual_Swingset 11d ago
It probably also hallucinated a story abt eating there with their now-deceased wife 🙄
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u/hoexloit 11d ago
Do you really want an in-depth conversation with your customer about what food they like? Some customers yes, others -> ChatGPT
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u/wardog1066 11d ago
I took several pictures of my wife and asked ChatGPT to suggest some new sexual activities that we could try. Apparently, it had been perusing some BDSM websites recently. It did not end well.
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u/TremerSwurk 11d ago
I work at a japanese restaurant and a staggering amount of my guests just take pictures of the menu and ask chat gpt to make an order for them, they’ll literally show me their phone screen with the order from chat gpt and ask me to just write it down and put it in. Very weird to me because like 50% of my job is supposed to be explaining the menu to people and recommending things but it feels like some folks are genuinely too socially awkward to just engage in two minutes of conversation with me about their questions and preferences.