When a stadium adds AI to everything, it's worse experience for everyone

Summary

I just got back from a 24hr trip to Los Angeles to catch my favorite Portland Thorns team, watching them clinch their playoff spot in a match at BMO stadium in downtown Los Angeles.In May of 2024, I did the same trip to catch a match on Mother's Day, but I accidentally chose bad seats in the sun and it was hot and uncomfortable. Ultimately, it partially inspired my wife and I's book reviewing every NWSL soccer stadium so other fans wouldn't suffer the same fate when flying across the country to catch their favorite team.Me and my pal Greg yesterdayThis year, I got better seats in the shade and enjoyed the game. But overall? The experience of being in the stadium was worse a year later. After thinking about it on the flight home, I think the reason was the stadium's rush to automation and AI in several places. Spoiler alert: deploying camera/AI recognition for everything isn't greatEvery concession stand, including the ones that didn't even serve hot food, used the apparatus in the photo above to control all checkouts. I assume these are expensive units, because most places that used to have several checkout lanes only had one of them, requiring everyone to checkout through a single location.Here's how they worked in the stadium yesterday: You place all your items on the white shelf with some space between them. Although they were clearly designed to be a self-checkout experience, the stadium had a staff member rearrange your items, then for about 30 seconds the kiosk would be thinking. After, it would pop up all items on the menu, and the staff member would have to tap to confirm what each item was. Then another 30 seconds to calculate and move the purchase to a point of sale/tap on the side, then you'd pay. Overall, this added at least one, if not two full minutes to every transaction that didn't normally have those delays. Lines were unbearably long, and it was a hot day in LA yesterday, at 87ºF/30ºC. I bought food and drinks several times over the the course of t...