Shoutout to the AI kiosk at my local DMV that couldn't handle my middle name

Stood in line for 45 minutes at the DMV in Portland last Tuesday and they finally rolled out this fancy AI check-in kiosk. I typed in my full name with my middle initial and it froze for a solid 10 seconds before showing a sad face emoji. The lady next to me said "third time it's done that today" and pointed me to the human teller who fixed it in 20 seconds. Guess the AI can't handle the 20 characters in my name or the apostrophe. Anyone else hit a wall with these government AI systems?

3 comments

3 Comments

joel_martinez22d ago

Did you always have to deal with that middle name hassle? I used to think people were just being dramatic about AI systems being bad with names, but this changed my mind. The whole point of a computer is to handle data, and freezing on a 20-character name with an apostrophe is pathetic. Human teller fixing it in 20 seconds just proves the tech isn't ready for real-world use yet. Makes you wonder how much money they wasted on those kiosks instead of just hiring more staff.

bettyroberts21d ago

oh tell me about it. i had the same thing happen at the DMV in salem last month. my name has a hyphen and the kiosk just sat there blinking like it was having a stroke. the lady next to me said "yeah that thing hates punctuation" and waved me over to the normal line. took the human clerk maybe 30 seconds to punch it in and get me a number. i don't get why they spend all this money on gadgets that can't even handle basic stuff like apostrophes and hyphens. a tired person with a keyboard worked better and faster.

diana_west2721d ago

ugh, right? what kills me is that someone probably got paid six figures to design that system and they still couldn't figure out how to handle a hyphen lmao. feels like they purposely make computers dumb so they can sell us the next "upgraded" version next year.

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