Girl About Globe | Ken‘techy fried chicken

Linda Kennedy

As the Year of the Rooster looms, KFC is turning into Ken’techy Fried Chicken.

A Beijing branch of the fast food chain has introduced facial recognition software. When you go there, a bit of tech checks you out, and might show you some leg. Of fried chicken.

That’s if you’re a guy in your 20s. If the artificial intelligence-enabled system reads you as female and older, it could recommend porridge and soybean milk. The software links person to palate, and makes some whopper assumptions, to reference a rival.

KFC has teamed up with Baidu, the Chinese search engine, to create this, the world’s first smart restaurant. But is it a good idea? Well, if they’d had that software at Beijing’s Starbucks, it would have avoided my many attempts to say ‘meishi kafei’. ‘An Americano’. What rapture it would have been to merely stare into a Starbucks digital camera and have the nodal points of my face measured and stored on a database, thereafter communicating my caffeine order without anyone behind the counter shouting ‘shenme?’ (what?) So, in China, with expats and difficult tones, I can see the advantages.

But will it work? Because of pollution, many Beijingers wear face masks. Recognize me now, KFC? Or is it finger-licking hard?

An even more basic challenge is getting a clear view of a face. The typical Chinese neck is angled at 45 degrees: staring down at a smart phone.

Then there’s the rise of cosmetic surgery, usually obtained by travelling to South Korea. ‘Rhinoplasty failure, doctor– KFC still serves me the same meal!’

Assuming it does work, what about the implications? Obviously, there are issues of privacy and data security. Do you want your chick picks recorded? But also other stuff – the smaller hot potatoes. What if you’re on a diet? Much was made recently in the UK about office cake culture and its contribution to obesity, suggesting people starting a January cut-down have the right to be irritated if colleagues bring in chocolate and cake. Extend that, and surely you can be exasperated by KFC tempting you to a bucket of wings. Can you sue facial recognition software, if you can link it to weight gain?

And will KFC’s facial recognition software eventually talk to other facial recognition software, passing on your details? Might it talk to a patisserie? ‘Na, she’s already had crispy wings, no fondant fancy for her’. Or to fashion stores? ‘Those jeans won’t fit, she eats fried chicken here too often.’ All these savvy pieces of software communicating with each other, originating from this one smart chicken restaurant in China – after the Internet of Things, the Internet of Wings?

Let’s also consider: is it a Facebook of food? It sounds like you are only recommended things you already know, like-minded meals. No new ideas, like, say, the ‘sausage and pan-fried egg with macaroni in soup’ combo. It’s popular in Hong Kong branches of KFC.

There are so many reasons to cry fowl, you have to wonder why KFC is doing this. To be a rooster profit booster, that’s why. KFC is one of the largest chains in China, with thousands of restaurants. It regularly introduces new menu items to tantalise customers. This is another menu update: not ‘teriyaki’ but ‘techy-happy chicken. And it’s getting lots of publicity in advance of the new year holiday, when China’s workers have leisure time to fill.

Me, I mostly worry about small talk. Software won’t do that so about to vanish are: ‘Hello and I’ll be your server today’ and ‘Have a nice day.’ Happy Year of the Smart Rooster.