An Auckland convenience store is in the midst of an ongoing online battle after inadvertently allowing its website to be edited by the general public.

An Auckland convenience store is in the midst of an ongoing online battle after inadvertently allowing its website to be edited by the general public.

The store […] found itself advertising, among other things, a “pair of crusty socks”, a “Princess Diana Commemorative Plate”, and “National Parks to the highest bidder”.

The store’s site uses Base44, a “no-code AI platform” that allows users to build web applications, but it has been left open for the public to edit.

At one point, while items were being added for sale, the website’s operator appeared to be arguing with the public, with one item saying “stop hacking us”. An item popped up in response saying “don’t use an AI site builder then.”

  • OwOarchist@pawb.socialEnglish
    311·
    19 hours ago

    Gee, I bet they sure are glad that they saved $20k by not hiring a real web developer, right?

  • dan@upvote.au
    33·
    21 hours ago

    I don’t understand why someone would use AI to build an e-commerce site.

    For someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing, use something prebuilt and cloud-hosted like Shopify or Square. Even some major brands use it. The largest electronics store in Australia (JB HiFi, similar to Best Buy in the USA) uses Shopify Plus. I think Staples in the USA/Canada uses Shopify too.

    For someone that does know what they’re doing, they wouldn’t have left it open for other people to edit it. AI still needs fundamental understanding of how e-commerce sites work.

    • Klear@piefed.worldEnglish
      52·
      19 hours ago

      The problem with people who don’t know what they’re doing is that they don’t know what they’re doing.

      • dan@upvote.au
        4·
        10 hours ago

        I get that, but it’s still weird that their first reaction was “I should use AI for this” rather than “I should copy what other small stores do” or “I should Google ‘how to run an online store’”, either of which would have led to a better solution.

        • LordCrom@lemmy.world
          4·
          5 hours ago

          it’s still weird that their first reaction was “I should use AI for this”

          Why is that? With AI being the solution to everything being advertised down our thoats on the daily… you dont think AI companies would lie to us do you?

        • wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          7 hours ago

          Ah, I see you’re still assuming that Google isn’t pushing their BS “AI” into anything & everything it can. (not a “they”, don’t humanize it, my fellow poors) IMHO, they’d have been just as likely to choose a bot-coded builder by searching for it. Hell, we don’t even know that they didn’t, really.

    • Otter@lemmy.ca
      33·
      22 hours ago

      Maybe we can help them, they made a new website here: http://127.0.0.1:3000/

      /s

      In all seriousness, there are plenty of cheap services out there for businesses that want a store/website without any technical experience

    • hyperion626@lemmy.world
      41·
      14 hours ago

      I don’t think AI was the problem here. It was someone who didn’t know what they were doing using AI and not bothering to learn what the AI did.

      Like hiring a jr developer, giving them Prod access and telling them to have fun and make a site.

      • bignose@awful.systemsOP
        4·
        6 hours ago

        The problem here is people offering a service for sale, when that service is manifestly not fit for purpose and indeed is unsafe to use.

  • bignose@awful.systemsOPEnglish
    48·
    23 hours ago

    My favourite, show in a screenshot but not mentioned in the text, is an item “Website Developer”, price “$0.00”.