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