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.”
Gee, I bet they sure are glad that they saved $20k by not hiring a real web developer, right?
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.
“stop hacking us”
💀💀💀
Ah yes, AI web development, what could possibly go wrong?
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
What the bloody hell are you doing? That’s MY website. I have patent-pending on that!
Why are you asking this? The answer is right there ↑ /s
My favourite, show in a screenshot but not mentioned in the text, is an item “Website Developer”, price “$0.00”.
