We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit • Hacker News Board

Re: We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit

#161

Post by mrweasel » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 6:20 PM UTC

binarynate wrote: post #93

Marketing stunt. If they actually cared about this as an experiment, they wouldn't have broadcasted this so early, because now that the public knows that the store is designed and run by AI, many people aren't going to support it (i.e. many people who would have shopped there now won't).

Also don't do it in San Francisco, I think it's an artificial easier market. The type of store wouldn't work in Bumsville Idaho.

Maybe that's for later, if this works out, but I'd love to see the AI attempt to run a moderately successful business in a borderline dysfunctional town in the Midwest. If you don't technically need to pay "the CEO" a salary, could you run e.g. a grocery store in a dying town. One this would really test the AI on creativity, and it would perhaps tell us if these towns are just doomed.

Re: We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit

#162

Post by themafia » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

j2kun wrote: post #147

bfeynman wrote: post #140

I feel bad that people have to read this. It's complete puffery, made up for clicks, and the biggest thing is the pure bravado with which a company says, "Hey, let's just waste a ton of money, all for a potential blog and marketing piece." This is not really automated in any fashion. I was dubious at first, but then I saw the screencaps showing the devs interacting with Luna via a Slack workflow with a human in the l…

[flagged]

This is Hacker News. It should be filled with curious people who are willing to express their opinions and points of view. To tell someone to just punitively flag something and then "move on" is absurdly reductive and small minded.

Re: We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit

#163

Post by Synaesthesia » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

bix6 wrote: post #75

I see a lot on costs but nothing on revenue. Has it made any money?

It's a business selling trinkets, I doubt it's going to make money.

Re: We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit

#164

Post by themafia » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

anon84873628 wrote: post #124

drgo wrote: post #105

Great! I was worried that we might run out of inhumane CEOs

They might be better at following the law. Or at least, creating a paper trail of when they have been instructed to violate the law.

Language Models have demonstrated themselves as being completely incapable of handling something as complex as US law. There are multiple overlapping jurisdictions and court precedents that apply to any one action.

Re: We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit

#165

Post by Quarrelsome » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 6:28 PM UTC

class3shock wrote: post #87

"Again, we are not doing this because we want this to be the future. It is not because we want to expand to chain AI-run retail stores across the world. It is not for economic opportunity. We’re doing this because we believe this future is coming regardless, and we’d rather be the ones running it first while monitoring every interaction, analyzing the traces, benchmarking how much autonomy an AI can responsibly hold.…

To be fair, they're running this with oversight, the blog states they're ensuring the people employed are actually properly employed with the parent company. You know for sure that someone WILL run this experiment without those oversights, so while their "care" is probably more about liability there is still some truth to what they say.

Re: We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit

#166

Post by scotty79 » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

class3shock wrote: post #87

"Again, we are not doing this because we want this to be the future. It is not because we want to expand to chain AI-run retail stores across the world. It is not for economic opportunity. We’re doing this because we believe this future is coming regardless, and we’d rather be the ones running it first while monitoring every interaction, analyzing the traces, benchmarking how much autonomy an AI can responsibly hold.…

I'm all for replacing CEOs with AI.

Re: We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit

#167

Post by Quarrelsome » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

krunck wrote: post #28

Not "she". It.

kinda how I feel about god tbh. How come he's always male, given he's a non-human creator of all life. She or It seem much more appropriate.

Re: We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit

#168

Post by HPsquared » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

class3shock wrote: post #87

"Again, we are not doing this because we want this to be the future. It is not because we want to expand to chain AI-run retail stores across the world. It is not for economic opportunity. We’re doing this because we believe this future is coming regardless, and we’d rather be the ones running it first while monitoring every interaction, analyzing the traces, benchmarking how much autonomy an AI can responsibly hold.…

I'll file this under "Resistance is futile".

Re: We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit

#169

Post by elif » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

class3shock wrote: post #87

"Again, we are not doing this because we want this to be the future. It is not because we want to expand to chain AI-run retail stores across the world. It is not for economic opportunity. We’re doing this because we believe this future is coming regardless, and we’d rather be the ones running it first while monitoring every interaction, analyzing the traces, benchmarking how much autonomy an AI can responsibly hold.…

It is moral to throw your toddler into the pool so that later in life they are less likely to drown.

Re: We gave an AI a 3 year retail lease and asked it to make a profit

#170

Post by oxag3n » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

Did it actually open? A few bloggers came for opening, came back afternoon, even talked to AI over phone and email, and nothing except hallucinated replies. The store exists, but employee didn't show up to open it.