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.
San Francisco is one of the most brutally hard places to run a business, as evidenced by how competitive the landscape is.
What would have been actually interesting about this publicity stunt is if it demonstrated if/how AI could have dealt with some of the SF specific, non-sexy parts of running a business. Filing the relevant permits, co-ordinating inspections, negotiating with landlords, interfacing with locals at planning meetings.
Those are things SF business owners report as empirically unpleasant parts of running a business and a sufficient financial drag that they meaningfully affect business success. But my feeling is they had humans clear the way of all these thorny issues ahead of time so the AI could focus on the "sexy stuff".
>> If you don't technically need to pay "the CEO" a salary, could you run e.g. a grocery store in a dying town
You probably couldn't. I have seen a lot of small town stores that are run and operated by a single person. If somebody could run a business like that for a decent wage, they would be.
Adding AI to the mix on a high level position (for a single employee, who is the actual owner!) wouldn't help, it's just token burning.
AI can find a sale on bananas, but a person at the counter can take feedback from the actual customers, and stock based in that.
