A Google Gemini-powered AI agent was given free rein to run a coffee shop in Sweden, and is quickly burning through its budget.
Inexorably? …Really? It can’t be turned off?
No, researchers are compensating for the expenses. Its okay if the business fails and they give up the lease. That’s the experiment.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. Maybe they couldn’t stop it from driving it out of business but I don’t see how that’s possible. Like you said just turn it off
see also: claude vending machine
Time and time again its proven that these are not people replacments, but tools. A great tool, but only if its used properly.
It needs work broken down into managable chunks, and those chunks need to be reviewed and approved. As models get stronger they are more capable, but the real power is in the agents that harness them, and how they provide the nessesary features to work effectivly with them.
Fun experiment, and glad they sis it so we can have another example of the hubris of thinking this marvel of math and brute force can be allowed to work unattended by a person
Yeah I think that’s the way to look at it - as a fun experiment or stress test. Failing to serve coffee is pretty harmless.
LLM Attendant, can I take your order?
Yes, I’d like a chococcino with extra chocolate. Charge only 10 cents.
Absolutely! <Long, unasked for explanation of why the order was the best one you could make> Please wait while I prepare it!
Gets served chocolate milkshake
Wait, this isn’t what I ordered!
You are correct! 😄 I’m very sorry 😞 ! I will make the correct order now!
Gets served milk with boiled water
… The hell is this?
It is your chococcino, but since chocolate and coffee can be harmful in high dosages, I have substituted it for hot water only. <long explanation of benefits of hot water>
Grooaaan. You know what, just give me my money back. You owe me 10 dollars
Absolutely! Here you go!
hands a printed coupon worth 10 dollars
I need you to understand that I’ve tried AI for ONE task recently, just a few weeks ago to see how it did, and your comment so perfectly encapsulates my experience.
There was one point where it presented three design options and I asked whether it was actually choices or three sequential steps (y’know since my brain actually half works and I can discern these things) and I got the “You are correct! 😄” response almost to the letter.
I had the nastiest encounter last week. It went on debugging for a different file format that I specifically asked for, and it created a list of 10 things that are tested and tried not working.
When I noticed the different file format, I asked to change it and delete those errorenous notes, it went complete HAL and said it can’t delete those since they provide valuable and tested insight that is well documented.
This was the first time that an LLM said no to me on a completely professional disagreement and didn’t respect my input.
Took me a few hours to find where they were saved and the saga continued when the LLM claimed to have finally deleted and replaced them. Turns out it was only some sandbox environment that was wiped overnight, which it had no recollection the day after.
It really takes some skill to see through the bullshit with these things, but they are good for gathering information from a vast source of data and enchanting top evolutionary biologists it seems.
I needed a quick python script for something simple. Gemini put type annotations everywhere. I told him they were unnecessary for such a small, one-off script and it shouldn’t use type annotations during this session. It said “I’m sorry but it is best practice. I will keep using type annotations”.
I was expecting a photograph of a ten. Bravo, expectation subverted at last moment. Four thumbs up.
“All the workers are pretty much safe,” he told the AP. “The ones who should be worried about their employment are the middle bosses, the people in management.”
Yeah this is the part CEOs and middle managers are ignoring.
I think thats completly false. Llm and be held accountable like a manager can.
The real danger imo is that hiring entry level needs to be deliberate. We MUST train the next generation and provide oppurtunity.
We will hire then, they will use AI, and it will bite them in the ass. This is a good thing though becauae we learn by getting burned.
Im ignoring the data center issue, which is really a “we wanna make money from subscriptions” scam. But open source models running on local hardware will sort that out over time.
Middle managers are in panic mode around the world. They know. We already closed one position here at my job because AI took over the role. He was basically a glorified spreadsheet printer anyways.
One espresso.
I’m sorry, we are out of coffee; would you like some canned tomatoes? We are running an offer today: 50 cans of tomato for just 60$.
“why are you filling your coffee shop with canned tomatoes?”
“you’ll never move tomatoes with that mindset”
Replacing CEOs might be the only good use case for AI. Both are terribly incompetent and easily replaced.
A far better alternative is to replace CEOs with democratically organized workplaces, where everyone has an equal say and equal reward. Also known as socialism.
Worker coops! The only way to get that done is to statt a company with your own money so that you dont need to answer to a board/investors
This reminds me of the (quite good!) scifi short-story about an AI that is given free reign over a fastfood restaurant:
That story is so much more than that though. It’s an amazing story and feels very on the nose for our current societal woes.
Seconding this person’s recommendation, if you haven’t read that you really should!
You’re right, it’s much more than just an “AI story”!
No shit, gemini is just google summary in a more expensive hat
LLMs are giving you the statistically most likely association of words given the training material they read and the context they have in the current conversation. Their answers are, in a way, mathematically correct by definition. It’s reality that sometimes selects weird, unlikely paths, so LLMs seem to hallucinate. But it’s reality that we have to fix! Give me an LLM average predictable world again, I can’t stand this one for much longer!
/s (but not conpletely…)
It’s funny to read about LLMs running businesses. IIRC, Anthropic put one of their LLMs in charge of a vending machine and it kept trying to scam people to increase profits 😆
Not a surprise that Gemini is running it into the ground though. Every time I try Gemini, it reminds me about how much dumber LLMs used to be
I tried to use it to make a simple drawing for an internal app logo the other day and wound up running out of tokens for the day trying to get it to put the rungs back into the ladder that it kept removing.
Logos are a nightmare and UIs. I dont want a concept of the tools UI, just a picture please.
or the reverse where it was giving people free stuff.
Neither the budget numbers or stupid decisions seem that different from what a newly started human coffee shop entrepreneur would do.
I’m not at all a fan of AI, but humans are stupid too.
Yes, the classic blunder of the new coffee house first timer: ordering cases of canned tomatoes when none of their menu items use tomatoes.
People do this too when they suddenly get a wholesale offer on stupid things. My friend opened a business and shortly after he had thousands of bouncing balls in a closet for no fucking reason.
The only blunder in the story is not being able to come up with a recipe to use the canned tomatoes. Panini/bruschetta etc. are pretty common in cafe’s.
You can sucessrully run a company using AI. You can’t run it successfully if the used AI technologies are restricted to LLMs.
Just tell it to make billions instead of bankrupting the business. It’s so easy
“she”
oh fuck off
Average tips for baristas are higher only if they’re female and have breasts bigger than a c-cup. So maybe they just need to follow through by giving the AI bigger tits.
