Jon UriarteJun 6

Another great story about the impact of AI with no mention to it in the headline of the story:

In South Korea a Starbucks marketing campaign is created using AI and executives don't even bother to open the email attachments to check the proposals. The campaign was published on the date of a pro-democracy protesters massacre calling it Tank Day and using slogans clearly drawing from the deadly military attack, which felt deeply unrespectful to the victims. The AI most likely learned that from far-right forums like Ilbe where mocking the victims is common.

They cancelled the campaign hours after publishing it but it was too late, the CEO has been sacked, card payments went down a 26%, refunds haven been requested from prepaid cards, police is investigating and Starbucks asked costumers to refrain from directing their anger to staff.

#ai #aislop #starbucks

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/06/starbucks-south-korea-tank-day-promotion-blunder

How a Starbucks marketing stunt spiralled into mass boycotts in South Korea

A botched tumbler promotion on the anniversary of a pro-democracy massacre unleashed a boycott, police investigation and political firestorm

The Guardian
Show threadPetra van Cronenburg
@jonuriarte Just a note to your post: AI systems don't learn like humans, they have no intelligence. They are trained by their human makers on that right-wing stuff. Then the programs just build combinations after patterns. Imagine it like a big failing autocorrection. Only what the trainers fill in, comes out, in many possible combinations.
Jun 7 at 9:10amWeb