Brewing brand love: how AI startups are reaching subscribers through coffee — the cappuccinos are camouflage.
I bet they’ll eventually get caught using coffee shop cameras and conversations for AI training, say it’s for training a security product or something.
This is 100% the answer, the only solution to the model decay from LLM outputs overwhelming the web is to start collecting data IRL.
This is also why companies like OpenAI are desperately investing in ‘AI wearables’ that no-one wants. They have to get the unpolluted data from somewhere, and recording real conversations will at least mostly have come from actual humans instead of AI.
since coffe shops also free wifi, they would want access to the data of laptops, and phones as well.
I don’t think it’s for training really.
It’s way more likely they want to get people together and talking about AI in the hopes they hear literally any plausible method of monetizing it. And stealing that idea.
With the added bonus when you check out, if you subscribe to it’s AI you get 50% off the drinks, if you don’t you get a month of the AI service with you’re drinks.
The way AI effects your brain is kind of like drugs. It’s feels fun and novel at first, and a lot of people get tired and let it go. Certain people are wired different and get hooked.
Maybe it’s because I just re-watched Snowfall, but it feel like when Franklin cooked up his first key and just gave it away. They’re trying to hook people who would never intially buy it, because some of them won’t be able to stop.
Free WiFi!
It seems like there are probably ways they could do that without calling so much attention to themselves.
asked via touchscreen if they’re Perplexity Pro subscribers. A “yes” earns them 50% off drinks; a “no” triggers a QR code for a one-month free trial of the $20 service.
Look at how desperate they are to get a return before the bubble bursts. It’s hilarious.
They need to start making money somehow. Overpriced coffee sounds like a good start
The first hint that this place is run by an AI company comes at checkout, when guests are asked via touchscreen if they’re Perplexity Pro subscribers. A “yes” earns them 50% off drinks; a “no” triggers a QR code for a one-month free trial of the $20 service.
I’d have said “fuck off” and left without my coffee.
Capturing all network traffic for training.
Really? AI companies going Herbalife now? Because this reminds me of how Herbalife fronts would typically pop up.
I mean, this is straight out of Herbalife’s playbook for luring new marks fresh off the street into their pyramid scheme, c’mon now…
I know i sound like a doomer but…
maybe the bubble is about to burst and this is just panic diversification of assets? it sure is funny to attribute it to that.
I mean LOL maybe???
The article makes it sound like it’s marketing, I’m going to guess it’s because internet advertising doesn’t work with the audience they want or they got some diminishing returns. Sounds expensive though.
There surely will be microphones to train the AI.
They must be competing for markethare - they need more users. If those AI companies really are getting by with VC and other crap debt only this MO can only be propped up by increasing user numbers.
A billboard costs money. A cafe also has your brand name on it but can be operated at a profit.
I don’t know what this is really all about but I’m just thinking through possibilities. It could definitely just be a stupid marketing fad. The number of eyeballs a cafe will get in a metropolis like Seoul is tremendous. If they had a cafe in every town across bumfuk suburbia that would be another story.
Never thought that my dislike for the taste and smell of coffee would become something that actively makes me glad.
I love how the photo of the inside of the place looks like it’s ai generated
Coffee slops?
Heehee, well they have to make a profit somehow.
Reminds me of that uWink restaurant lol
