Was the Starbucks Korea Tank Day fiasco caused by AI?

When Starbucks Korea launched its “Tank Day” coffee promotion on May 18 — the day South Koreans commemorate the 1980 massacre of protestors in Gwangju by martial law troops — the scale of corporate self-sabotage was astonishing. Public outrage erupted so quickly that even asking how such a disaster happened risked sounding like an attempt to excuse it. In Starbucks' hometown of Seattle — where May 18, 1980 is remembered for the eruption of Mount St. Helens with the loss of 57 lives — the corporate response was restrained support for its Korean affiliate. But the issue may not end there. Under its agreement with Shinsegae Group’s Emart, which owns Starbucks Korea, HQ could potentially claim severe brand damage and exercise a call option allowing it to acquire the Korean business — the world’s third-largest Starbucks market — at a discount. Given this corporate equivalent of a public execution, we ask: What was the company thinking? Or rather, who was thinking? Companies themselves do not think. They are concepts without consciousness. People think — so how did multiplWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times