What is the practical consequence of the message "unable to initialize frontend: Dialog" when installing packages in a non-standard shell?

When I install some software packages from Emacs in a non-interactive shell, say from an org-babel file some of the packages result in the message below:

debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (Dialog frontend will not work on a dumb terminal, an emacs shell buffer, or without a controlling terminal.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline

I know that in the case of mysql for instance it is to prompt for the root password, or some other stuff which the user's preferences or settings are sought. I take it that in such cases the installer may use some default settings and continue. So my main concerns are: 1. Can the consequences be that bad? 2. Are there some kind of response files related to each package that can be passed to the installer or some default files at some preset locations that can be used for this purpose?