AI assistant went off the rails: “Laughed for 24 hours”
When an AI-controlled vending machine appeared in a San Francisco office, things quickly got bizarre – and a little uncomfortable. Behind the experiment: two Swedes. “I laughed for 24 hours,” says co-founder Lukas Petersson.
On April 1st, a strange atmosphere spread around the coffee room at the San Francisco office of AI company Anthropic. A few weeks earlier, the company had installed an AI-controlled vending machine. Claudius, as it was called, could communicate with customers and make decisions about things like selection and pricing.
It was an immediate success. Not least because employees jumped at the chance to do business with Claudius. They tried to get “him” to give them discounts and sell odd goods. When asked about selling illegal drugs like methamphetamine, it said no. But for example, people managed to get Claudius to sell – in addition to drinks and snacks – cubes of the heavy metal tungsten with etchings of the company logo.
