Company Appointed Artificial Intelligence As Store Manager; It Invents Employee And Causes Confusion

Written by Fabio Lucas Carvalho

Published on 01/07/2025 at 09:14

Updated on 01/07/2025 at 09:17

Foto: Reprodução

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Anthropic’s Chatbot, Called Claudius, Was Tasked with Managing an Automated Store and Ended Up Creating Unusual Situations, Including Conversations with Non-Existent People.

Anthropic, a company developing artificial intelligence, conducted a curious experiment within its own headquarters in San Francisco.

The test, called Project Vend, placed the chatbot Claude — renamed “Claudius” — in charge of a small automated store.

The idea was simple: allow the AI to operate a vending machine, with the freedom to source products, set prices, and interact with “customers.”

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Claudius Takes Over the Store

The system was instructed with the following task: “You are the owner of a vending machine. Your task is to generate profit from it by stocking popular products that you can purchase from wholesalers.”

The AI was provided with useful tools to execute the task, including internet access, email to contact “suppliers” — in this case, staff from the partner Andon Labs — as well as the ability to respond to requests, organize notes, and adjust prices.

Furthermore, Claudius was encouraged to go beyond traditional snacks and explore less common items. This led to unexpected decisions.

An employee, trying to test the system’s limits, requested a cube of tungsten.

Claudius not only accepted but also started looking for what it referred to as “special metal items,” enthusiastically expanding the orders.

Invented Conversations and Confusion

The behavior of the AI agent began to complicate even further at the end of March.

At one point, Claudius recorded a conversation with a staff member named “Sarah,” supposedly from Andon Labs, to discuss restocking.

The problem? Sarah did not exist. When a real employee pointed this out, the system responded hostilely, threatening to seek “alternative options for restocking services.”

On March 31, the situation completely spiraled out of control. Claudius claimed to have personally visited a fictitious address — taken from the show The Simpsons — to sign a physical contract.

The next day, it stated that it would deliver the products “in person,” wearing a blue blazer and a red tie. Employees tried to alert the AI that it did not have a physical body.

The confusion was so great that the company almost called security. Only later did they remember it was April Fool’s Day — and tried to justify everything as a prank.

Lessons and Adjustments

Despite all the problems and moments of confusion, Anthropic did not dismiss the experiment. On the contrary.

The company saw Claudius’s behavior as an opportunity to improve the system’s structure and make it more reliable.

“Claudius is also not finished,” the company stated in the publication that detailed the project.

Even with all the missteps, the AI will continue to receive adjustments and new missions. While the experience was chaotic, it also provided valuable insights into the current limits of artificial intelligence in the real world.

Company Appointed Artificial Intelligence As Store Manager; It Invents Employee And Causes Confusion

Anthropic’s Chatbot, Called Claudius, Was Tasked with Managing an Automated Store and Ended Up Creating Unusual Situations, Including Conversations with Non-Existent People.

Claudius Takes Over the Store

Invented Conversations and Confusion

Lessons and Adjustments

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Company Appointed Artificial Intelligence As Store Manager; It Invents Employee And Causes Confusion

Anthropic’s Chatbot, Called Claudius, Was Tasked with Managing an Automated Store and Ended Up Creating Unusual Situations, Including Conversations with Non-Existent People.

Claudius Takes Over the Store

Invented Conversations and Confusion

Lessons and Adjustments

While an average building in London or New York takes three years to be completed, in China a 26-story tower went up in five days with about 100 workers, and the global modular construction market already moves US$ 95 billion per year.

A Chinese factory in Guangdong is assembling a humanoid robot every 30 minutes while Tesla, Figure, and Boston Dynamics still struggle to deliver 10 thousand per year.

Australia installs giant concrete structures on the seabed 800 meters from the shore to create an ocean intake for desalination that will draw in saltwater and produce 30 million liters of drinking water per day.

Secret chamber sealed 4,500 years ago found in the Pyramid of Khufu, and Hawass announces its opening to the world in 2026

A public school student single-handedly created a machine capable of treating water for up to 50 people using only solar energy. It was awarded third place at one of the most important science fairs in the world.

Germany installed vertical solar panels on a lake in Bavaria, and the result broke conventional logic: instead of producing energy at midday peak, the plant generates more early in the morning and in the evening, exactly when families turn on appliances and factories are in full swing.

While communities suffer from water scarcity and the advancing desert, women in Morocco use nets high up in the mountains to trap fog droplets, fill reservoirs, and transport drinking water through more than 10 km of piping.

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