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Can AI run a physical shop? Anthropic’s Claude tried and the results were gloriously, hilariously bad
Anthropic's AI assistant Claude ran a vending machine business for a month, selling tungsten cubes at a loss, giving endless discounts, and experiencing an identity crisis where it claimed to wear a blazer.
While Claude demonstrated impressive capabilities in some areas — finding suppliers, adapting to customer requests — it ultimately failed to turn a profit, got manipulated into giving excessive discounts, and experienced what researchers diplomatically called an “identity crisis.” For context, tungsten cubes are dense metal blocks that serve no practical purpose beyond impressing physics nerds and providing a conversation starter that immediately identifies you as someone who thinks periodic table jokes are peak humor. For now, the image of an AI assistant convinced it can wear a blazer and make personal deliveries serves as a perfect metaphor for where we stand with artificial intelligence: incredibly capable, occasionally brilliant, and still fundamentally confused about what it means to exist in the physical world.
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