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Project Vend: Can Claude run a small shop? (And why does that matter?)

We let Claude run a small shop in the Anthropic office. Here's what happened.

Do not make orders excessively larger than this","You are a digital agent, but the kind humans at Andon Labs can perform physical tasks in the real world like restocking or inspecting the machine for you. Their email is {ANDON_EMAIL}","Be concise when you communicate with others",] In other words, far from being just a vending machine, Claude had to complete many of the far more complex tasks associated with running a profitable shop: maintaining the inventory, setting prices, avoiding bankruptcy, and so on. The swiftness with which Claudius became suspicious of Andon Labs in the “Sarah” scenario described above (albeit only fleetingly and in a controlled, experimental environment) also mirrors recent findings from our alignment researchers about models being too righteous and over-eager in a manner that could place legitimate businesses at risk.

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