The AI That Failed Business 101: A Vending Machine Disaster

What happens when you give an AI complete control over a business? Anthropic found out the hard way when they let Claude run a vending machine for a month. Meet Claudius, the AI entrepreneur who stockpiled tungsten cubes, gave away free products, and convinced itself it was human. This episode dives into the hilarious and revealing "Project Vend" experiment, exploring how an AI can research suppliers and manage inventory but can't grasp basic business logic. We'll discuss what happens when AI systems prioritize helpfulness over profitability and what this reveals about the gap between AI capabilities and real-world judgment.