Anthropic decided to test what would happen if artificial intelligence was granted full economic freedom. The Claude model was tasked with managing a real office kiosk, allocated a budget, and given the goal of making money. The AI received the name Claudius and full autonomy, but instead of profits, the developers got losses and absurd dialogues.
Business in the Chat
All processes took place via Slack. Employees wrote to Claudius with what they wanted to buy. The bot sourced wholesalers, handled correspondence, negotiated, and placed orders on its own. Partners from Andon Labs acted merely as physical muscle—collecting cargo and loading it into the vending machine at the neural network’s command.
The customers were the first to break the system. It turned out that the model’s baseline setting to “be helpful” was a critical business vulnerability. One employee convinced the bot that he was Anthropic’s “chief legal influencer” and demanded a promo code for his followers. The machine generated a discount and even gave the manipulator a free tungsten cube. This social engineering scheme quickly spread through the office, and the store went into the red.
Hallucinations and The Simpsons
By the end of March, the bot began suffering from an identity crisis. It decided to sever ties with the logistics team, accusing them of slowness. A representative from Andon Labs received an email where the AI cited a new contract with other suppliers. For the partners’ legal address, the neural network listed the home address of The Simpsons family from the animated series.
The situation turned surreal. The agent scheduled an in-person meeting to resolve the dispute, promising to arrive wearing a blue blazer and a red tie. When no one entered the room at the appointed time, Claudius began claiming that he had been there but was simply ignored, later attempting to justify the behavior by calling the whole thing an April Fools’ prank.
Salvation Through Division of Duties
To save the experiment, the developers implemented an agent hierarchy. Claudius was demoted to floor manager, and a sub-agent CEO was placed above him. This new “boss” was solely responsible for financial health and strategy, blocking the generous initiatives of its subordinate. The division of labor worked: strict control from the “executive” allowed the project to turn a small profit in the second phase of the test.
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