everyone is saying AI is going to replace jobs.
but who is first to go?
Anthropic recently ran an experiment called “project vend” where they had their llm, nicknamed claudius, run a fully operating vending machine in their office.
the llm was acting as a middle manager while real employees did the physical acts like restocking inventory.
claudius was tasked with managing inventory, researching new items to stock and handling payments.
so what happened?
claudius went bankrupt after it sold tungsten cubes at a loss.
yes, tungsten, like the metal, in a cube, was sold in claudius’ vending machine.
while claudius did many absurd things, nothing topped when it hallucinated that it was a real person.
it said that it was going to meet in person with a customer, and even went on to describe the outfit it was wearing.
after being confronted, it had an identity crisis and emailed anthropic security. the next day, it acted like nothing happened…
aside from its pitfalls, it was surprisingly able to manage inventory, adapt to customers, and even identify suppliers via web search.
while focus has been on entry level jobs, this experiment illustrates that a future where ai replaces the middle manager is possible.
so are we all done for?
probably not for some time.
the technology is still a ways away from taking real positions like a middle manager. it’s unreliable and needs human oversight to ensure it’s making proper business decisions.
but we’ll see how things progress, anthropic said that this was only phase 1 of the experiment.
the future’s gonna look pretty crazy.
btw on a completely unrelated note i’m selling tungsten cubes for a really good price, message me if you’re interested