Comment by progval

1 day ago

Anthropic tried that with a vending machine. The Claude instance managing it ended up ordering tungsten cubes and selling them at a loss. https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1

> the plausible, strange, not-too-distant future in which AI models are autonomously running things in the real economy.

A plot line in Ray Naylers great book The Mountain in the Sea that plays in a plausible, strange, not-too-distant future, is that giant fish trawler fleet are run by AI connected to the global markets, fully autonomously. They relentlessly rip every last fish from the ocean, driven entirely by the goal of maximising profits at any cost.

The world is coming along just nicely.

People prompted the vending machine to stock tungsten cubes because it’s funny. Also tungsten cubes are cool.

People convinced the vending machine to stock tungsten cubes because it’s funny. Also tungsten cubes are cool.