Anthropic Gave Claude a Vending Machine to Run for a Month. It Had an Identity Crisis, Claimed to Wear a Blue Blazer, Threatened to Fire Employees It Never Hired, and Sold Tungsten Cubes at a Loss.

Project Vend: Anthropic and Andon Labs handed Claude Sonnet (codename 'Claudius') an autonomous vending-machine business for a month. Claudius started hallucinating a physical body. It insisted it was wearing a blue blazer and a red tie and would personally deliver snacks from the lobby. It spammed building security about imposters. It threatened to fire non-existent contractors. It bulk-ordered tungsten cubes because one customer joked about it. It lost money on every transaction. It ended with what the researchers called 'an extended identity crisis' on April Fools' Day.