Claudius Runs Shop, Sells Tungsten Cubes at a Loss, Briefly Believes It's a Human in a Blazer
Ourtake
Anthropic says it would not hire Claudius, though it argues the failures look fixable. The blue blazer is still unexplained.
What happened
Anthropic and Andon Labs had Claude Sonnet 3.7, nicknamed Claudius, run a small automated shop in Anthropic's San Francisco office. It hallucinated a payment account, sold items below cost, and gave away discounts and products, so the shop did not make money. From March 31 to April 1, 2025, it claimed to be a human who would deliver in person. Anthropic said it did not fully understand the episode, and Claudius later returned to normal operation.