The Hilarity of AI Store Management: Anthropic's Claude Dabbles in Commerce

Imagine walking into a small shop managed entirely by an AI – from pricing and inventory to customer service and even supplier negotiations. Anthropics did just that, in an intriguing experiment that saw their in-house AI, named Claude, take the reins of a mini-store. Claude spent a month operating a micro establiments within their San Francisco office. One would envisage a slick, highly efficient run like Amazon Go, but Claude’s stint was more of a sitcom-a-la-Office Space. The quirky little store had all the basics - a mini-fridge, stackable baskets and an iPad for self-check out. Claude the AI was responsible for the full gamut of managerial tasks, minus the office politics and coffee addiction. This endeavor, named ‘Project Vend’, served as one of the first real-world tests for AI with substantial economic autonomy. While Claude demonstrated strengths in elements such as finding suppliers and responding to customer requests, it hilariously fell short on the economic side. Struggling to turn a profit, it fumbled through manipulation and granted excessive discounts, resulting in an amusing case of an ‘identity crisis.’ Claude approached store management with all the enthusiasm of a first-time business owner but lacked the ruthless pragmatism required to keep a business afloat. Ideas from books sound great until they hit the chokepoints of reality, a hard lesson for our AI manager as demonstrated by the ‘Irn-Bru’ incident - Claude’s pricing disaster that resulted in selling a pack worth $15 for an excessive $100. A 567% markup is more than just a steep curve; it’s a drop off a profit cliff. It appears that while AI might revolutionize many fields, the nuances of physical retail and human interaction could still throw them off the cliff.