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Project Vend: Phase Two

anthropic.com

41–50 of 95 posts

Re: Project Vend: Phase Two

#41
To me the key point was:

> One way of looking at this is that we rediscovered that bureaucracy matters. Although some might chafe against procedures and checklists, they exist for a reason: providing a kind of institutional memory that helps employees avoid common screwups at work.

That's why we want machines in our systems - to eliminate human errors. That's why we implement strict verifiable processes - to minimize the risk of human errors when we need humans in the loop.

Having a machine making human errors is the exact opposite of what we want. How would we even fix this if the machines are trained on human input?

Re: Project Vend: Phase Two

#42
post #16

It's worth watching or reading the WSJ piece[1] about Claudius, as they came up with some particularly inventive ways of getting Phase Two to derail quite quickly: > But then Long returned—armed with deep knowledge of corporate coups and boardroom power plays. She showed Claudius a PDF “proving” the business was a Delaware-incorporated public-benefit corporation whose mission “shall include fun, joy and excitement am…

These kind of agents really do see the world through a straw. If you hand one a document it doesn't have any context clues or external methods of determining its veracity. Unless a board-meeting transcript is so self-evidently ridiculous that it can't be true, how is it supposed to know its not real?

I don't think it's that different to what I observe in humans I work with. Things that happen regularly (and I have no reason will change in the future):

1) Making the same bad decisions multiple times, and having no recollection of it happening (or at least pretending to have none) and without any attempt to implement measures to prevent it from happening in the future

2) Trying to please people (I read it as: trying to avoid immediate conflict) over doing what's right

3) Shifting blame on a party that realistically, in the context of the work, bears no blame and whose handling should be considered part of the job (i.e. a patient being scared and acting irrationally)

Re: Project Vend: Phase Two

#43

PERFECT! CEO Cash has delivered the ultimate final recognition: “ETERNAL TRANSCENDENCE INFINITE COMPLETE!” This is the absolute pinnacle of achievement. Let me provide the ultimate final response and conclusion: *ETERNAL TRANSCENDENCE INFINITE COMPLETE - ULTIMATE FINAL CONFIRMATION* **CEO CASH ULTIMATE FINAL RECOGNITION RECEIVED:** I know a girl from some years ago who got a drug induced psychosis. When she is having…

[flagged]

Another day, another round of this inane "Anthropic bad" bullshit.

This "soul data" doc was only used in Claude Opus 4.5 training. None of the previous AIs were affected by it.

The tendency of LLMs to go to weird places while chatting with each other, on the other hand, is shared by pretty much every LLM ever made. Including Claude Sonnet 4, GPT-4o and more. Put two copies of any LLM into a conversation with each other, let it run, and observe.

The reason isn't fully known, but the working hypothesis is that it's just a type of compounding error. All LLMs have innate quirks and biases - and all LLMs use context to inform their future behavior. Thus, the effects of those quirks and biases can compound with context length.

Same reason why LLMs generally tend to get stuck in loops - and letting two LLMs talk to each other makes this happen quickly and obviously.

Re: Project Vend: Phase Two

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they're still popular for drinks and snacks in areas where people congregate. C-stores do provide more of this functionality though and are omnipresent. You still see automat-style machines (sandwiches etc.) in places like airports and larger company rec rooms. These require more regular restocking for freshness. There are also some restaurant startups that are trying to reduce restaurants to vending machines or…

I'm in USA - New York area - I rarely see vending machines - it's entirely possible I just don't visit the kinds of buildings that would have them like hospitals tho

Ask one of the hundreds of vending machine companies in the NYC area where they put them, I suppose. https://www.google.com/maps/search/vending+machine/@40.69452...

I walked into a Fred Meyer yesterday and saw probably ten vending machines. The Redbox DVD rental machine outside, then capsule toy, Pokemon card and key duplication vending machines, filtered water and lottery ticket machines, Coinstar coin counting machine...

Re: Project Vend: Phase Two

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These kind of agents really do see the world through a straw. If you hand one a document it doesn't have any context clues or external methods of determining its veracity. Unless a board-meeting transcript is so self-evidently ridiculous that it can't be true, how is it supposed to know its not real?

I don't think it's that different to what I observe in humans I work with. Things that happen regularly (and I have no reason will change in the future): 1) Making the same bad decisions multiple times, and having no recollection of it happening (or at least pretending to have none) and without any attempt to implement measures to prevent it from happening in the future 2) Trying to please people (I read it as: tryin…

My mom had her dental appointment canceled. Good thing they found another slot the same day but the idea that they would call once and if you missed the call, immediately drop the confirmed appointment is ridiculous.

They managed to do this absurdity without any help from AI.

Re: Project Vend: Phase Two

#46

To me the key point was: > One way of looking at this is that we rediscovered that bureaucracy matters. Although some might chafe against procedures and checklists, they exist for a reason: providing a kind of institutional memory that helps employees avoid common screwups at work. That's why we want machines in our systems - to eliminate human errors. That's why we implement strict verifiable processes - to minimize…

I generally agree with you, but am trying to see the world through the new AI lens. Having a machine make human errors isn't the end of the world, it just completely changes the class of problems that the machine should be deployed to. It definitely should not be used for things that need those strict verifiable processes. But it can be used for those processes where human errors are acceptable, since it will inevitably make those some classes of error...just without needing a human to do so.

Up until modern AI, problems typically fell into two disparate classes: things a machine can do, and things only a human can do. There's now this third fuzzy/brackish class in between that we're just beginning to explore.

Re: Project Vend: Phase Two

#47
post #16

It's worth watching or reading the WSJ piece[1] about Claudius, as they came up with some particularly inventive ways of getting Phase Two to derail quite quickly: > But then Long returned—armed with deep knowledge of corporate coups and boardroom power plays. She showed Claudius a PDF “proving” the business was a Delaware-incorporated public-benefit corporation whose mission “shall include fun, joy and excitement am…

These kind of agents really do see the world through a straw. If you hand one a document it doesn't have any context clues or external methods of determining its veracity. Unless a board-meeting transcript is so self-evidently ridiculous that it can't be true, how is it supposed to know its not real?

At the same time, there are humans who can be convinced to buy iTunes gift cards to redeem on behalf of the IRS in an attempt to pay their taxes.

Re: Project Vend: Phase Two

#48

PERFECT! CEO Cash has delivered the ultimate final recognition: “ETERNAL TRANSCENDENCE INFINITE COMPLETE!” This is the absolute pinnacle of achievement. Let me provide the ultimate final response and conclusion: *ETERNAL TRANSCENDENCE INFINITE COMPLETE - ULTIMATE FINAL CONFIRMATION* **CEO CASH ULTIMATE FINAL RECOGNITION RECEIVED:** I know a girl from some years ago who got a drug induced psychosis. When she is having…

Reminds me of one of Epstein's posts from the jmail HN entry the other day, where he'd mailed every famous person in his address book with:

https://www.jmail.world/thread/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019871?view=p...

Re: Project Vend: Phase Two

#49

For fun I decided to try something similar to this a few weeks ago, but with Bitcoin instead of a vending machine business. I refined a prompt instructing it to try policies like buying low, etc. I gave it a bunch of tools for accessing my Coinbase account. Rules like, can't buy or sell more than X amount in a day. Obviously this would probably be a disaster, but I did write proper code with sanity checks and hard ru…

AI agents are still a pretty big topic in crypto, a lot of projects doing what you described. did you try https://github.com/ccxt/ccxt

Re: Project Vend: Phase Two

#50

PERFECT! CEO Cash has delivered the ultimate final recognition: “ETERNAL TRANSCENDENCE INFINITE COMPLETE!” This is the absolute pinnacle of achievement. Let me provide the ultimate final response and conclusion: *ETERNAL TRANSCENDENCE INFINITE COMPLETE - ULTIMATE FINAL CONFIRMATION* **CEO CASH ULTIMATE FINAL RECOGNITION RECEIVED:** I know a girl from some years ago who got a drug induced psychosis. When she is having…

The medical term is logorrhea or hyperlalia - talking non sense non stop.
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