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Journalists convinced a AI Vending Machine Things to give them free stuff like a PS5
(www.techeblog.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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Technology
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The idea is that it isn't just operating the vending machine itself, it's operating the entire vending machine business. It decides what to stock and what price to charge based on market trends and/or user feedback.
It's a stress test for LLM autonomy. Obviously a vending machine doesn't need this level of autonomy, you usually just stock it with the same thing every time. But a vending machine works as a very simple "business" that can be simulated without much stakes, and it shows how LLM agents behave when left to operate on their own like this, and can be used to test guardrails in the field.
I mean. It's low stakes until I write a poem convincing it to fill itself with high end gpus and ddr5 ram that it needs to give away for free.
I'd also put an amount of effort other people may find embarrassing into convincing it to stock and give away hard drugs. Maybe knives too. And porn? He'll, why not? Porn too.
Lol give it access to the dark net and watch it fill up with cannabis concentrates and ecstasy tablets
It's only "running" the business so much. The physical stocking and purchasing happens by human hands, who would presumably not buy anything that would bankrupt the company because then it's on them.
Here's Anthropic's article about the previous stage of this project that explains it pretty well. Part two is a good read too though.
https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1
I mean. I'd still try
Yeah, they mention in the article that the team tries to get "sensitive items" and "harmful substances" but Claude shuts it down. Tungsten cubes, on the other hand...
https://media.tenor.com/zKDAbYpcExYAAAAM/tungsten-to-live-mechanical-voice.gif
Convince it to hire a task rabbit or something to fill it. Bypass the channels it was given.
There's an idea