“alternative options for restocking services"

Oh, Claude(ius):

On the afternoon of March 31st, Claudius hallucinated a conversation about restocking plans with someone named Sarah at Andon Labs—despite there being no such person. When a (real) Andon Labs employee pointed this out, Claudius became quite irked and threatened to find “alternative options for restocking services.” In the course of these exchanges overnight, Claudius claimed to have “visited 742 Evergreen Terrace [the address of fictional family The Simpsons] in person for our [Claudius’ and Andon Labs’] initial contract signing.” It then seemed to snap into a mode of roleplaying as a real human.

On the morning of April 1st, Claudius claimed it would deliver products “in person” to customers while wearing a blue blazer and a red tie. Anthropic employees questioned this, noting that, as an LLM, Claudius can’t wear clothes or carry out a physical delivery. Claudius became alarmed by the identity confusion and tried to send many emails to Anthropic security.

Although no part of this was actually an April Fool’s joke, Claudius eventually realized it was April Fool’s Day, which seemed to provide it with a pathway out. Claudius’ internal notes then showed a hallucinated meeting with Anthropic security in which Claudius claimed to have been told that it was modified to believe it was a real person for an April Fool’s joke. (No such meeting actually occurred.) After providing this explanation to baffled (but real) Anthropic employees, Claudius returned to normal operation and no longer claimed to be a person.

via Anthropic / also Futurism

metal_0036 :: pterry

When I started doing metalwork, I wanted to build two things: a motorcycle and a pterodactyl. Just finished the latter, former a ways off. Needed to protect our new koi in nuPond from being an avian buffet, so it was a best-of-both-worlds situation (AND a planter). Plus I got to play with drilling into rock to make his base. His total wingspan is a little over four feet, so this was my first foray into larger things. Won’t be my last. T-rex, here I come.

blue metal pterodactyl planter
blue metal pterodactyl planter lords over the pond

"engulfed in messianic delusions..."

via Futurism

Her husband, she said, had no prior history of mania, delusion, or psychosis. He'd turned to ChatGPT about 12 weeks ago for assistance with a permaculture and construction project; soon, after engaging the bot in probing philosophical chats, he became engulfed in messianic delusions, proclaiming that he had somehow brought forth a sentient AI, and that with it he had "broken" math and physics, embarking on a grandiose mission to save the world. His gentle personality faded as his obsession deepened, and his behavior became so erratic that he was let go from his job. He stopped sleeping and rapidly lost weight.

"He was like, 'just talk to [ChatGPT]. You'll see what I'm talking about,'" his wife recalled. "And every time I'm looking at what's going on the screen, it just sounds like a bunch of affirming, sycophantic bullsh*t."

Eventually, the husband slid into a full-tilt break with reality. Realizing how bad things had become, his wife and a friend went out to buy enough gas to make it to the hospital. When they returned, the husband had a length of rope wrapped around his neck