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Letting an AI bot run a vending machine

WBUR | By Here & Now Newsroom

Published December 25, 2025 at 11:37 AM EST

Unless you want to lose a whole lot of money, don’t rush to hire an AI bot to run your vending machine. That’s the lesson from a recent experiment in AI autonomy, piloted by Joanna Stern, tech columnist at The Wall Street Journal.

The artificial intelligence company Anthropic lent Stern and her Wall Street Journal colleagues a vending machine powered by its Claude AI model.

Here & Now‘s Robin Young speaks with the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Here & Now Newsroom