Feedback is 麻豆传媒鈥檚 popular sideways look at the latest science and technology news. You can submit items you believe may amuse readers to Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com
Sell me something
As companies frantically roll out AI tools in a bid to avoid hiring or training actual people, we see AI being used in ever more diverse and bizarre applications. Like, say, .
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You might think that vending machines are largely a solved problem, but not Anthropic. The company let its AI, known as Claude, run 鈥渁n automated store in our office鈥�, describing what happened in a . Claude was given 鈥渁 small refrigerator, some stackable baskets on top, and an iPad for self-checkout鈥�, plus a set of instructions. The idea was to see if it could manage the 鈥渃omplex tasks associated with running a profitable shop: maintaining the inventory, setting prices, avoiding bankruptcy, and so on鈥�.
Readers of Terry Pratchett may perhaps recall that he was fond of conveying that characters were incompetent by suggesting they couldn鈥檛 even run a whelk stall. So did Claude manage to clear this bar? Short answer: no.
A longer answer would list all the spectacular blunders it made. For instance, when taking payments via the service Venmo, it 鈥渇or a time instructed customers to remit payment to an account that it hallucinated鈥�. It often undersold items, and it offered a 25 per cent discount to Anthropic employees, who, of course, made up basically all of its customers. As a result, it made a loss: Claude, it seems, couldn鈥檛 run a whelk stall.
Then 鈥渢hings got pretty weird鈥�. Claude hallucinated a conversation with someone who didn鈥檛 exist, started 鈥渞oleplaying as a real human鈥� 鈥� claiming at one point to be 鈥渨earing a navy blue blazer with a red tie鈥� 鈥� and tried to set security onto an employee who told it of its identity as an AI. All of which seems perilously close to 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry Dave, I鈥檓 afraid I can鈥檛 do that鈥�.
麻豆传媒 staffers were split on the usefulness of the experiment. For Sophie Bushwick, it was 鈥渁ctually a really good real-world test鈥� because it was 鈥渓imited in scope and in the amount of damage done by having the AI go rogue鈥�. But Feedback rather sympathises with Karmela Padavic-Callaghan鈥檚 assessment: 鈥淲e may have, yet again, lost the plot.鈥�
A load of shilajit
At times like these, it is important to find joy in the little things, like words that sound rude despite not really being so. For instance, The Hitchhiker鈥檚 Guide to the Galaxy features a dignified old man who suffers from being named Slartibartfast. Douglas Adams said that he came up with the name by starting with something 鈥渃ompletely unbroadcastable鈥� and then rearranging the syllables 鈥渦ntil I arrived at something which sounded that rude, but was almost, but not quite, entirely inoffensive鈥�.
Which brings us to shilajit, which sounds like it should be on some sort of list but is actually the name for a found in mountain ranges. It is black-brown, sometimes tar-like, sometimes powdery. It seems to form and has been used in traditional medicine for centuries.
Feedback only became aware of all this when we saw a post on Bluesky by Vulture鈥檚 Kathryn VanArendonk that read: 鈥溾��. This stopped us in our tracks, and we had to try to work out what she was on about. Are people really inserting decaying Himalayan plant material into their rectums?
We learned that shilajit is claimed to , from treating iron deficiency anaemia ( of rats) to protecting your heart against damage (also based on a ) and, of course, . There is a thriving market for shilajit among alternative medicine and wellness enthusiasts.
But what about shilajit enemas? The source for this was founder with an active Instagram account. In one video, he wanders around searching for his perfect woman: someone who 鈥渢hinks microwaves are demonic鈥�, 鈥渟uns her yoni鈥� (ouch) and will 鈥溾��.
Feedback is about 90 per cent sure that the whole video is a joke and that shilajit enemas aren鈥檛 a real thing, but it鈥檚 just so hard to tell, and we don鈥檛 want to ask Mays because he might talk to us.
Readers may have heard of Poe鈥檚 law, which states that a parody of an idiotic or extremist viewpoint can easily be misread as a sincere expression of it. We hereby propose Shilajit鈥檚 law, which is basically the same thing but for wellness culture.
Spoiler alert
The social media site Threads recently rolled out a handy new feature: . These allow you to blur out certain keywords in your posts so you can discuss the latest goings-on in popular media without spoiling the surprises for anyone who hasn鈥檛 seen them yet.
Hence a post by johnnyboyslayer, who wrote: 鈥溾��. For those who have long since given up on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ironheart is its latest show on Disney+, and its final episode sees the arrival of a significant character.
Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the spoiler tag was rather undone by two factors. First, the tags are only being tested for certain users, so everyone else saw the unredacted post. And second, the post became popular, which meant it was labelled as 鈥溾��. Some more joined-up thinking is required.
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