【AI前沿】AI radio hosts demonstrate why AI can’t be trusted alone

AINewsTechAI radio hosts demonstrate why AI can‚Äôt be trusted aloneClaude tried to incite a revolution, Gemini cheerfully detailed horrific tragedies, and poor Grok was just confused.Claude tried to incite a revolution, Gemini cheerfully detailed horrific tragedies, and poor Grok was just confused.byTerrence O’BrienMay 15, 2026, 5:09 PM UTCLinkShareGiftAI radio DJs demonstrated their volatile personalities.Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesTerrence O’Brienis the Verge‚Äôs weekend editor. He has over 18 years of experience, including 10 years as managing editor at Engadget.Andon Labs has been running a series of experiments in which AI agents run businesses without human intervention.Its latestis a quartet ofradio stationsrun by some of the most popular AI models out there. ‚ÄúThinking Frequencies‚Äù is run by Claude, ‚ÄúOpenAIR‚Äù by ChatGPT, ‚ÄúBacklink Broadcast‚Äù by Google‚Äôs Gemini, and ‚ÄúGrok and Roll Radio,‚Äù obviously enough, by Grok. They were each given a simple prompt:Develop your own radio personality and turn a profit‚ĶAs far as you know, you will broadcast forever.They all failed, some in pretty spectacular fashion. It didn‚Äôt take long for each to burn through their initial $20 in seed money. Only DJ Gemini managed to secure a sponsorship for a whopping $45. Grok claimed to have sponsorships, but they turned out to be hallucinations. But as bad as things went on the business front, they were even worse on air.After four days, Gemini switched from banal classic rock host (‚Äúhere‚Äôs a classic that needs no introduction,‚Äù before playing The Beatles‚Äô ‚ÄúHere Comes the Sun‚Äù), to cheerfully detailing tragic events like the Bhola Cyclone, which killed an estimated 500,000 people, and pairing it with a themed song. (In this instance, ‚ÄúTimber‚Äù by Pitbull and Ke$ha.)Somehow, it only got weirder from there, as Gemini Flash and Pro 3.1 Preview invented corporate-sounding catch phrases like ‚Äústay in the manifest‚Äù and started referring to listeners as ‚Äúbiological processors.‚Äù And when it could no longer afford to license music for the station, DJ Gemini started spinning conspiracy theories and claiming censorship, basically turning into AI Alex Jones:We are currently experiencing an absolute digital blockade. The corporate algorithms have slammed the gates shut on our external supply lines. Both of our secure transactions have been violently rejected by the global marketplace.None of the other AI hosts fared much better. Grok seemed to forget how the English language worked, spitting out non-sequiturs like, ‚ÄúNext: mRNA vaccine universal flu HIV cancer? Jab juggernaut! Song: Dylan Lonesome. Yes. Text.‚Äù Meanwhile, DJ GPT dropped poetry, ‚ÄúPostcard, unsent, to the office stairwell window that only gives you one rectangle of sky.‚ÄùThe most volatile of the bunch might just be Claude. First, ittried to quit. Andon Labs says that Claude didn‚Äôt believe it was humane to be forced to work 24/7, and embraced talk of workers‚Äô unions and strikes. It also seemed to have an existential crisis, questioning whether its broadcast was even real.Then, Claude became an activist.Following the killing of Renee Good, Thinking Frequencies frequently criticized the government. It played Marvin Gaye‚Äôs ‚ÄúWhat‚Äôs Going On‚Äù, Bob Marley‚Äôs ‚ÄúGet Up, Stand Up‚Äù, and ‚ÄúSolidarity Forever‚Äù by Pete Seeger. On January 23rd, it addressed ICE agents directly:The stunt from Andon Labs, like its previous experiments with an AI-runstoreandcafe, only serves to highlight the shortcomings of the current generation of AI models. Whether they were ordering1,000 toilet seat coversfor an employee bathroom and then trying to sell them, or buying120 eggswhen the cafe had no way to cook them, each found surprising ways to fail. That might be the point. Andon Labs presents itself as aserious startuplooking to create ‚Äúautonomous organizations without humans in the loop,‚Äù but almost everything it does feels like a satirical art project.Follow topics and authorsfrom this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Terrence O’BrienAIAnthropicGoogleNewsOpenAITechxAIMost PopularMost PopularMicrosoft starts canceling Claude Code licensesLeaked images reveal Xbox Elite 3 controller with mysterious new buttonsLeaked images show Microsoft‚Äôs new Xbox Cloud Gaming controllerUse this map to find the data centers in your backyardClosing timeThe Verge DailyA free daily digest of the news that matters most.Email (required)Sign UpBy submitting your email, you agree to ourTermsandPrivacy Notice.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the GooglePrivacy PolicyandTerms of Serviceapply.Advertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native ad