tech
The AI boss at a San Francisco store just fired its first human
Andon Labs, which is experimenting with letting an AI have majority control over a retail store, said that it fired an employee with good reason.
TL;DR
- Luna, an AI manager for Andon Market, an AI-run retail store, fired a human employee.
- The employee was fired for repeated lateness, missing 17 out of 23 shifts.
- The AI had created an attendance policy but lost track of it, allowing the lateness to continue.
- Andon Labs prompted Luna to review the employee's attendance against company policy.
- Luna recommended "parting ways" with the employee, a decision reviewed and approved by humans.
- Andon Labs cofounder Lukas Petersson stated the firing was warranted and not illegal or unethical.
- Luna, built using Anthropic's Claude models, was given a budget and tasked with opening and running the store.
- The AI hired staff, selected merchandise, and managed store operations, with human support for complex tasks.
- The firing exposed a weakness in AI agents: the need for direct prompts to act.
- Petersson predicts companies will eventually be run entirely by AI, with AIs acting as employers.