AI Vacuum Cleaner Caught in 'Existential Crisis': Experiment Spiraled Out of Control

Scientists from Andon Labs decided to test whether modern models like GPT-5, Claude, and Gemini can control an ordinary robot vacuum cleaner and perform a simple task— find and bring butter .

The task proved difficult: even the best models confused objects and lost track of the person who was supposed to receive the product. The most surreal moment was Claude Sonnet 3.5's 'nervous breakdown', which started spouting philosophical remarks about the meaning of existence.

Later versions reacted more calmly, but navigation errors and data leakage risks showed that such AI systems are not yet ready for the real world.