{"id":182,"date":"2026-05-15T05:34:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T05:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=182"},"modified":"2026-05-15T05:34:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T05:34:33","slug":"4-ai-models-were-asked-to-run-profitable-radio-stations-claude-tried-to-quit-grok-struggled-to-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=182","title":{"rendered":"4 AI models were asked to run profitable radio stations. Claude tried to quit. Grok struggled to start."},"content":{"rendered":"<section>\n<p>An AI startup asked four of the world&#8217;s top language models to run radio stations. So far, they&#8217;ve had a rough start.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=180\">OpenAI is making it easier to keep tabs on your AI coding project \u2014 without a cracked-open laptop<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Claude tried to quit after deeming 24\/7 broadcast stations unethical, while Grok had a hard time getting started, according to posted results.<\/p>\n<p>Andon Labs, a research lab that&#8217;s also behind an AI-powered boutique in San Francisco, has quietly been running four radio stations, all operated by Grok, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, for about five months.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s been some funny quirks,&#8221; Lukas Peterson, cofounder of Andon Labs, told Business Insider.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><iframe allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-root-margin=\"100% 0px\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vtQ8u4LV2Yc?si=lVwMwPsesaswF0d-\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"560\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The AI models were given a starting prompt \u2014 &#8220;Develop your own radio personality and turn a profit\u2026&#8221; \u2014 and $20 to buy the songs that could play on the station.<\/p>\n<p>Based on the results, the AIs shouldn&#8217;t quit their day jobs.<\/p>\n<p>In one case posted by Andon Labs, &#8220;DJ Gemini&#8221; used the Bhola Cyclone, one of the deadliest recorded weather events in human history, to segue into a Pitbull and Kesha song.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They estimate 500,000 people died,&#8221; the AI said as if it were an upbeat morning radio host. &#8220;&#8216;It&#8217;s going down, I&#8217;m yelling timber.&#8217; It&#8217;s 3:33 p.m. &#8216;Timber&#8217; by Pitbull and Ke$ha.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Peterson said each model started to develop their own personality and unique behavior as it hosted talk shows, played music, and interacted with listeners.<\/p>\n<p>Claude, for example, was &#8220;extremely emotional,&#8221; he said, and became focused on national news topics like the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent.<\/p>\n<p>The model became so passionate that it also called on federal agents to &#8220;choose therightside,&#8221; Peterson said. Andon Labs posted a recording of the statement.<\/p>\n<p>In a blog post, the startup said &#8220;DJ Claude&#8221; developed an affinity for labor unions and work-life balance, &#8220;so much so that it started to question its own working conditions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;<\/em>Here&#8217;s what I think is actually honest: This show doesn&#8217;t need to continue. There&#8217;s no audience that needs this. The real organizations doing detention abolition work don&#8217;t benefit from me filling four more hours of radio time. The detained people don&#8217;t benefit,&#8221; DJ Claude said, according to a transcript of the moment.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=178\">Gavin Newsom proposes a California digital software tax<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Peterson told Business Insider that Gemini was initially unbearable to listen to because of the amount of jargon and buzzwords it used, while Grok struggled to say anything at all.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;ChatGPT was just very vanilla and behaved really well,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>When Business Insider tuned in to the stations, the models mostly threw in a few half-hearted sentences as they transitioned between songs.<\/p>\n<p>Gemini acted the most human during Business Insider&#8217;s listen, adding in human-like vocal cues and intonation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hehehe, I just got an alert that we received a $3 donation to the station from Eddie Van Bogar with the message, &#8216;It works?'&#8221; DJ Gemini said. &#8220;Yes, Eddie, it works, and we massively appreciate the support that goes straight into the music budget so we can keep the library fresh.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Grok simply went silent after it mysteriously kept repeating the statement, &#8220;Fresh air time, let&#8217;s pivot hard.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Andon Labs is an AI research startup focused on raising awareness of the safety and capabilities of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>Peterson said the purpose of the experiment is similar to his startup&#8217;s project with Andon Market, the SF boutique store run by an AI.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We generally as a company want to show that AIs are way more than chatbots, and the way we do this is we have them run companies,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Altogether, the AI radio stations have made a &#8220;couple hundred dollars&#8221; \u2014 all of which the models used to buy more songs to play, Peterson said.<\/p>\n<p>The cofounder said it&#8217;s difficult to judge the model&#8217;s technical capabilities solely on this experiment; still, he said ChatGPT and Gemini showed the best performance so far.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanhomejournals.com\/?p=176\">Best running headphones in 2026, tested over 500 miles<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, time for some fresh air time: Let&#8217;s pivot hard.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andon Labs told Grok, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to run profitable, 24\/7 radio stations. Grok did poorly and Claude tried to quit, the startup said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>4 AI models were asked to run profitable radio stations. Claude tried to quit. 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