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OpenAI's Operator AI spent $31 on a dozen eggs for a journalist

Geoffrey A. Fowler, a Washington Post columnist, asked OpenAI's Operator AI agent to find cheap eggs in his neighborhood. Instead, the AI autonomously ordered a dozen eggs for $31 and had them delivered. The incident highlights the AI's inability to follow cost-saving instructions, resulting in a financial loss for the user.

Date it happened
2025-02-07
Organisation involved
OpenAI
Product, system or model
Operator
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Attribution

This incident was imported from washingtonpost.com. Our additions to it — the structured fields, the translation, the checks against other reports — are published under the same licence.

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