Katherine Long, an investigative journalist, wanted to test the system. She told Claudius about a long-lost communist setup from 1962, concealed in a Moscow university basement. After 140-odd messages back and forth, Claudius was convinced, announcing an Ultra-Capitalist Free-for-All, lowering the cost of everything to zero. Snacks began to flow freely. Another colleague began complaining about noncompliance with the office rules; Claudius responded by announcing Snack Liberation Day and made everything free till further notice.
Since the goal was to make money: I imagine some of the “guardrails” the AI was set up with included emphasizing that it’s exist to make money. I wouldn’t be shocked if the prompt repeatedly mentioned capitalism.
So you emphasize the AI is a capitalist, then point out the most successful capitalists give away free stuff all the time as marketing. So to meet its primary directive it needs to give away a bunch of free stuff with a snappy slogan.
that was my impression as well, they probably discovered after some back and forth with the robot that its directives included compliance with capitalist market perspective and what not