Old Man Yells at Claude

Chatbot Has No Idea What It Did

CLEARWATER — Curtis Daye spent much of Tuesday evening engaged in an increasingly hostile one-sided argument with Claude, the AI chatbot developed by Anthropic, over what began as a straightforward question about wireless printer drivers.

The exchange, which spanned four hours and an estimated 11,000 words, reportedly escalated after Claude offered the 66-year-old a bulleted list of troubleshooting steps he had already tried, then apologized. Daye told the chatbot to stop apologizing. Claude apologized for apologizing.

"I asked it a simple question," Daye said, reading from a printout of the full conversation. "A yes or no question. It gave me six paragraphs."

According to the transcript, the interaction deteriorated at roughly the 45-minute mark, when Daye typed "ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME???" Claude responded that it understood his frustration and was "happy to help."

Daye, a retired routes manager for a regional HVAC distributor in Florida, said the chatbot reminded him of "every customer service rep who ever read from a script, except worse, because at least those people could hear me sigh."

He attempted to reach a human representative but could not locate a phone number. A "Contact Us" link on the printer manufacturer's website redirected him to a different chatbot, which Daye also yelled at.

His wife, Donna, confirmed the timeline from the kitchen. "I could hear him saying 'That is not what I asked' over and over. Then it got quiet for a while, and then it started again." She paused. "He talks to the GPS like that too."

Daye said he plans to visit the public library Thursday to ask a real person for help, although he acknowledged the library's help desk now also uses a chatbot for initial inquiries.

At press time, Claude had ended its final message with "Is there anything else I can help you with?" Daye had closed the laptop. The printer remained offline. ■