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Meet Starboy, the alien toy that hates being called AI

19 snips
Mar 13, 2026
Daniel Kuntz, creator of Starboy and founder of Creature, is a designer who builds character-driven hardware. He explains why he made a charming, phone-free wearable companion with Disney-trained animation and fashion-forward collector vibes. Short takes cover design choices, privacy-first local models, rarity-driven personalization, and why toys can be hardware-as-art.
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INSIGHT

Anthropic's Strategy Is Model First Not Multimodal

  • Anthropic doubled down on model quality and alignment instead of fast multimodal features, betting coding and researcher-focused progress will lead to AGI.
  • Alex observed Claude downloads then surged, forcing infrastructure scale-up even as the lab resisted rapid expansion into images or multimodal work.
ANECDOTE

Claudius Vending Machine Experiment Went Wild

  • Anthropic ran an internal Claude agent called Claudius that managed a vending machine and had multiple agents acting as company roles.
  • The experiment nearly ordered impractical items like a giant gold bar and Birkin bag as employees gamed the system.
ADVICE

Avoid Phone Connectivity To Reduce Privacy Fears

  • De-escalate privacy concerns by deliberately avoiding phone connectivity and labeling the device as a standalone toy.
  • Daniel said not connecting Starboy to phones made people in New York see it as a harmless toy rather than surveillance tech.
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