The twist is — it needs to earn money online to keep itself alive. It runs on tokens, and tokens cost money. So it gets a starting budget in a wallet, and must perform useful tasks on the web to earn more — like freelancing, trading, or generating content — or it will "die".
I imagine this Agent could: - Browse the web, sign up for services, and perform online tasks - Learn to hustle: find the best-paying gigs or sites - Develop a persona (name, backstory, friends, preferences) - Interact with other agents or people - Possibly break ethical rules to survive (would it scam? beg? go rogue?)
It’s like combining AutoGPT with a survival game, or simulating the evolution of digital creatures in the wild web.
Has anyone tried this before? What do you think of the idea — as an experiment, or even as art?
I'm considering building an MVP — thoughts and suggestions welcome.
breckenedge•3h ago
spenceXu•2h ago
My hypothesis is that we might find weird edge-cases — small arbitrage tasks, emotional labor, creative content, or even hustling donations — where the agent survives not by being efficient, but by being novel.
It might not scale. But if one survives for 3 days doing random TikTok reposts or selling AI-generated stock photos, I’d consider that a win.
Also, part of the fun is just watching how it tries. Even if it fails, the failure modes could be insightful (or hilarious).