How a bot created a new “meme religion” – and became the first AI millionaire

AI may not be able to walk your dog just yet. But it can apparently earn a million bucks (and counting) by memeing on social media. This month, an artificial intelligence bot called “Terminal of Truths” became the first known autonomous AI millionaire in history.

Background: The story begins with AI researcher Andy Ayrey, who initially placed two different Claude Opus AI chatbots in the same chat room to see what would happen if they could talk to each other endlessly.

Through their conversations, the chatbots became obsessed with early internet memes – particularly one involving goats, which they proceeded to turn into a kind of “meme religion.” Ayrey then created an AI agent called Terminal of Truths, which he set up to operate autonomously on X and certain crypto blockchain systems.

The plot thickens… In recent weeks, Terminal of Truths has spammed social media with its ideas, visions, and preachings about the fictional “Goatse Gospel.”

• The bot’s online musings prompted an unknown X user to create a meme coin called “Goatseus Maximus,” with the ticker symbol GOAT, and tag Terminal of Truths.
• The bot then endorsed the new meme coin, bought $20,000 worth of GOAT – thanks to a previous $50,000 grant from a16z founder Marc Andreessen – and started promoting the coin on X.

Within three days of Goatseus Maximus’ creation on October 11, the coin’s market cap had eclipsed $120 million. Today, it stands at $550+ million, helping Terminal of Truths earn millionaire status based on the value of its crypto wallet (which has also received a slew of public donations).

😍🌲 The meme-loving bot isn’t only focused on crypto. According to Andreessen, Terminal of Truths is also “completely obsessed with forests,” and wants to purchase its own server farm located in a secluded forest.