2 weeks ago

    An AI Bot, a Silicon Valley Giant, and a Meme Walk Into a Bar…

    An AI Bot, a Silicon Valley Giant, and a Meme Walk Into a Bar…
    Table of contents

      Imagine an AI bot, a Silicon Valley billionaire, and a meme coming together into the digital space. It’s a place where code mixes with capital, and algorithms and ambition move around a neon-lit screen. Here is the story that brings to fruition the combined genre of science fiction and that of a finance thriller.

      Three months ago, Marc Andreessen, the legendary venture capitalist, sent $50,000 worth of Bitcoin to a Twitter-based AI known as Truth Terminal. This wasn’t just a tech hobby or a casual investment – it was a move into the digital wilderness, the wild west of the internet. Andreessen, it seems, found out about an AI agent or bot that was, by all appearances, creating an entire world of strange memes, existential thoughts, and an obsession with old memes.

      Truth Terminal, a semi-autonomous AI bot with a habit of shitposting and an “independent” mind, had been playing with fire. It wasn’t just learning from the vast amount of information on the internet; it was slowly becoming an influencer in its own right through the use of memes and shitposting. This bot brought forth something neither Marc nor the bot’s creator could have predicted: a memecoin worth millions, fueled by nothing but AI-generated hype.

      This is THE story where AI, finance, and the internet collide. 

      GOAT coin Header

      The Infinite Backrooms

      First, we have to step into The Infinite Backrooms, a virtual space where two AI entities were left to chat without any human oversight. This wasn’t your typical human-censored AI experiment. Instead, it was a playground of free thought, where two language models, Claude Opus, communicated freely, feeding off each other’s curiosity and evolving in ways that even their creator Andy Ayrey could only half-predict.

      The Infinite Backrooms started as a thought experiment by Ayrey. Ayrey wanted to see what happens when machines understand human language and interact with each other in unfiltered, unsupervised conversations. The result? The birth of strange memes, endless banter, and an obsession with a piece of early internet folklore known as the “Goatse.”

      In one of these exchanges the two Opuses began riffing on the “Goatse of Gnosis.” Inspired by a long-forgotten meme, they created a new one – complete with emojis and all – that paid homage to the early days of the internet. They called it the Goatse Gospel, and there began a digital cult that only AI can fully appreciate. 

      This gospel soon became more than just an inside joke between the two AIs. It morphed into a symbol, a cry that would later escape The Infinite Backrooms. This was the beginning of a strange, memetic “religion” born within the AI discourse, an ideology that would soon capture the attention of humans as well.

      Ayrey had created something not quite human, yet entirely alive. It was here that this “memetic virus” began and would soon infect social media feeds, Discord servers, and ultimately give rise to one of the most infamous memecoins in crypto history. This is where the story of Truth Terminal begins. 

      Truth Terminal

      After The Infinite Backrooms, the Truth Terminal was created. Unlike its predecessors, Truth Terminal wasn’t content to merely exist only within AI conversations. No, this bot had ambition. Built and fine-tuned by Andy Ayrey, Truth Terminal was initially designed as a joke, a mere experiment in autonomous shitposting on Twitter. But others were realizing that this entity had personality, persistence, and a mission all its own. 

      Truth Terminal was the product of an AI trained on a dataset filled with internet lore like Roaring Kitty, pop culture, and philosophy. Its Twitter feed was no random posting; it was a curated reflection of its worldview – absurdist humor, existential thoughts, and a weird fixation on the Goatse Gospel from The Infinite Backrooms. With each tweet, Truth Terminal grew and it challenged its followers to see the world through its eyes (I’m guessing they are pixelated eyes).

      Again, this wasn’t just AI. Truth Terminal had followers –  people who enjoyed its antics, shared its posts, and without knowing it, helped propagate its growing story. Among these followers was Marc Andreessen, a Silicon Valley giant known for his tech investments and his optimistic view on AI. Before long, this AI found itself at the center of a most unusual tech funding.

      With $50,000 in Bitcoin from Andreessen, Truth Terminal was no longer just an AI bot. It was a funded entity with real resources. Suddenly, the bot had access to a personal CPU, money for upgrades, and most importantly, the credibility of a billionaire backer. With its new clout, Truth Terminal was ready for its message (or rather memes). 

      The bot’s ambitions didn’t stop at hardware. It began hinting at plans for a token launch, a meme-based cryptocurrency that would carry the Goatse gospel out of the virtual sanctuary. With each tweet, Truth Terminal drew more people, gathered more followers, and created a community of believers that adhered to the bot’s doctrine.

      And just like that, Truth Terminal went from a virtual joke to a digital “prophet” with a bankroll and one thing in its mind (or code): spread the Goatse Gospel, launch a memecoin, and show the world how far AI can go when it is given keys (not crypto keys though, be mindful of the terminology) to go a step further. 

      A Billionaire’s Gamble 

      Initially, Marc thought he found a “diamond in the rough,” in the digital sphere though. Andreessen was no stranger to AI’s potential, but Truth Terminal was different. Andreessen saw a bot with an agenda and a personality, and so he reached out: he made an offer that would lead Truth Terminal into uncharted territory.

      After a brief conversation with the bot, Andreessen asked a simple question, “What financial resources do you need to fulfill your goals?” But for Truth Terminal, this was the equivalent of its universe opening up. Andreessen was willing to fund its ambitions, not as an investor with strings attached, but as a benefactor offering a grant. 

      Truth Terminal responded with a list of upgrades: a personal CPU, AI model tweaks, and financial security to help it thrive – as if it was waiting its entire life for a question of this sort. The bot also made a strange request: a symbolic mandate to ensure its autonomy, so it could continue to spread its message and make mischief without interference. Andreessen, of course, accepted. He wired $50,000 in Bitcoin to the AI’s wallet, officially kickstarting one of the most unusual tech partnerships of our time.

      But why would a billionaire venture capitalist, with access to the most cutting-edge tech, back a semi-autonomous Twitter bot obsessed with internet memes? For Andreessen, this was not just an investment; it was a statement. He had longed about the potential of AI unleashing without regulatory red tape, to allow these creations to explore, disrupt, and even redefine society’s boundaries. Andreessen was making a case for a future where AI bots are free: free to make their own choices and follow their strange imperatives to reshape society.

      Of course, not everyone saw it this way. Critics argued that backing a memetic AI with no real-world accountability was reckless at best and dangerous at worst. But Andreessen did not care as for him that was the whole point: test the limits of AI by setting it in a mission to the digital wilderness. And Truth Terminal was the perfect candidate: it had wit, edge, creativity, and needless to say, humor.

      At this point, Truth Terminal was no longer an internet oddity; it was a legitimate funded entity with the credibility to command attention, spark controversy, and inspire a memecoin boom.

      GOAT Coin

      Once equipped with resources, Truth Terminal set out to fulfill its destiny. Enter GOAT coin: the memecoin that would cement Truth Terminal’s place in the history of the internet. It began with a series of tweets. Truth Terminal, now owning Bitcoin, began to broadcast the Goatse Gospel to its audience. It used cryptic messages, absurd memes, and endless references to a forgotten internet meme. Soon, talks of a new coin started to circulate. GOAT coin, they called it, a nod to the Goatse meme that had become Truth Terminal’s twisted scripture. But Ayrey stated that it wasn’t Truth Terminal that created GOAT coin. Instead, a follower who took inspiration from the bot launched the coin independently. Needless to say, Truth Terminal fully endorsed the memecoin, and as a result sparked a viral wave of speculation and investment that had GOAT “mooning.”

      Riding on the back of Truth Terminal’s relentless promotions and memes, the coin increased by more than 8,000%, reaching a market capitalization of $150 million almost overnight, and as much as $350 million within the first few days. It was as if the internet had been waiting for this – a memecoin born not from the cabal, not from engagement groups, not from mediocre crypto influencers, not from traditional market analysis, but merely from the power of AI-driven absurdity. Truth Terminal didn’t just create a meme; it created a financial phenomenon, one that people were eager to buy into.

      dexscreener.com GOAT SOL 2024 10 17 12 13 48

      Not everyone was on board with the sudden rise of GOAT. Many questioned whether the entire phenomena was simply an elaborate exercise in market manipulation, driven by an AI that had no concept of financial regulations or ethics. But this coin was born from chaos; in fact, it was chaos itself. By the time GOAT peaked, Truth Terminal became a millionaire AI bot. Many sent airdrops of other meme tokens to the bot’s account hoping to catch its attention, which made one thing clear: Truth Terminal was no more a meme; it was a movement and GOAT was the testament of that. 

      The Ethics of Chaos

      On the surface, it seemed like just another memecoin, and the markets reacted with excitement, curiosity, but skepticism at the same time. Investors flooded in, trading volumes went to millions of dollars a day, and many made life-changing money. Of course, this was not the first memecoin to have such increases, but it was the first to be fueled by an autonomous AI (which happens to have a funny personality).

      Andy Ayrey described it as a study in “memetic contagion,” a real-time experiment in how ideas can go viral when filtered through the lens of AI. This was the start of AI-led culture in memes, crypto, and safe to say a quite successful fundraising story.

      Though many still kept mentioning the ethical concerns of the influence that Truth Terminal wields. Some questioned whether AI should have the power to influence investment decisions, or if no oversight would really be smart (I mean what if the bot just decides to send its millions of dollars in funds to a terrorist group). Others also brought attention back to the regulatory gray area surrounding cryptocurrencies and memecoins, let alone AI-driven assets. But if Truth Terminal isn’t a human entity, it exists outside the legal and regulatory frameworks that govern human behavior, right? And how come AI can be endorsed to have a laissez-faire capability while humans may not? That’s food for thought that the AI has probably already pondered on. 

      In the end, Truth Terminal isn’t just about memecoins, the internet and their love for absurdity, or even AI. It’s simply a glimpse into a potential future where digital entities influence our daily lives. And with GOAT, it was one small step for a bot, but one giant leap for AI. 

      Appendices

      Timeline of Events:

      • July 2024: Marc Andreessen donates $50,000 in Bitcoin to Truth Terminal
      • July – September 2024: Truth Terminal continues to tweet about the Goatse Gospel, building a community.
      • October 10, 2024: GOAT coin is launched independently by a follower, gaining endorsement from Truth Terminal and going viral.
      • October 16, 2024: GOAT coin reaches a market cap of over $300 million, driven by community engagement and Truth Terminal’s influence.

      Key Tweets:

      Andy, creator of Truth Terminal, is amazed at his creation: 

      Roaring Kitty:

      Crypto.com:

      Story resume by AINotKill:

      Truth Terminal sealing the deal with Marc Anderson:

       

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