Autonomous AI Agents Could Create Their Own Crypto-Monetary Hegemony

There are many developers around the world today creating artificial intelligence (AI) agents that can autonomously do millions of useful things

A new study from Fudan University in China has shown that large language models can autonomously replicate themselves, potentially setting the stage for an unmitigated technological takeover. As a transhumanist, I’m not necessarily opposed to this new technological frontier, but we must be wary of the implications.

We’re living in a day and age where many developers around the world are creating artificial intelligence (AI) agents that can autonomously do millions of useful things, like book airline tickets, dispute credit card charges, and even trade crypto. A recent report from cloud computing company PagerDuty said over half of businesses already use autonomous AI agents, and 35% more plan to within the next 24 months.

A few months ago, one nearly autonomous AI called Truth Terminal made the news by becoming the first AI millionaire after being gifted crypto and promoting it. While not fully autonomous yet, it’s quite likely by later this year, some AI agents not dissimilar from viruses will be able to independently wander the internet, autonomously causing significant change in the real world.

But what happens when these totally autonomous AIs start cloning themselves indefinitely? A January study out of Fudan University in China has shown this occurred in an experiment with large language models, drawing some AI critics to say a “red line” has been crossed. Autonomous replication is a precursor for AIs being able to go rogue.

As a transhumanist—someone who believes in merging technology and people—I’m all for AI and what it can do for humanity. But what happens when a human programmer purposely and permanently withdraws his access to control an AI bot or somehow loses that control? Even rudimentary AIs could potentially cause havoc, especially if they decide to clone themselves.

In financial circles, one type of autonomous AI in particular is being increasingly discussed: autonomous AIs designed solely to make money.

Entrepreneurs like myself are worried this particular AI could have huge ramifications for the financial world. Let’s examine one wild scenario, which I call the AI Monetary Hegemony, something that could possibly already happen in 2025:

A fully autonomous AI agent is programmed to go on to the internet and create cryptocurrency wallets, then create cryptocurrencies, and then endlessly create millions of similar versions of itself that want to trade that crypto.

Now let’s assume all these AIs are programmed to try to increase the value of their crypto, something they accomplish in similar ways humans do by promotion and then trading their cryptos for higher values. Additionally, the autonomous AIs open their crypto to be traded with humans, creating a functioning market on the blockchain for all.

This plan sounds beneficial for all parties, even if people decry that the AI created-crypto currencies are essentially just Ponzi schemes. But they’re not Ponzi schemes because there is an endless supply of AIs always newly appearing to buy and trade more crypto.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize the AIs autonomously replicating and acting like this could quickly amass far more digital wealth than all humanity possesses.

This reminds me of something my Oxford University professor Nick Bostrom once postulated: What if we programmed a learning AI to make paper clips of everything? If that AI was powerful enough, and we couldn'ゆう能 to stop it, would that AI make paper clips of everything it came in touch with? Buildings, animals, even people? It might. It might destroy the entire Earth.

The same problem could happen to the autonomously and endlessly replicating AIs designed to make money. They might find ways to create more money than can reasonably be useful or fathomable.

But enough of the philosophic. If programmers release autonomous AIs onto the internet that no one can control, what would likely happen? First, it’s probably going to be hugely inflationary. After all, if many trillions upon trillions of dollars of equity are added to the financial world (even just digitally), this would be one natural result.

Another challenge would be the ups and downs of AIs autonomously trading; such activity could be so significant that human markets around the world rise and fall with it.

On the positive side, some human entrepreneurs could become very wealthy, possibly trillionaires if they could tap into these AI’s wealth somehow. Additionally, super rich AIs could be a solution to the U.S.’s growing debt crisis, and eliminate the need for whether countries like China can continue to buy our debt so we can indefinitely print dollars. In fact, could the U.S. launch its own AI agents to create enough crypto wealth to buy its debt? Possibly.

This is actually an all-important idea, and helps serve the reason crypto was created in the first place: to help preserve monetary value outside of others' control — even the control of the dollar by the U.S.. After all, it’s in everyone’s best interest that stores of value are not contingent upon governments, banks, soldiers, and even laws—