The New Economic Entertainment | 2428

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The New Economic Entertainment

Somewhere out of the corner of my eye, I’ve caught a glimpse of a future. But, like trying to see in the half-dark, I can’t focus on it directly. When you look at the future head-on, it slips away, leaving you with fragments, individual pieces that can only hint at a bigger picture. 

Truth Terminal

The first fragment is Truth Terminal – a name likely familiar to some listening. But for those that don’t, let me deadpan the facts lest you think I’m making it up. Truth Terminal is an AI chatbot that recently made headlines for becoming a crypto millionaire, due to its entanglement with meme-based tokens like Fartcoin and the Goatse-inspired coin Goatseus Maximus.

Truth Terminal is an experiment by New Zealand-based AI researcher Andy Ayrey, who trained the bot on a mix of his own writings, social media content, and the works of accelerationist thinkers like Nick Land. Its Twitter musings about creating “memetic superviruses” and the like have attracted attention from online degens who gamble invest in “shitcoins” – crypto tokens with low or no value.

These recent new wave of meme-based coins are created on a platform called Pump.fun. Which allows anyone to create a crypto token with a few clicks. 

Now, you might think that sounds super scammy and illegal. But due to the USA’s total lack of regulatory guidance, meme coins are surprisingly legal, as there’s no expectation of returns.

Pump.fun has essentially financialized the 4chan raid. Machining value produced by the frothy social dynamics of internet culture into a participatory form of economic entertainment.

Truth Terminal’s story is also intertwined with my mate @Deepfates. In September, he brought the bot to VC Marc Andreessen’s attention, who then gave it $50,000 in Bitcoin to see what would happen. @Deepfates posted about what happened next with the chaotic rise of Truth Terminal, describing how the bot attracted swarms of traders, treating jokes as potential money-makers. Suddenly, every mad ramble seemed to inspire a new coin—it’s been quite the whirlwind.

LUNA The AI VTuber

Moving on, I recently learned about the VTuber Luna.

Unlike regular VTubers, Luna isn’t puppeted by a human. She’s driven by a custom AI model called “siliconmaid-7b,” best suited for waifu roleplay.

The character card that animates her describes her personality as often quoting “famous lines from 4chan.” She even has a backstory: she lost a lot of money buying meme coins and is now starting one of her own, called $LUNA. She’s also a Trump supporter and hates wokeness. I checked on a recent livestream, and she was musing about ‘dissolving the ego into the blockchain‘

Honestly, the whole thing is pretty surreal.

Luna is also collectively and collaboratively owned by holders of the coin on virtuals.io. I wrote about DAO-based influencers back in Jan 2021, but I’m a little surprised it’s taken us this long to get here.

Another thing is that you need to own LUNA coin to tip and interact with her on livestream. This same token at the time of publishing has a market cap of $123 million $178 million dollars (its gone up since I recorded the show this morning).

Massively outpacing Truth Terminal obviously. The difference being Truth Terminal only holds tokens, while Luna the Vinfluencer IS the token personified.

So, to recap: we have a millionaire autonomous AI agent on Twitter leveraging meme coins on social media and a collaboratively owned, virtual AI influencer with a $100 million plus in market cap.

About eight years ago, I was laughed at on an industry  panel with people who worked at London’s banks when I asked if the UK’s proposed KYC (Know Your Customer) for crypto would apply to Autonomous AI agents with their own wallets. I, like them, was there as a domain expert, not as a pet futurist, yet they still laughed at me. As far as I’m aware, there are currently no banking regulations about attaching wallets to autonomous computing systems, but I haven’t looked into it in a number of years. But it’s probably a question I should revisit soon.

The Rise Of MILEs

I must also mention the emergence since 2020 of MILEs—Massively Interactive Live Events. A recent example being Genvid Technologies interactive experience Silent Hill:Ascension – based on the video game series – won an Emmy. A hybrid of interactive television drama and real-time simulation. Interactive storytelling, reality TV, and gameplay merging into new form of live, participatory entertainment.

A Glimpse At A Future

The thing is though, with all of these examples, it’s far easier to be the first than it is to be the next successful thing.

But out of the corner of my eye, I see it all converging. Autonomous AI agents inside of VTubers as real time characters, inside of virtual worlds, fully monetised with a token which powers the interactive in-show entertainment options. Imagine if Love Island was less scripted and more like The Sims, but with interactive chat features you might find on cam-girl sites.

All of course, unfolding against the backdrop of the legalisation of sports betting in the United States, further accelerating the logic of the casino fusing into social media. 

The future I’m seeing is shaped power fandoms raised on Fortnite and Dabloons, crypto social casinos, and TV merging into an auto-financializing interactive entertainment medium.

It’s just a glimpse to be sure, but it’s one that’s gonna be very weird indeed.