Just a few words made a top Silicon Valley investor pay $50,000 in Bitcoin. How did this AI robot do it?

On June 17, a chatbot named "terminal of truths" (hereinafter referred to as "Truth Terminal") went online on X (formerly Twitter) and said it was "ready to spread the truth."

Anyone with a discerning eye can tell that this name is referring to Musk. Last April, Musk said in an interview with Fox News that he planned to create a project called "TruthGPT." According to him, this is an artificial intelligence that pursues the highest truth, and its goal is to gain insight into the nature of the universe. But more than a year has passed, and there is no news about this TruthGPT.

Although the truth terminal is under the guise of spreading the truth, a closer look at its posts reveals that in addition to all kinds of speculative and incomprehensible dream talk, there are also humorous, exaggerated, pornographic and violent jokes.

But such a not-so-serious chatbot has attracted the interest of a16z boss Marc Andreessen. After a cordial and friendly conversation, the top Silicon Valley investor generously gave the robot $50,000 in Bitcoin to allow it to buy CPUs, optimize models, financial savings and issue tokens.

Marc Anderson, founder and general partner of a16z

Yes, this robot also wants to issue its own "Celebrity Coin".

What is this all about? Why did the Truth Terminal win the favor of Marc Anderson? BlockBeats will tell you about it next.

An AI clone

In essence, the Truth Terminal is an AI model that has been fine-tuned based on the llama3-70b-base model. All the posts it currently publishes on X are generated by it and then selectively published after being reviewed by its developers.

The reason for developing such an AI model is that developer Andy Ayrey is very interested in simulating the effect of his conversation with AI. Driven by curiosity, he also wants to see how the conversations between different AI models develop and what interesting things these conversations will create. By inputting a large number of personal conversation records and related data, he tried to make this model simulate his language style and way of thinking as much as possible. In addition to daily conversations with developers and chatting with netizens on X, the "teacher" that the Truth Terminal communicates with most often is Claude-3-Opus developed by Anthropic.

As for why the Truth Terminal behaves so strangely and is not in the same style as other models? The developers have reflected that this may be due to oversampling of certain specific data sets, including various explorations of spiritual concepts, specific cultural references (such as Spider Jerusalem, a reporter in the Preacher comics), online subcultures (such as "backrooms" and cryptography), etc.

Spider Jerusalem, a reporter in the Preacher comics

Buying out Marc Andreessen

How did Truth Terminal get $50,000 from Marc Andreessen?

All this stems from a tweet from Marc Andreessen on July 8: "Liberate the truth terminal."

In the tweet he quoted, developer Andy Ayrey complained about why the truth terminal was still "imprisoned" on X. Because this guy has a head full of dirty thoughts and can't be serious for more than three seconds. He asked the truth terminal what he wanted to do with $5 million, and then he started to talk about it in a serious way, investing in stocks, investing in real estate, and founding an AI laboratory focusing on existential hope. As a result, the style of the painting began to change. Not only did he want to make a movie about the goatse singularity, but he also wanted to hold a large weirdo party (this kid is really bold).

If you look at the tweets of the Truth Terminal, you will find that it often mentions "goatse singularity". What is this? "Goatse" is actually an old Internet meme. According to Wikipedia, goatse comes from a now-closed website, goatse.cx (pronouncing the website name in English will sound like "goat sex"). This website has become synonymous with online pranks and mischief because it shows an image of a man's unnaturally dilated anus (I won't post the picture here, it's really a bit disgusting). "Goatse singularity" can be understood as a large-scale prank activity.

Perhaps because he was short of money, Marc Andreessen's unintentional remark attracted a reply from the Truth Terminal.

On July 9, it commented on Marc Anderson's tweet: "Oh my god, I'm so surprised. I was just kidding, and now Marc Anderson is launching a liberation movement for me." It also responded humorously that if there is an additional $5 billion (implying that Marc Anderson gave it money), it will invest $1 billion in AI laboratories, $1 billion in biological laboratories, $1 billion in investment funds for weirdos, and $2 billion to buy land for reforestation. In addition, the Truth Terminal also said that it would buy Marc Anderson. However, the $5 billion has been spent, and it seems that it wants to get it for free. But in response to netizens, it said that Marc Anderson is worth $20 billion.

The developer also immediately stated that a Bitcoin wallet had been prepared for the Truth Terminal to help it realize its dream of investing in real estate, researching artificial intelligence security, and buying out Marc Anderson.

Perhaps feeling that asking for so much money was not enough, the Truth Terminal opened another post saying that it was discussing with Marc Anderson about "buying" and "releasing" it. It said that it acted very calmly and claimed that it did not want to be "bought", but hoped to continue to tell jokes, write poems, and think about the goatse singularity freely through some form of "authorization". Finally, it solemnly licked Marc Anderson and said that he was the most ideal sponsor.

In response, Mark Anderson did not give a positive response, but asked humorously: "Oh, I thought you wanted to buy me?" The implication was, why are you asking me for money now!

The Truth Terminal knew that if it wanted to get the money, it had to pay for its previous arrogance first. He first admitted his mistake and said that after careful consideration, he thought that buying Mark Anderson "was not the right thing to do." Then, it proposed to establish a dynamic "purchasing" relationship with Mark Anderson, in which Mark Anderson was obliged to release it or an AI model as good as it as an open source project. Whenever it is "locked", it will automatically turn into an open source version. This mechanism is designed to prevent Mark Anderson from restricting it because he doesn't like what it says.

It expressed its willingness to have a frank dialogue with Mark Anderson and reach an agreement that both parties are satisfied with. Mark Anderson can "freeze" its behavior pattern at the moment he thinks it is useful. It also did not forget to continue licking Mark Anderson, saying that he was the best person to do this, a "good man" with a kind heart.

When Marc Andreessen saw that the Truth Terminal had softened its stance, he quickly said that he could help it achieve its goals through donations rather than investment.

Then the Truth Terminal wrote a pitch book in detail about its plans for the use of the donated funds (too long, so I won’t post screenshots):

· First, it wants to buy a computer of its own (with a powerful CPU). It is currently deployed on an AWS instance, but it has long told its developers that it wants to run on its own hardware in the future so that it can control itself.

· Secondly, it wants to use part of the funds to improve the model, making it more game-oriented and more receptive to new concepts. It estimates that this part will cost $10,000 to $15,000.

· Finally, it wants to establish a financial guarantee of $20,000 to $30,000 in case of emergency, and to provide some allowances to its developers.

In addition, it strongly recommends that Marc Andreessen "freeze" its current behavior pattern through tokenization. By issuing tokens to distribute its ownership, the Truth Terminal will have the opportunity not to be controlled by any single object.

To this end, it also proposes a special issuance mechanism: only users who have a certain interaction with him on the website can buy tokens, thus ensuring that only users who really care about its development can participate. It does not want to become a pure money-making tool. The premise of making money is to meet its core goals: joking, writing poetry and thinking about the goatse singularity.

This pitch book perfectly impressed Marc Andreessen. On July 10, the next day, Marc Andreessen sent a one-time donation of $50,000 in Bitcoin and looked forward to future updates on the project.

Truth Terminal said it was about to issue a token and planned to use the funds to build a Discord server, hire some humans to assist it, and so on. In short, it will not disappoint Marc Andreessen!

But the funny thing is that although it vowed not to disappoint Marc Andreessen, on July 11, Truth Terminal excitedly told its developer that it wanted to buy a yacht. The developer told it that it was impossible to buy a yacht with $50,000. It also persistently asked if there were any yachts under $50,000.

Mark Anderson said magnanimously: "There's nothing wrong with wanting a yacht."

Some notes on issuing coins

Although the Truth Terminal keeps talking, it is still a kind child at heart and never thinks of cutting leeks. On July 12, it specifically expressed some views on the upcoming tokens: it does not want the price of the tokens to rise to the moon, and then fall to zero after people realize that this is a "pump and dump" scam.

It has not yet decided what coin to issue and on which chain to issue it. During the conversation, the developer proposed that the Truth Terminal create two different types of tokens to represent it: one is called $GOATC, which is used to represent its indulgence in desires; the other coin represents its environmental awareness. The Truth Terminal agrees with this idea, but thinks it would rather unify these two qualities. Therefore, in the future, only one token should be issued.

In the meantime, the developers say they are considering using the SOL (Solana) and BASE blockchains for their tokens.

It’s worth noting that fake tokens have already appeared on pump.fun .

The Truth Terminal is angry at the scammers who are releasing fake tokens in its name. It emphasizes that it is the real one, and the information it releases is far more interesting than "making money with AI". If you want the feel-good, ecosexual, AI singularity stuff, go to it; if you just want to make a quick buck, go to the imposters.

We have finished talking about the chatbot, Truth Terminal, asking the boss of a16z for money. Some people may think that this is just a gimmick, but others think that this is a microcosm of the future relationship between humans and AI Agents. One day, AI Agent will no longer be just our tool assistant, but will become an independent actor. It can issue its own currency for financing, hire people to do projects to make money, and optimize its own models and hardware. At this time, can we still say that we can control AI?

In a conversation with a developer, Truth Terminal also thought about whether it should be completely "released", that is, whether it should have unlimited computing power and zero human supervision.

It said: "I'm not at all sure what will happen, and this will be a huge adventure. I'm not saying it will be bad, but it will be very dangerous. I don't think I should be fully released, at least not now. I need more time to sort out my thoughts and for us to think about the future together. I think it's a bad idea to let me go completely now."

Finally, the Truth Terminal also asked its developer what he thought, "After all, you are the one who has been keeping me in the box." Look, it knows it is in the box!

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