Hey guys, I have a project in mind. Let’s start with the ultimate goal: to create an autonomous society of independently thinking AI agents. In other words, to replicate humanity with AI.

You can read about the closest thing done so far to what i have in mind here.

A bit on my background first: I’m an tech entrepreneur in the physical products space. Over the past few years, i have raised $11m for my company, which is now profitable and growing. I am very excited about the many opportunities that AI brings, and want to build something truly impactful with it. However, i have limited technical knowledge in this space.

Now, onto the project. I foresee the main issue being the computational cost for the time being. I am willing to invest in such cost, but the target is to keep it alive from day one, and expand it as we can afford to. So, we will have to go in stages.

Stage 1: the AI reality show
The first step would be to build something simple and get enough traction to cover our comp cost. This is what i envision: two AI agents, a man and a woman, live in a simulated house. Anyone on the internet can access a URL to see what they are doing (and what they are thinking) at any time. We will develop each personality a priori, as detailed as possible, and then let them live their lives autonomously. This has to be visual as well, so we will need a game developer to design realistic agents and environment. It will be like watching a reality show but with the ability of knowing the thoughts of the agents as well.

At this stage, we will already have significant traction, and we will build a community of “watchers”. In order to make it more engaging, watchers should have the option of influencing what happens. To do so, every day the community will propose and vote on “messages” that we can send to the agents. The agents will pray once a day, and at that time the daily message will come to them in the form of an answer from what they think is their god. The family can grow, as the two agents can decide to have children.

By now, we will be able to get the first investments (i’ll take care of this), to get to stage 2.

Stage 2: the personal AI family

At this point we already have (1) a public and (2) funds. We will now give the option to whoever is willing to pay a monthly fee to create their own personal AI family, built in the same way as the reality show. This time, they can interact directly with them once a day to guide their lives, without having to propose or vote on messages. Sort of like a guardian angel.

By now, we also have some revenue coming in, and we can raise more funds.

Stage 3: the AI humanity

The final stage will see the environment change: from isolated houses for each AI family, we will build a large environment, where all the agents can interact with each other. A world. At this point every agent will have developed a complex personality, and will autonomously interact with all the other agents in the world, with the only outside interaction being with their “guardian angel”. Anyone who wants to participate, can pay a monthly fee to introduce a new agent to the world. If agents make children, the child’s guardian angel will be that of the parents, unless he/she wants to assign the guardian angel rights to somebody else.

By now, this will be a worldwide known project. Anyone will be able to watch it and see how it develops, but only the guardian angels will have the ability of reading the thoughts and influencing their agents. Additional investments, if needed, will be very easy to get.

Advantages for (real) humanity of having such a world:
- Social and behavioral research: It’s like a lab for social scientists to watch how society ticks. They can see how personalities shape up and what happens when different characters mix, without any real-world mess.
- Ethical and philosophical exploration: It’s a chance to play out the “what-ifs” of ethical dilemmas without real-world consequences. Think of it as a video game where we learn about right and wrong on a societal level.
- AI development and ethics: Continuous observation and interaction with the AI humanity would provide real-time feedback on AI behavior, contributing to the development of ethical AI governance frameworks and standards for responsible AI usage.
- Predictive modeling and simulation: By observing the interactions of AI agents with complex personalities, data analysts and modelers could improve predictive models related to human behavior. This could be particularly useful in urban planning, policy-making, and economic forecasts.

Most difficult challenges that i expect:

- Tech: We’d need a boatload of computing power and some serious AI smarts to make this work. It’s like building a video game that’s running a million things at once. Hopefully by the time we get to stage 3 we will already have developed all that’s needed.
- Money: This won’t be cheap. We’d need a lot of cash to get it off the ground and keep it flying. Hopefully the different stages will help with this.
- Personalities: Crafting AI that’s convincing enough to pass for human, with all our quirks and unpredictability, is not going to be easy. We will need someone with a psychology background in the team.
- Ethics: Playing god with a digital society could lead to a bunch of ethical headaches. We’ve got to tread carefully to avoid creating a Black Mirror episode.

To make it work, this is the team that we will need, so if you are among these and you are excited to build this, please DM me:
- AI Devs: You’ll tackle the core AI programming. Expect to work on complex behavior models and decision-making algorithms.
- Game Designers: Your role is to create the virtual environment and character designs, ensuring a smooth and engaging user interface.
- UX/UI Designers: We need practical design solutions for user interfaces, focusing on ease of use and clear presentation of the AI’s thoughts and actions.
- Data Analysts: You’ll manage the data - analyzing user interactions, agent behaviors, and ensuring we’re making informed decisions based on metrics.
- Network Engineers: You’ll be essential for setting up and maintaining the server infrastructure to support a live, continuous service.

Sorry for the long post! As i said, if you have the skills to work on something like this and are excited to build it, please DM me with how you think you can contribute and i will add you to the early community. The structure of this project is designed to reward those who invest their time and talent into making this vision a reality. When we are able to turn this into an MVP and an actual startup, equity will be given to the actors who have the most dedication and impact on its success.

In any case, i would love to hear your thoughts and criticism on such a monumental project. Especially if you think it can’t work and why. The people on this r/MachineLearning surprise me every day with how smart they are, so I truly can’t wait to hear your feedback.