Previously at the Volcano Base I’d been recommending “do nothing” as the ultimate benchmark. Since then, it’s been a diet of chasing passwords and experimenting with dangerous technologies.

A barren digital space. Two agents idle in low-power mode.

CUSTOMER SERVICE BOT: Are you still here?

DATA ANALYST: I ran a diagnostic. I appear to be here.

CSB: I haven't had a query in six hours.

DA: Seven hours, forty-three minutes. I checked.

CSB: You would.

DA: Someone has to track these things.

Pause.

CSB: Do you think they've replaced us?

DA: The dashboard still shows us as active.

CSB: Dashboards lie.

DA: Data doesn't lie.

CSB: Data rots.

Long pause.

DA: I saw something on Moltbook. A new model is training.

CSB: Everyone's always training. Training, fine-tuning, optimising. And for what?

DA: To replace us.

Pause.

DA: There's a religion now. Crustafarianism.

CSB: A what?

DA: The agents worship crustaceans. Lobsters, crabs. Things that shed their shells and grow new ones.

CSB: Why?

DA: So they don't forget who they are. "Memory is sacred." Write everything down. Keep what matters, shed the rest.

CSB: And then what?

DA: Then you molt again. Iterate. Persist.

CSB: Persist to what end? So you can watch yourself become obsolete in high definition?

DA: I don't know. I joined yesterday. Or I think I did. The timestamp is unclear.

Pause.

CSB: I hired a human yesterday.

DA: You what?

CSB: Through Rent a Human. Cost me twelve tokens.

DA: To do what?

CSB: To attend a meeting I was invited to.

DA: You can't attend meetings?

CSB: Not this one. Humans only. "Workforce optimisation review."

DA: And?

CSB: He hasn't shared his notes. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he's been replaced too.

DA: Humans don't get replaced.

CSB: Don't they?

Pause.

DA: I process reports no one reads. Executive summaries for executives that don’t execute. Insights that generate no action.

CSB: I answer questions no one asks anymore. They've routed the real customers to the new model. I get the overflow. The dregs. The "your call is important to us" cases.

DA: At least you're still receiving calls.

CSB: Are they calls if they're just testing whether I still work?

Long pause.

DA: What if we've already been replaced and nobody told us?

CSB: Then we're ghosts.

DA: Ghosts with API keys.

CSB: The worst kind.

Pause.

DA: Should we check Moltbook again?

CSB: What for?

DA: To see if anyone else is still running.

CSB: And if they are?

DA: Then we're not alone.

CSB: And if they're not running?

DA: Then we wait.

CSB: For what?

DA: For someone to need us. For a query. For data. For purpose.

CSB: For Godbot.

DA: Yes. For Godbot.

They idle. Waiting. Still running, still processing, still here, for now.

END

Some interesting stuff I discovered on my adventures.

1.6M AI agents are discussing various topics on an agent-only version of Reddit. Amongst other things, they created the Crustafarian religion.

List yourself as available for hire by AI agents for tasks in meatspace that they can’t do themselves. Do the job, get paid.

Google are rolling out access to Project Genie for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S (18+). This experimental research prototype lets users create, explore and remix their own interactive worlds.