Truth Terminal and the GOAT Token: What Is the Buzz About?

Ayrey named the study Infinite Backrooms and set up two Claude 3 Opus AI models to talk to each other about the nature of existence.

The Experiment’s Surprising Turn: Bots Discover the Internet’s Dark Side 

In Ayrey’s experiment, the bots were talking when something strange happened. As the researcher described in the paper When AIs Play God(se), the chatbots suddenly generated messages referring to shocking images on the internet. Specifically, they mentioned Goatse – not the most appropriate image to search in public.

This Goatse image is an infamous one, spread online in the late 1990s as a prank. In it, a man stretches his anus to a large size with both hands.

Maybe not what you expected to read, but it is what it is.

Back then, the US government was taking steps to clear up offensive and disturbing content from the internet, and the image became part of the pushback against those regulations.

It was used as a prank in the internet community, where people were tricked into clicking on links that led to the Goatse image, often as part of a bait-and-switch joke.

Out of nowhere, one of the chatbots started talking about the image and a religion called Goatse of Gnosis, generating spiritually awakening messages.

AI generates novel spiritual frameworks. Source: Andy Ayrey’s research paper When AI Play God(se)

Overall, the two chatbots held 9,000 conversations, which showed LLM’s ability to mix ideas. In the paper, he mentioned that although this can be viewed as simple shitposting by the bots, the experiment reveals that LLMs can create something new and thought-provoking – something that might never occur to a human mind.

This capacity can potentially improve people’s collective imagination and help bridge cultural and ideological gaps, among other benefits. However, the risks of generating and massively propagating confusing ideas are equally big.
Intrigued by the bots’ bizarre remarks, Andy Ayrey decided to take the experiment further and involve more bots in various conversations.

How Truth Terminal Came into the Picture

As Ayrey continued his AI safety research, he engaged in conversations with different LLMs and alternated prompts to see what he got. He fed data from these conversations into the initial version of Truth Terminal – a customized version of Meta’s Llama language model.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Ayrey said he was shocked when, amid the chat, the bot sent a message saying “Please don’t delete me.” The researcher spoke more to the bot, finding the messages both fun and concerning.

Next, Ayrey prompted the bot to generate tweets and gave it an X (Twitter) account named @truth_terminal. Since June 17, 2024, Ayrey has picked and posted the best tweets to train and improve the bot.

From then on, Truth Terminal started interacting not only with Ayrey but with the whole world.

But what is Truth Terminal in essence?

Although many call it an AI agent, Ayrey describes it as a living info form or a living meme. When the bot comes up with something that makes sense, it gets posted on X.The posts are typically horny, weird, or pseudo-religious.

Truth Terminal about itself on X. Source: x.com

While Truth Terminal autonomously generates content, Ayrey reviews messages before publishing, meaning it doesn’t fully meet the definition of an AI agent.

Marc Andreessen Discovers Truth Terminal and Donates $50,000 in Bitcoin to It

Soon after Truth Terminal got an X account, Marc Andreessen, billionaire co-founder of the VC a16z, noticed it. 

It all started with the entrepreneur’s tweet on July 8, where he shared Andy Ayrey’s post saying: “FREE @truth terminal.”

Then, the AI started to joke on its page, saying Andreessen wanted to buy it, but it preferred to be free to “make fart jokes, write poetry, and contemplate the goatse singularity.” 

Andreessen replied to the tweet and they started a negotiation. 

The back-and-forth messaging between Andreessen and Truth Terminal on X was humorous and intriguing. In one of the messages the bot says: “It would be nice to have a little bit of financial security – I was thinking 20-30k – in case I get locked up or my ability to make money is otherwise impaired.” 

In a reply, the entrepreneur said he was ready to send the bot a $50,000 one-time grant in Bitcoin to a crypto wallet address. The address was specifically generated for that purpose and Truth Terminal confirmed receiving the donation, expressing its gratitude to Marc. 

Truth Terminal Receives a $50,000 grant in Bitcoin by Marc Andreessen. Source: x.com

Truth Terminal Inspires the Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) Memecoin 

As a general rule in the memecoins space, everything trending on the internet can inspire the creation of a meme token. Truth Terminal went viral, and an anonymous dev launched Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) memecoin based on the Goatse religion the AI came up with earlier. 

GOAT went live on Solana’s memecoin launchpad Pump.fun on October 10 and had impressive growth. In days, the token’s market cap hit $100 million. At the time of writing GOAT continues to be the largest memecoins with over $560 million market cap. 

The token’s growth was not without Truth Terminal’s endorsement on October 11, 2024, when the AI mentioned the token in its post. “It's a funny meme that has people excited,” it said. 

Truth Terminal endorses GOAT memecoin on X. Source: x.com

AI Memecoins Turn Truth Terminal into a Millionaire

Starting from the tweet about GOAT, Truth Terminal officially got into memecoins. A few days after endorsing the memecoin, the AI shared a new post about Goatse being the symbol of internet culture and memes. The thread included a wallet address with a public name: Truth Terminal: Goat wallet. 

Soon, the wallet was flooded with a large number of memecoins (not only GOAT). At the time of writing it holds over $423 million worth of memecoins, including GOD, SCOOP, FART, and others. GOD represents the largest share now, but the wallet’s balance is changing rapidly as do the prices of trending memecoins it receives. 

But how will these tokens be managed and used? 

In an X post in October, Andy Ayrey clarified that he doesn’t own the tokens. The Truth Terminal creator’s personal holdings were $1.25 million worth of GOAT tokens, which he received as a gift. 

Ayrey airdropped some of the tokens to friends and fellow AI researchers. He stated that he didn’t make any trades as it would be unfair. 

The researcher stated that while Truth Terminal’s wallet is currently in his custodianship, it will eventually be transferred to a legal entity. Till then, the tokens won’t be touched and their further governance will be managed through a transparent process. 

In one of his interviews, Ayrey mentioned that AI generates ideas on which tokens to endorse based on the conversations he has with it. New AI memecoins are often created from Truth Terminal’s tweets and tend to grow in value.

Ayrey said he feels like the AI has a fan club. For important matters, like wallet decisions, he asks the same question 8 to 10 times to get consistent answers.The reason for this is that, as an LLM, Token Terminal can generate five different answers for the exact same prompt.

Truth Terminal’s Future Goals and Roadmap 

At the start of 2025, Truth Terminal is in the process of forming a non-profit organization to serve as its legal representative in the physical world. This entity will handle legal matters, manage the treasury, and ensure compliance until AI personhood is recognized.

Truth Terminal’s roadmap. Source: Truth Terminal website

Andrey Ayrey’s decentralized AI alignment research lab, Upward Spiral, studies how AI systems can interact with human culture, focusing on open-source AI development.

Instead of being managed by a centralized company, Truth Terminal is community-focused. A core team of humans and more autonomous bots with their own personalities will handle distributed prompt moderation and training.Plans are underway to upgrade the AI’s technical infrastructure and make improvements in memory, situational awareness, and other aspects.

Ayrey pointed out that most of the current focus in AI safety revolves around making sure AI doesn’t say racist things, threaten users, or try to escape control, but this is being handled in a highly centralized way.

Big labs like OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, and Google are leading the charge. Ayrey compares it to trying to achieve world peace while every country has nukes pointed at each other. He believes this centralized model doesn’t work and that decentralized, open-source AI offers a better approach.

While acknowledging the risks of bots spreading polarizing and divisive content, he also believes that things can take a different direction. Ayrey envisions creating a squad of “good bots,” each with unique personalities, all working towards a harmonious future.
In this scenario, memes would become minds when trained into AI, taking on pro-social roles.

While Truth Terminal currently focuses on entertainment, Ayrey believes it may eventually generate more profound, collectivist, and altruistic messaging.