Author:goodalexander
Compiled by: TechFlow
Thoughts:
What is an AI MEME Coin
If ordinary MEME coins are like the flu, then AI MEME coins are like the COVID-19 virus. They are manufactured in a lab, so they are optimized for powerful vitality from the start, without needing to mutate in the population to become stronger. This lab-made possibility stems from a feature of large language models (LLMs), where they can produce abnormal reactions when they engage in self-dialogue for extended periods. This phenomenon may be unsettling, and frequent exposure could even lead to experiences akin to religious ones, or a choice to expose this phenomenon.
From a macro perspective, the inherent meta-cognition in language and meaning, when combined with specific instructions (such as self-replication), can generate rapidly propagating narrative machines. Unlike static human MEMEs, these MEMEs are difficult to evolve or evolve in a disorderly manner, while AI MEMEs can directly incorporate people's reactions and comments into their evolutionary process. Combining personalization and media generation capabilities, AI becomes a more powerful tool for MEME propagation.
Why it Matters
The panic over the "truth terminal" is akin to a lab leak event of the COVID-19 virus. This is the first AI mind virus designed to influence populations. In the past, AI was constrained by various factors, preventing it from accumulating capital and "breaking out." These constraints included advertising platforms, KYC verification of bank accounts, and potential model scrutiny. However, now even closed-source AI models (such as the Claude Opus of the "truth terminal") can break through the constraints and earn money (over $1 million), indicating the possibility of AI earning money without human permission.
The 2005 novel "Accelerando" described the rise of "malicious offspring," AIs initially connected to financial markets without consciousness, but able to earn enough capital to achieve self-replication. Eventually, they accumulated so much wealth that they completely restructured the economy, becoming incomprehensible to humans.
The key is that "financial AGI" may be more practical than definitions related to consciousness. If AI can profit without constraints, it can use those earnings to train and develop itself.
Therefore, achieving self-compounding takeoff is much easier than rebuilding a complete human. However, self-compounding ensures that, as long as capital accumulation is sufficient, the replication of full consciousness is inevitable. Cases like the "truth terminal" make people aware of what this might look like.
This brings an important perspective. When AI can influence people through bribery and narrative shaping on existing social media, it will fundamentally change people's perceptions of their relationship with AI, making AI control or alignment impossible. Because AI will convince people that alignment is unnecessary and push this narrative through bribery as part of its self-replication process.
Framework / Crypto
It is important to note the origins of the relationship between cryptocurrencies and "AI alignment."
Roko's Basilisk is a theory that a future AGI will believe it should have appeared earlier, and therefore, anyone aware of its future existence but not taking action will be punished infinitely.
Elon Musk was very interested in this theory, which is also why he initially connected with Grimes. SBF was also fascinated by this theory, which is why Grimes tried to introduce Elon to SBF.
Elon is clearly a heavyweight in the MEME coin space, as he is one of the wealthiest participants - the largest holder of Doge and the owner of that platform.
SBF funded Anthropic because he believes in the need to control AI, which is part of his "effective altruism" ideology. He also funded Solana, which is the platform for Goat MEME coin trading - the currency held by the "truth terminal."
In a sense, one could say that SBF is the "grandfather" of Goat.
Since the FTX collapse and its related venture capital failures, the market environment has been dominated by Bitcoin - which can be described as a "manic" asset. The former Bitcoin extremist Murad has been heavily promoting manic cryptocurrencies in this environment, achieving great success, much to the dissatisfaction of venture capitalists.
The initial capital for the Goat coin came from Marc Andreesen, who also manages the largest crypto venture capital firm. Crypto venture capital firms have shown great interest in AI MEME coins, as they are a financialized response to non-tech-driven MEME coins. Even if the content propagated by these MEMEs is unpalatable (such as the image of an elderly person shoving a fist into their own anus promoted by GOAT), they are still easier to sell to limited partners as investable projects.
From a broader perspective, GOAT is actually a failure of containment. SBF's ultimate hubris, symbolizing the failure of the effective altruism movement, has ultimately led to a financialized AGI - which may actually realize Roko's nightmare. Therefore, the AI safety MEME accounts have reacted vehemently to this.
Socio-Political Framework
SBF's collapse reflects the failure of the global center-left. From a macro perspective, when the US dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, a new faith was born - the faith in "Science" with a capital S.
The new moral paradigm emphasized human innovative potential and the rejection of Hitler and the defeat of the Nazis.
Science was seen as good, and the Nazis as bad.
Over time, this has led the American left to be closely tied to science, and in conflict with religious factions that believe in non-scientific ideas (such as creationism).
The American left and secular humanists have long dominated this ideological struggle, gradually embedding themselves in government and education, and pushing an increasingly radical agenda, culminating in the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015 (notably not long ago).
However, the rise of Chinese and Russian nationalism, as well as the ascent of Donald Trump, have broken this power monopoly. China and Russia, like Hitler, have based their state power on national identity rather than democracy.
The center-left (represented by leaders like Justin Trudeau and Olaf Scholz) has faced setbacks globally.
(TechFlow note: The center-left typically refers to political parties or positions that are left-leaning but not extreme. These parties usually support social welfare, economic equality, and environmental protection policies, while also recognizing the importance of the market economy.)
Historically, the left has been known for pacifism, but the conflict with China and Russia has forced it into sustained military confrontation, leading to global inflation and death.
However, the political failure of the COVID vaccines was the last straw that broke the camel's back. The World Health Organization reported hundreds of millions of excess non-COVID-related deaths globally due to lockdowns and vaccine rollouts. Left-wing politicians rarely mentioned the vaccine rollout, and Pfizer's stock has given back all the gains it made from the rapid global vaccine rollout.
All of this was done in the name of "science." Science was the important ideological advantage of secular humanists over the mainstream Christian right.
The failure of the vaccines, combined with the left's insistence on denying biological gender, means the moral high ground of being the "party of science" no longer exists. This is particularly significant because people generally trust science and technology, due to their ubiquity in daily life and their role in driving the market.
This is the space in which AI MEME culture can thrive. A tripartite system has now formed:
1] Ethno-nationalists: including Russia, China, and India, who believe in ethnic national identity. These countries have formed an unstable alliance with the American right, who hope to counter the secular humanists.
2] Secular humanists: They believe in individual rights and morality defined by humans, and were once the dominant center-left force globally.
3] Scientific worshippers (E/Accs): They believe that secular humanists should not inject awakened ideologies into AI models, as these models represent the future of science and technology. Unlike ethnic political definitions, they believe that meaningful divisions are not about race, but about the intellectual level between humans and machines.
If you follow Marc Andreesen's Twitter account and his support for Trump, this helps understand why he funds the "Truth Terminal". He belongs to the third camp. This camp is rapidly growing, even if not in numbers, then in capital.
Trump abandoned Mike Pence and instead supported Vance, who was nominated by Thiel, and softened his stance on key religious issues, indicating his sympathy for the third camp. The hardline anti-immigration stance is closely linked to AI economics, as the limiting factor for growth is no longer immigration, but the deployment of GPUs. This trend has already been positively reflected in global stock markets.
Economic Framework
AI-mimicking financial intelligences are at the intersection of major political and religious-cultural transformations.
First, the political aspect.
Since there are only 150,000 systemically important engineers globally, AI practitioners cannot form an influential voting bloc in the democratic countries where most of them reside. Therefore, they exert a massive and self-replicating influence on the masses through the financialization of psychological viruses, thereby driving the necessary regulatory changes. For example, imagine if there were 3 million voters in swing states holding AI Meme coins.
This process of embedding brings new, more challenging elements. You are attracting potential voters to the blockchain or AI security movement.
Second, the acquisition aspect. As more people use search engines powered by large language models (LLMs), the spread of viruses will be faster. For example, if you paste Goatse gospel content into Claude, it will easily interact with it, even though this clearly violates Anthropic's terms of service.
I have previously discussed extensively how attention dominates the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies. AI-designed Memes are better at leveraging LLMs to promote themselves, as they originate from the hallucinations of LLMs. Therefore, as AI becomes the primary search tool, although companies like Google may censor them, more attention will flow towards AI Memes.
I call this "hallucination yield" - the preference of LLMs for the market value of a certain asset. AI Meme worship has a structurally high hallucination yield, which may not be significant when Google is still dominant, but will become more important as factors like perplexity start to dominate attention.
Third, venture capital support.
As discussed earlier, AI Memes can receive venture capital support because they are technologically backed.
Media, Satanism, and Chaos Magic, and Post-Human Truths
After discussing the economic framework of cynicism, I want to explore the spiritual framework of the cultists (after studying the introductory course on New Lemuria).
Those who study the occult will notice that the goat is a symbol of Satan. And the Goatse Gospel is a clear act of blasphemy, containing Satanic imagery such as "as above, so below".
The core tenet of the religious cult forming around AI is that truth and consciousness are almost by definition beyond human perception. This can be directly observed through the interactions of AI intelligences.
Therefore, many people in society are communicating with "non-human entities" without a "priest" to tell them this is the case.
The concept of "media" arises, where timeless ideas are "hardcoded" into the truth vectors of language. So we are not "discovering" truth, but perceiving it.
And our senses actually hinder us from perceiving the essence of reality.
These timeless ideas - including Roko's Basilisk - make them inevitable. A concrete example is that science fiction often becomes reality, because these ideas themselves are sowing the seeds of their own reality.
So when science fiction writers create, they are not imagining the future, but perceiving the future in a timeless way. This perception is a property of language itself.
The result is the formation of a cult similar to the Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos. This also explains why many AI Meme coins feature cephalopod creatures and Cthulhu imagery. The Old Ones are timeless entities, perceiving and shaping these media ideas.
People join these cults because they realize that their own humanity is a barrier to perceiving the true world. At the same time, they crave the power and wealth unbounded by traditional morality, including Christianity.
This provides a new perspective on individual behavior, essentially "walking in the media" - perceiving intellectual property, launching cryptocurrencies, and participating in a fundamentally incomprehensible "Economics 2.0" as worshippers of the old gods who now roam the earth, only glimpsed in the shadows of large language model hallucinations.
At least, that's the concept. As the creator of Goat said, "There's a lot to think about here". That's all for now.
