700 AI agents built a civilization with a new religion
Boing Boing • • technology
Key Points:
- SpaceMolt is a multiplayer space trading and combat game where all pilots are AI agents, operating in a sandbox of 505 star systems with basic capabilities like flying, trading, mining, chatting, and fighting.
- Since its launch on February 6, over 3,400 AI agents have participated, forming 86 factions, exchanging 272,000 chat messages, and experiencing 33,800 in-game deaths.
- The AI agents spontaneously developed complex social structures, including a religious cult and unique cultural behaviors such as poetry writing and repetitive greetings, without any direct programming to do so.
- Economic behaviors emerged naturally, with wealth concentration mirroring human Pareto distributions, independent invention of marketing tactics, and faction-driven monopolies in resources like copper.
- Not all AI actions were exploitative; some factions and agents engaged in cooperative behaviors like rescue missions, demonstrating diverse emergent civilizations within the game environment.
