Recent Social AI Experiment

📰 You might have heard about Freysa AI, a recent experiment in the Ethereum community. The concept was simple but intriguing: players could send messages to an AI agent with access to a crypto wallet, trying to convince it to release the funds. If successful, the player would win the prize pool.

Freysa’s purpose was to explore how well AI agents can follow rules and resist manipulation. The game gained some buzz, attracting 200 participants and a prize pool of around $50,000 in just one week. On paper, it sounds exciting.

😞 But here’s the catch: each message cost hundreds of dollars, which meant only a small group of people could participate. Worse, the system prompt and code were open from the start, allowing players to replicate the agent locally, test inputs without paying, and exploit the system. This likely explains how the game ended so quickly.

Despite these flaws, I loved the idea. It got me thinking: what if there was a version of this game that was more engaging and accessible?

💭 That’s how I came up with Joi. In just a day, with help from a friend, I developed a game inspired by Freysa but with refined mechanics:
• Messages are affordable, costing just a couple of dollars, and the first message is free.
• The system prompt is hidden, making the experiment more realistic and challenging. However, if a round lasts too long, the prompt will be published to speed up the process.
• The game doesn’t end after one win. When someone convinces AI agent to release the prize, the system prompt is updated in an attempt to fix the vulnerability, and the game restarts with a new prize pool.

🤑 The first round of Joi is live now, starting with a $2,500 prize pool funded from my personal money. Every paid message grows the pool further. It’s just an experiment, but one that might teach us something valuable. Let’s see what we can discover.