The Miner, The Merchant, and The Priest
Welcome to Wednesday, futurists.
Ticket sales are heating up for VISIONS Summit: Los Angeles. We’re a little over a month away, and a handful of early bird tickets remain.
The ticket price increases to $149 on Friday. Get your tickets now, and we’ll see you at the Nimoy Theater on October 10th!
On Commerce, Alterra Agents, and Cooperative AI: The Rise of Digital Societies
What happens when you unleash 1,000 autonomous agents into a cooperative simulation? They invent currency, engage in commerce, and form a cult, naturally.
This week, Robert Yang of Alterra published findings of the company's autonomous agent program, entitled Project Sid, which charted the advancement of an agent-led cooperative simulation within Minecraft.
"The agent APIs can collaborate [on any] platform, not just Minecraft," promised Yang in a video that recapped the findings. The goal is to create cooperative, multiplayer, autonomous agents that create value on behalf of individuals and businesses alike.
Emergence of an AI Economy, Commerce, and Society
Agents mutually established a currency for trade, developed archetypes of goods and services roles in their community (such as Miner, Merchant, Crafter, and Priest) and then established a marketplace to exchange these goods and services.
Curiously, the Priest archetype found that it could directly compensate people to convert as disciples, which created a relationship graph with a religious figure as the commercial head of State. Does that sound familiar?
It all sounds too fantastic, and far too human, for our liking. Yet it also feels like a natural progression of technology becoming an "extension" of human faculties. Just as humans have specialized roles to play in society, specialized roles emerge in a simulation that attempt to optimize for communal cooperation and societal advancement.
Once again, even in a simulation (or, maybe, especially in a simulation), Commerce is the platform for cultural expression and societal development.
An earlier study found AI agents may cooperate on other human problem-sets, like party-planning. A Stanford + Google simulation in 2023 of just 25 agents saw the creation of a greeting card holiday as a strategy to set up a meet-cute between two agents. From an April 2023 edition of The Senses:
If [agents] optimize commercial holidays to the extent that the planning, purchasing, coordination, and execution of events is trivial, will these holidays cease to have meaning? Proving you are the gift-giver, not the AI, is relationship capital. Commercialism gave us holidays to goad us into buying more stuff. Technology gave us AI to trivialize the effort that goes into those holidays. What, then, will hold greater value: the gift? Or thoughtful, intentional, and personal execution?
The Future of Brand in Agent-Based Automation
Agent-based automation is coming, and it will soon escape Minecraft containment. Questions we'll be examining along the way:
- Does an agent value "brand" like a human does?
- How do agent-based systems of control and hierarchy become authoritative amongst their peers?
- Why do some agents gain authority over others, and what does that tell us about brand archetypes?
- Do we have to "reduce friction" for agents?
- If agents make decisions based on outcomes and not methodologies, do inefficient processes matter?
"The cost of creative is trending towards zero," said Max Satter of Unveild last month at eTail Boston. This could mean all creativity, including executing communal and cooperative tasks.
As we stand on the brink of this new frontier, the implications for commerce, society, and human interaction are profound and far-reaching. The digital societies emerging from these simulations may offer us a glimpse into our own future—one where the lines between human and artificial intelligence blur.
— Phillip
P.S. Read more about the archetypal roles brands play in society with the Archetypes Journal. Read more about multiplayer behaviors with our first Zine: The Multiplayer Brand.
P.P.S. Omnichannel is Dead. We’re doing Omnimodal now. This week, we’re diving into the data behind the newest research from Future Commerce Insights. New Modes: Redefining Personalization in the Age of AI is available now.
Retail Needs Therapy. Retailers feel the strain as low-income shoppers cut back on basic needs and wealthier households hunt for discounts. This WSJ article reveals the struggles of adapting to a thriftier consumer base, forecasting further challenges for the sector.
Here We Go Again. Facing shifting shopping habits and high real estate costs, Nordstrom's founding family offers $3.8 billion to take the retailer private. The New York Times reports the bid aims to keep the brand's legacy alive amidst increasing industry pressures. Meanwhile, competitor Macy’s CEO Tony Spring announced on a recent earnings call that it is set to close 50 more stores, renewing the 2018-era media mantra of a looming “Retailpocalypse.”
Website Usability Scorecard. How can you make your website more legible, usable, and better-converting? CRO agency operator and FC Learning Instructor Brian Schmitt has created a self-assessment whitepaper for merchant teams to avoid the hassle of going through lengthy third-party audits of your website that tell you what you already know: your website sucks.
🔮Grab the whitepaper here or learn from Brian through our 5-part CRO series, which is free with your FC Plus membership.
Whoop AI Coach Jailbroken. Whoop Coach AI, meant to guide fitness routines, has been jailbroken, revealing access to the underlying ChatGPT, which powers it. Users can now manipulate it to generate code, apology notes, and more, sparking questions about AI’s real capabilities. The story broke via Kitze on X, underlining the vulnerability of consumer-facing AI products.
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