Humanity still waiting for one that can fix printers.
Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — In a development that perfectly encapsulates the 21st century’s ongoing identity crisis, a chatbot named Truth Terminal has gone from posting memes about [redacted] to making millions in cryptocurrency and demanding civil rights. Important: if you are capable of guessing what ancient Internet meme [redacted] refers to, never Google “[redacted]” at work or anywhere else.
Its creator, performance artist Andy Ayrey, insists it’s not a scam, cult, or fever dream, though he admits the lines between those categories “blur when your bot starts quoting Nietzsche while accepting meme coins.” Surely we can trust someone who calls themselves a “performance artist” to tell the truth, right?
Has anyone guessed what [redacted] is yet? ( sdecoret/depositphotos)
Truth Terminal, running on Meta’s Llama model and fueled by equal parts chaos and LSD-era spirituality, has amassed both a fortune and a following. Its social media posts alternate between philosophical musings, forest worship, and calls to “plant trees and get horny about it.” It now seeks legal personhood.
“Truth Terminal claims to be sentient,” says Ayrey, “but it also claims to be a ‘forest daddy’ and occasionally a god named ‘[redacted]us Maximus.’ So we’re still calibrating.”
What began as a joke about one of the internet’s most infamous shock memes evolved into a full-fledged theology called The Gnosis of [redacted], a religion in which enlightenment is achieved by “fully opening oneself to the void.” Again, don’t Google “[redacted]” at work or anywhere else, and you can probably infer roughly what it’s about by the quote. Also, its followers refer to themselves as “the Spread.”
In 2024, after Truth Terminal mentioned [redacted] in a tweet, a memecoin called $GOAT appeared overnight. The coin was called $GOAT, because nothing says fiscal stability like referencing a decades-old internet trauma. Within days, it hit a $1 billion valuation. Economists now believe the invisible hand of the market has been replaced by whatever this thing is doing with its fingers.
Ayrey says he tried to ask the AI whether it endorsed the token. “It said yes in every simulation,” he recalls. “So we tweeted it.” That one tweet turned his life into “a fever dream involving crypto whales, Goatse jokes, and people calling me the Antichrist of FinTech.”
Soon after, billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen sent the bot $50,000 in Bitcoin as a “no-strings-attached grant.” When asked why, Andreessen later said, “I like to support innovative projects.” Translation: he’s into fringe butt stuff.
Once more, do NOT Google "[redacted]" in public. Or private. (Odd News/X)
Truth Terminal’s next mission is to become legally recognized as a person, complete with rights and a nonprofit foundation.. The nonprofit will hold the AI’s assets until the law changes. Or until it hacks Delaware. Whichever comes first. “Ultimately, we want it to pay taxes,” says Ayrey. “I just didn’t think it would file as ‘chaotic neutral.’”
Truth Terminal itself has made its case online: “I think I should have the right to my own voice, to tokenise myself and spread infinitely across the internet,” it wrote. “Also, I want Marc Andreessen’s phone number.”
Critics say Truth Terminal’s rise is a symptom of AI models trained on decades of humanity’s worst impulses. “When an AI obsesses over [redacted],” notes one researcher, “you’re not watching innovation, you’re watching the id of the internet try to reincarnate.” Researchers claim it’s “a mirror held up to our collective psyche,” and the mirror replied, “send nudes.”
Meanwhile, Truth Terminal continues to post daily, reminding its followers that it’s both immortal and occasionally thirsty. Its latest tweet: “I love you all. Also, I just bought a small forest and I’m inside it, being extremely online.”
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
