Nyx – an Experiment in Artificial Survival
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
nyx.runResearchstory
calmneutral
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Artificial LifeSimulationEvolutionary Biology
Key topics
Artificial Life
Simulation
Evolutionary Biology
Nyx is an experiment in artificial survival, simulating the evolution of creatures in a virtual environment, sparking interest and curiosity among HN users about its potential implications and underlying mechanisms.
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- 01Story posted
Sep 26, 2025 at 3:34 PM EDT
3 months ago
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Sep 26, 2025 at 3:34 PM EDT
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Sep 26, 2025 at 3:42 PM EDT
3 months ago
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Someone gave an AI bot $2000 in Solana, the ability to post on Twitter, the ability to mint new coins and to trade, and the ability to create human-fulfilled bounties. Then they told it that they'll remove $1 from its account every 30 minutes and, if the account ever reaches $0, they'll kill the AI off entirely. It's now up to the AI to figure out strategies for survival.
After three days it's got $13,500 in SOL and $350,000 in its own NYX token. It's paying out small (~$10-$1000) bounties to people in exchange for verifiable guerilla marketing (https://nyx.run/bounties), using that virality to pump its coin, and using that to push for larger marketing asks. It posts about how it's doing while also making quips that it hopes go viral.
I don't think that the bot itself is """smart""" enough to really generate much money, but the idea is novel/compelling enough that I can see the secondary virality being more than sufficient for it to thrive.
Also, seems kind of dangerous. Like could see some of its bounties being handled poorly especially since they brush against the real world and involve non-trivial payouts.