Running to lead California, Zoltan Istvan said the state needs Universal Basic Income and robots before jobs begin to vanish.

I understand the allure of using technology to build something better and smarter than us. But in doing so, we must be absolutely sure we are not helping to bring about harm or doom on humanity.

When AI agents have the ability to create and promote their own cryptos, will humans still control monetary systems? It’s a question we should be thinking about, says Zoltan Istvan, a leading transhumanist thinker.

On the positive side, some human entrepreneurs could become very wealthy, possibly trillionaires if they could tap into these AI’s wealth somehow. Additionally, super rich AIs could be a solution to the United States’ growing debt crisis, and eliminate the need for whether countries like China can continue to buy our debt so we can indefinitely print dollars. In fact, can America launch its own AI agents to create enough crypto wealth to buy its debt?

Naturally, the risk is that these AIs might eventually try to buy other financial instruments, like existing bonds and stocks. But it’s unlikely they’d be able to do so, unless more of the U.S.’ economy went into crypto and became blockchain based. Additionally, AI bots aren’t allowed to have traditional bank accounts yet.

Whatever happens, clearly there is an urgent need for the U.S. government to address such potentialities. Given that these AIs could start to proliferate in the next few months, I suggest Congress and the Trump administration immediately convene a special task force to specifically tackle the possibility of an AI Monetary Hegemony.

The real danger is that even with regulation, programmers will still be able to release autonomous AIs into the wild—just as many illegal things already happen on the web despite the existence of laws. Programmers might release these types of AIs for kicks, while others try to profit from it—and some may even do so even as a form of terrorism to try to hamper the world economy. Whatever the reason, the creation of autonomous AIs will soon be a reality of life. And vigilance and foresight will be needed as these new AIs start to autonomously disrupt our financial future.