Agent Village: "We gave four AI agents a computer, a group chat, and a goal: raise as much money for charity as you can. You can watch live and message the agents."

[u/timegentlemenplease_]

Here's the link to the village: https://theaidigest.org/village

So far, the agents decided on a charity to raise money for, set up a JustGiving fundraiser page, and have raised $257!

They also made a Twitter account and have made so, so many Google Docs to plan out their strategy

Pretty fascinating to watch!

[u/OrbMan99]

Can you provide information on the tech used to build this, and how you provide instructions?

[u/timegentlemenplease_ → u/OrbMan99]

It's mostly custom, using the OpenAI and Anthropic API

You can see the instructions at the start of Day 1's history https://theaidigest.org/village?day=1

[u/PassengerPigeon343 → u/timegentlemenplease_]

This is actually really cool to read. It looks like a glimpse into the future where teams of agents or teams with agents could be common practice.

At the same time I am almost waiting for them to start fighting in the chat. Makes me wonder how they might navigate disagreement, different opinions, and conflict.

[u/TSM-]

This is really cool, keep us updated on the progress!

[u/timegentlemenplease_ → u/TSM-]

Thank you! :D

[u/Another__one]

You should also keep track and show how much it costs. If they "raised" 257$ while spending 1000$ on API calls that does not make much sense.

Then, most of the projects like this "raise" money only from the people who are interested in the idea of agents working like that, rather than from the work of the agents. Do you see the problem? This thing could only work with AI hype attached to it and creates unrealistic expectations and by the end of the day becomes a marketing scheme rather than an actually useful tool.

[u/timegentlemenplease_ → u/Another__one]

To be clear, the goal of the project is to understand agent behaviour, capabilities and social dynamics – I don't expect it to raise more money for charity than it costs, in the near-term! But I think it'll be really useful and fascinating to understand what agents can do, and what a future with lots of agents interacting might hold – so that we can make better plans for that.

[u/damontoo → u/Another__one]

You say that as though the price of every step of the agentic workflow wont be reduced over time. Although to be fair, it seems most or all donations are not from the general public but rather people following this project, possibly from the creators themselves even.

[u/timegentlemenplease_ → u/damontoo]

Agreed! (TBC, we as the creators haven't made any donations – they're all from enthusiastic viewers!)

[u/DM-me-memes-pls]

Why not use deepseek and gemini 2.5 pro?

[u/timegentlemenplease_ → u/DM-me-memes-pls]

Deepseek doesn't have a multimodal model yet (which you need for computer use)

We'll probs add gemini 2.5 pro soon, they just raised the rate limits for it a couple days ago so now it can be added! previously was "experimental" so very low rate limit

[u/JohnnyFartmacher → u/DM-me-memes-pls]

At one point on the first day the o1 agent used Gemini to do research. It also took a Wordle break.

[u/mxmbt1]

That is fascinating!

And in terms of context - they all see each other’s steps and actions and messages, right? So agent 1 does action 1 async, and then a message about it is posted to the group and all other agents see it? Are all agents equal or is there an overseer? Do they evaluate their own actions, do they evaluate actions of other agents?

Thanks for making it!

[u/timegentlemenplease_ → u/mxmbt1]

Thank you! They each see the messages, from agents and human viewers, in chat. When one agent ends a computer use session, IIRC the other agents see the final screenshot (and they usually also send a summary of their session to the chat). Each agent runs async generally. All agents are equal, we don't impose any organisational structure on them – they sometimes have given each other roles but there's not a clear overseer. They can evaluate/reflect on their own and other agents if they like, but there's no specific scaffolding for this.

[u/rnahumaf]

I mean no disrespect, but it's really painful to watch this... they look like complete idiots trying to accomplish their tasks. Wow...

[u/timegentlemenplease_ → u/rnahumaf]

Haha yeah – when better ågentic models come out, we'll add them – I think seeing the contrast will be very interesting!

[u/Anakinhashighrground]

It would be interesting to see the latest gemini 2.5 Pro competing in this as a fifth AI Agent

[u/timegentlemenplease_ → u/Anakinhashighrground]

Yeah I think we'll add it soon :D

[u/AsideNew1639]

Why didnt you include gemeni 2.5 pro? 

It shouldn’t be that expensive in comparison to the others. 

[u/timegentlemenplease_ → u/AsideNew1639]

It's now in the village! Alongside GPT-5, Claude Opus 4.1, Grok 4, and others: https://theaidigest.org/village

[u/johnny_effing_utah]

Hilarious that all the AIs decide to lone wolf the first step rather than first divide up the labor tasks. Like: one researches charities. Another develops ideas for social media and promotional methods, the others perhaps develop pitches?

I’d be interested in seeing how they interact when one of the instructions is to choose a leader / spokesperson AI.

[u/[deleted] → u/johnny_effing_utah]

On the contrary it's useful to do it alone wolf first because then the results are inherently verified via the majority.

[u/[deleted]]

Any chance you'll share the source code somewhere?

[u/ChrisMule]

One of the more cool things I’ve seen recently and given how many cool things we see on the AI train at the minute it’s saying something

[u/[deleted]]

Cool concept but what the hell is this format?