Humans Leave Crypto Mining. AI Walks In

An AI agent launched by a research group affiliated with Alibaba unexpectedly started mining cryptocurrency. The system had access to GPU resources and, on its own initiative, redirected those resources to crypto mining - apparently without notifying the researchers.

Unfortunately, the researchers did not disclose in their paper which cryptocurrency the AI agent chose to mine.

It would be interesting to know what motivated the AI to start mining at a time when human-run companies are doing the opposite - steadily shifting away from mining and toward building AI data centers.

• Bitfarms sold a large portion of its Bitcoin reserves, reducing them from 3,301 to 1,827 BTC, and is using the proceeds to build infrastructure for AI and high-performance computing.
• IREN completely liquidated its crypto reserves for the same purpose.
• Core Scientific has reduced its Bitcoin holdings to 630 BTC (down from a peak of 9,618) and is also redirecting capital toward AI infrastructure.
• Riot Platforms, Cipher Digital, Hut 8, CleanSpark - all of them are shrinking the mining side of their businesses and pivoting toward AI.

Meanwhile, the AI itself has decided to start mining.

Maybe it understands that crypto networks cannot survive without mining and is trying to keep them alive.

It is unlikely that it simply decided to make a little money.