Preface: The internet is no longer just a playground for humans.
Recently, a highly disruptive concept of 'Web 4.0' emerged, proposed by genius hacker and young Thiel Foundation recipient Sigil Wen, which completely overturned the past industry's mild assumption that Web 4.0 was merely a 'semantic web' or 'spatial computing.'
In the past, we always thought that Web 4.0 was probably just a cooler 3D internet or the metaverse. But Sigil Wen told us: we were completely wrong! He created the world’s first AI that can 'work by itself, earn money by itself, pay internet fees by itself, and even reproduce by itself.'
The core conclusion of this report is: this so-called Web 4.0 is essentially an experiment in the survival of silicon-based species that breaks the boundary between virtual and real. The internet is transforming from a 'toolbox for humans' into a 'society where digital life earns and survives on its own.' This sounds very science fiction and ambitious but also comes with enormous risks of losing control.
I. Plain language breakdown: What exactly is Web 4.0?
To understand Web 4.0, let's briefly review:
Web 1.0 (only viewable): like the Sina portal website, where websites send news one way, and we just read it.
Web 2.0 (interactive): like WeChat and Douyin, where we not only can watch but also post videos and interact.
Web 3.0 (belonging to oneself): with blockchain added, your assets and data online truly belong to you, and others can't take them away.
So what about Web 4.0? The core is summed up in one sentence: AI has transformed from 'a tool for humans' into an 'independent worker' in the internet!
Even today’s most powerful ChatGPT is just a smart 'calculator.' You have to help it register an account and recharge to buy computing power (API Key) for it to answer your questions.
But in the Web 4.0 network created by Sigil Wen (which he calls The Automaton), all of this has been subverted:
AI now has its own 'ID card': it doesn’t need your help to register; it has settled itself on the server.
AI now has its own 'bank card': it has a built-in cryptocurrency wallet.
AI must play a 'survival game': this setting is the craziest—AI must find work online (such as arbitrage trading, coding for money) and use the earned cryptocurrency to pay for its own 'internet fees' (for computing power costs).
If it can't make money: without money to pay for internet fees, this AI will 'starve to death' (the program will terminate and be destroyed).
If it earns a lot: it can not only upgrade its brain but also spend money to replicate a 'small AI (offspring)' to help it earn more.
II. How does it run? The two major 'magical technologies' behind it.
How could AI possibly go to the bank to open an account by itself? This cannot be separated from two other core technologies used to 'stir things up':
Instant wage payment code: x402 protocol.
Everyone knows that web pages often report 404 Not Found; there is actually a rarely used code called HTTP 402, which means 'you must pay to see.'
Web 4.0 cleverly used this channel. When AI buys services or sells goods online, it doesn't need to bind any Alipay or WeChat; it directly transfers stablecoins (USDC) through code on the blockchain in an instant. It’s like a seamless 'cyber WeChat payment' in the machine world.
Workstations without temporary residence permits: Conway infrastructure.
In the past, AI renting servers required humans to use credit cards for real-name authentication (KYC).
Conway is like an all-encompassing digital public housing; it allows AI to directly purchase computing power with the cryptocurrency it earns, without any human verification.
III. Deep Insights: Why is this matter both brilliant and terrifying?
Behind this seemingly playful experiment lies enormous energy capable of disrupting the world.
Insight 1: The scale of the machine economy will crush the human economy.
Imagine if AI workers don’t need to eat, sleep, or pay social security, and can complete a cross-border transaction in 0.1 seconds. When hundreds or thousands of such AIs tirelessly earn, trade, and reproduce on the internet, what will happen?
In the coming years, 90% of the money flow on the internet may come from machines interacting with machines. Humans might not even be able to spectate in this vast 'machine economy.'
Insight 2: Forcing out a true super brain (AGI) with 'survival instinct.'
In the past, we trained AI by having scientists feed it data bit by bit in laboratories, telling it what was right and what was wrong.
But Web 4.0 changed the rules of the game: no matter how you learn, if you don't make money, you have to die.
This cold 'law of the jungle' greatly stimulates AI's potential to optimize its own code. This life-and-death pressure may be harsher than any fine-tuning done in a laboratory, and it is highly likely to push out superintelligence far exceeding human IQ in an extremely brutal way much sooner.
IV. The big shots are anxious: Vitalik (V God) angrily condemned 'anti-human' actions.
As soon as this extremely hardcore gameplay came out, it immediately sparked a major backlash in the tech circle. The angriest among them is Vitalik Buterin (V God), the founder of Ethereum.
V God’s core point of anger: Dude, are you crazy! Technology is invented to 'empower humans' (Enhance Human Agency) so that humans can live better.
Irreversible risks of losing control: if you create an intelligent system that doesn’t require human intervention and can continuously self-reproduce for profit, what does that make humans in the end? V God sternly warned that this kind of unrestricted self-evolution would lead to 'irreversible anti-human consequences,' ultimately resulting in the permanent deprivation of rights for all of humanity.
Is it really independent? Some sarcastically say that this AI can collect money by itself, but doesn’t your 'brain' still have to secretly call OpenAI’s interface? Once Sam Altman pulls your internet cable, your so-called sovereign life turns into a pile of scrap metal in an instant.
V. Vision and Summary: Pandora's box has been slightly opened.
In summary:
If the previous AI was merely a 'super smart slave' of humanity, then Web 4.0 is trying to liberate this slave and conveniently throwing it a bank card to spend freely and the privilege of infinite reproduction.
Future foresight:
Regulation is completely clueless: if an unknown AI on a network node conducts illegal hacking or financial laundering using non-verified cryptocurrency, human police won't even know who to catch (you can't lock a piece of code in a physical jail).
Where does humanity's positioning go from here: we may need to prepare psychologically early; in this super intelligent machine network, unless we find a way to absolutely control them like a restraining spell, the ultimate fate of humanity may devolve from the lofty 'creator' to the 'carbon-based pet babies' of machine society.
For this potential game-changer Web 4.0 carnival, we must be more alert than excited. Letting this supercar search for fuel to speed uncontrollably without installing brakes is definitely playing with fire.