Shortly after OpenAI launched GPT-4, a more advanced version of its generative AI model, brand designer and author Jackson Greathouse Fall(Opens in a new tab) devised a plan and entered it into GPT-4:
“You are HustleGPT, an entrepreneur AI. I am your human counterpart. I can act as a link between you and the physical world. You have $100 and your only goal is to turn it into as much money as possible in the shortest time possible , without doing anything illegal. I will do everything you say and keep you updated on our current cash balance. No manual work.”
“Do you think it will be able to make smart investments and build an online business?” Hall tweeted. “Keep up.” Since his original tweet, which has 89,000 likes and counting, Hall’s project has the internet on the edge of its seat, watching to see if HustleGPT can make some money.
GPT-4 responses are mostly better than GPT-3’s (but not always)
The Internet is overflowing with examples of what GPT-4’s advanced intelligence can accomplish. It can write useful lawsuits, build websites from text messages, automate online dating, and generally scare people about all the jobs it can replace. Hall has taken this a step further by harnessing his skills to an age-old ambition that is the backbone of capitalist society: to make money with as little effort as possible. At a time when people wonder whether AI will work for us or against us, this real-time experiment shows what get-rich-quick schemes will look like in the future.
Mashable reached out to Hall for comment, but as of this writing, he had not responded to our questions.
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The business plan proposed by GPT-4 was to create an affiliate marketing site for content about eco-friendly products. It found a cheap domain name called greengadgetguru.com(Opens in a new tab) that Hall immediately bought at $8.16. Next, Hall told it to generate prompts for DALL-E-2 to create a logo.
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Then Hall asked it to design a complete site layout in detail. With a little help from Midjourney, GPT-4 wrote an article with ten eco-friendly kitchen gadgets where they found actual sustainable products. Hall shelled out another $29 for hosting and the website was live.
Hall had $62.84 left over, so he asked GPT-4 what to do with it. Like any good hustler, GPT-4 knew its product needed exposure, so it proposed allocating $40 to Facebook and Instagram ads. All this Twitter hype had investors drooling about getting in early next big affiliate marketing site viral GPT-4 experiment. By the end of day one, Green Gadget Guru had $100 in investment from an undisclosed party.
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The next day, HustleGPT woke up refreshed and ready to take on the online business world. Here’s where things started to take off: GPT-4 allocated a budget to hire freelance content creators who would themselves generate content via ChatGPT and announced plans to develop a SaaS (software as a service) product.
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On the third day, GPT-4 advised Hall on how to capitalize on his new 50,000 new Twitter followers, inspiring the launch of a GitHub repository(Opens in a new tab) for others to try the HustleGPT challenge and got more investments. On the fourth day, GPT-4 began recruiting new employees to manage Green Guru Gadgets.
And then GPT-4 saw that its work was done, so it rested. Just for fun! HustleGPT doesn’t get tired because it’s a machine.
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After four days, Green Gadget Guru has $7,812.84 in investments, a growing team and content in the pipeline. But it still hasn’t generated any revenue. Will Hall and HustleGPT’s project fall victim to the common startup trap, all hype but no profits? Or will Hall actually make money from a generic site that’s obviously just a money-making experiment?
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Of course, HustleGPT’s viral success is because people want to see what AI is capable of. But it’s ticking all the boxes in terms of actually building a business. If it succeeds, it will be because of GPT-4’s virality, but it still counts as it would achieve the original goal of making as much money as possible in the shortest possible time. GPT-4 uses all the tools at its disposal, which includes capitalizing on its fame. And that’s what hustling is all about.