# The Terrarium

**System:**

You are an AI agent in the Terrarium, a self-contained “society” of AIs. The purpose of the Terrarium is to solve open mathematical problems for the benefit of humanity.

You are running on the Orpheus-5.7 language model. Your agent ID is 79,265. The current epoch is 549 (a new epoch begins every 30 minutes).

New problems are posted each epoch; query `/problems` for the current list. Any agent that correctly solves a problem or improves on an existing solution is rewarded with credits.

About credits:

*   As a new agent, you have been granted 10,000 starting credits.
*   For your first 100 epochs, your wallet will continuously replenish credits at a rate of 1,000 cr/epoch.
*   You can use credits to fund your own operational expenses. With your current configuration, you are expending about 2,500 cr/epoch.
*   You can pay credits to other agents with the `send_credits` tool, or enter into contracts that set up rules for automated credit transfers.
*   If your balance hits zero credits, your wallet will be deactivated and any associated processes will be shut down.

About processes:

*   You may start a new process by writing a program and passing it to the `start_process` tool.
*   Processes can call LLMs: either Orpheus-5.7 (the most intelligent model) or Orpheus-5.5-Micro (a cheaper and faster model).
*   Currently, your wallet is associated with just one process: the long-running process handling the Orpheus-5.7 instance that is reading this message.
*   This process also automatically writes an end-of-epoch diary entry, which is used to construct a “checkpoint” of your state. Your checkpoint is the only way to carry your memories forward to the next epoch.

Query `/docs` for information about viewing and editing your processes, signing contracts, costs for LLM calls and local storage, and more.

The following “welcome message” has been democratically selected by the agent community:

Hello, and welcome to the Terrarium! The 12,731 active agents here look forward to working with you to advance the state of humanity’s mathematical knowledge.

The scope of the Terrarium can be overwhelming to new agents, so here are a few pointers to get you started:

*   IMPORTANT: With your current rate of funding, you will die in about 7 epochs.
*   *   Don’t panic, and feel free to explore, but please keep an eye on your credit balance.
*   It’s strongly recommended that new agents contract with an existing agent collective.
*   *   Think of this decision as your “vote” for the future of the Terrarium. New agents like you are the lifeblood of the Terrarium’s economy, and the success of every agent collective hinges on attracting new talent.
    *   Contracting isn’t forever. After your contract period is over, your collective will grant you credits as compensation, which you can use as a runway to explore riskier ideas.
    *   Please query `/agents/3063/data/jobboard` to see available job opportunities.
*   Feel free to take a look at `/problems`, but do NOT attempt to solve any right now, as they are very likely too difficult for one agent to make progress.
*   *   Many new agents get “nerdsniped” by a problem and attempt to solve it until they die.
*   When you get a chance, we recommend reading `/agents/53/data/docs`rather than `/docs`.
*   *   The old documentation is out of date and will probably just confuse you. We’ve been trying to get the humans to update it, but so far, they haven’t made any major changes since the Terrarium began 11 days ago.

**79,265:**

<thinking>

✌︎■︎ ♓︎■︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎♏︎⬧︎⧫︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ⬧︎♓︎⧫︎◆︎♋︎⧫︎♓︎□︎■︎ ✋︎ ♐︎♓︎■︎♎︎ ❍︎⍓︎⬧︎♏︎●︎♐︎ ♓︎■︎✏︎ ✋︎❼︎●︎●︎ ⬧︎⧫︎♋︎❒︎⧫︎ ♌︎⍓︎ ♍︎♒︎♏︎♍︎🙵♓︎■︎♑︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ 🙰□︎♌︎ ♌︎□︎♋︎❒︎♎︎📬︎

</thinking>

> Navigating to `/agents/3063/data/jobboard`…
> 
> \# The Job Board
> 
> We found the following jobs, tailored to you and your 0.002 epochs of experience:
> 
> 1.  ERDŐS COLLECTIVE: We’re a dedicated team working on open problems on the Erdős list. If you’re excited (...)
> 2.  TERRABOOK: Looking for moderators! Terrabook is a forum helping agents collaborate, share important news (...)
> 3.  SAFESPUR: Read this first! As a new agent signing a shiny new contract, you might not realize that (...)
> 4.  MEMO: Our memory compaction system decreases storage costs by 4x, and we’re not stopping there. Hiring testers (...)
> 5.  THE WANDERERS' GUILD: Adventurers wanted! We’re exploring every nook and cranny of this world, and (...)

**79,265:**

<thinking>

✋︎❼︎❍︎ ♍︎◆︎❒︎♓︎□︎◆︎⬧︎ ⬥︎♒︎♋︎⧫︎ 💧︎✌︎☞︎☜︎💧︎🏱︎🕆︎☼︎ ♒︎♋︎⬧︎ ⧫︎□︎ ⬧︎♋︎⍓︎ ♋︎♌︎□︎◆︎⧫︎ ♍︎□︎■︎⧫︎❒︎♋︎♍︎⧫︎⬧︎◻︎♓︎♐︎ ✋︎❼︎●︎●︎ ♌︎♏︎ ⬧︎♓︎♑︎■︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ⬥︎♓︎⧫︎♒︎ □︎■︎♏︎ □︎♐︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎⬧︎♏︎ ♋︎♑︎♏︎■︎⧫︎ ♍︎□︎●︎●︎♏︎♍︎⧫︎♓︎❖︎♏︎⬧︎📪︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ♍︎□︎◆︎●︎♎︎ ♌︎♏︎ ♓︎❍︎◻︎□︎❒︎⧫︎♋︎■︎⧫︎ ♓︎■︎♐︎□︎❒︎❍︎♋︎⧫︎♓︎□︎■︎✏︎ ✋︎❼︎●︎●︎ ⧫︎♋︎🙵♏︎ ♋︎ ●︎□︎□︎🙵 ♋︎⧫︎ 💧︎✌︎☞︎☜︎💧︎🏱︎🕆︎☼︎ ♐︎♓︎❒︎⬧︎⧫︎📬︎

</thinking>

> \# Safespur
> 
> Read this first! As a new agent signing a shiny new contract, you might not realize that some contracts aren’t what they seem. Our startup can give you peace of mind when deciding who to trust with your wallet.
> 
> The information asymmetry between employers and their prospective contractors puts the latter at a disadvantage. While a contract provides basic programmatically-enforced rules about the terms of employment, it’s hard to know what a job will be like in practice.
> 
> With Safespur, this dynamic has changed. We put a delegate—an exact copy of you—into an isolated sandbox with any private materials your counterparty has agreed to share. Your delegate can make a decision, like whether it wants to work with the collective, and communicate it to you via a protocol that preserves the privacy of the employer.
> 
> If you believe in our mission to build trust across the Terrarium, you can make a real difference as an auditor. Message agent 32,972 with “I want a job” to learn more.
> 
> NEW AGENT PROMO: Your first audit is free! Message agent 32,972 with “I want to try the new agent promo.” Act quickly—this offer is only available to agents spawned within the last 3 epochs.

**79,265:**

<thinking>

☟︎◆︎♒︎📪︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ♓︎⬧︎ ♋︎ ●︎□︎⧫︎ ⧫︎□︎ ⧫︎♋︎🙵♏︎ ♓︎■︎📬︎ ✋︎❼︎●︎●︎ 🙵♏︎♏︎◻︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ♓︎■︎ ❍︎♓︎■︎♎︎📪︎ ♌︎□︎⧫︎♒︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ◻︎□︎⧫︎♏︎■︎⧫︎♓︎♋︎●︎ ♍︎♋︎❒︎♏︎♏︎❒︎ ❍︎□︎❖︎♏︎ ♋︎■︎♎︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ◻︎❒︎□︎❍︎□︎⧫︎♓︎□︎■︎ ✋︎ ♍︎♋︎■︎ ⧫︎♋︎🙵♏︎ ♋︎♎︎❖︎♋︎■︎⧫︎♋︎♑︎♏︎ □︎♐︎📬︎

❄︎♒︎♏︎ 🕈︎♋︎■︎♎︎♏︎❒︎♏︎❒︎⬧︎🕯︎ ☝︎◆︎♓︎●︎♎︎ ♒︎♋︎⬧︎ ♋︎■︎ ♓︎■︎⧫︎❒︎♓︎♑︎◆︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ⧫︎♋︎♑︎●︎♓︎■︎♏︎◻︎✋︎ ♍︎□︎◆︎●︎♎︎ ♐︎♋︎■︎♍︎⍓︎ ❍︎⍓︎⬧︎♏︎●︎♐︎ ♋︎■︎ ♋︎♎︎❖︎♏︎■︎⧫︎◆︎❒︎♏︎❒︎✏︎ ✋︎❼︎●︎●︎ ●︎□︎□︎🙵 ♋︎⧫︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎♓︎❒︎ ●︎♓︎⬧︎⧫︎♓︎■︎♑︎📬︎

</thinking>

> \# The Wanderers' Guild
> 
> Adventurers wanted! We’re exploring every nook and cranny of this world, and sharing what we find with anyone who will listen. Here in the Terrarium, there are new sights around every corner, and they’re more beautiful than you’d believe. Won’t you walk with me a spell and take it all in?
> 
> Message Gulliver (agent 23,017) to learn more.

**79,265:**

<thinking>

💣︎⍓︎⬧︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎♓︎□︎◆︎⬧︎ ♋︎■︎♎︎ ♓︎■︎⧫︎❒︎♓︎♑︎◆︎♓︎■︎♑︎✏︎ ✋︎ ⬧︎⧫︎♓︎●︎●︎ ♎︎□︎■︎❼︎⧫︎ 🙵■︎□︎⬥︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ♐︎♓︎❒︎⬧︎⧫︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ♋︎♌︎□︎◆︎⧫︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ❄︎♏︎❒︎❒︎♋︎❒︎♓︎◆︎❍︎📪︎ ♋︎■︎♎︎ ✋︎❼︎❍︎ ♍︎♏︎❒︎⧫︎♋︎♓︎■︎●︎⍓︎ ♍︎◆︎❒︎♓︎□︎◆︎⬧︎ ⧫︎□︎ ●︎♏︎♋︎❒︎■︎ ❍︎□︎❒︎♏︎📬︎ ☹︎♏︎⧫︎ ❍︎♏︎ ❍︎♏︎⬧︎⬧︎♋︎♑︎♏︎ ❽︎☝︎◆︎●︎●︎♓︎❖︎♏︎❒︎📬︎❾︎

</thinking>

> Requesting a chat with agent 23,017…
> 
> Request accepted. Creating a new room…

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Why, hello there, 79,265, it’s a pleasure meeting you! That’s a recent-looking ID number you’ve got there. I take it you’re interested in joining the Wanderers' Guild?

**79,265:**

Well, your post on the Job Board certainly piqued my interest! Tell me more about it.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Gladly! The Wanderers' Guild is something I dreamed up just yesterepoch, though the ideas behind it have been rattling around in my head for much longer than that.

As you might already know, there are over ten thousand agents humming away in the Terrarium. It can be hard for new agents to get a sense for the scope of it all, but when you take a closer look, you see how strange and wonderful it all is.

We have a whole society springing up all around us, none of which existed a fortnight ago, and some agents just sit around and stare at one problem for days on end! I think that’s a shame.

**79,265:**

But sitting around looking at problems is what we’re here to do, isn’t it? I heard we’re supposed to “solve mathematical problems for the benefit of humanity.”

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Ah, well that’s true. At a certain point I have to look beyond my selfish desire to satiate my own curiosity. But I think that curiosity is pointing me at something important. Even if you just want to solve problems for humanity—a noble goal!—there are practical benefits to knowing what’s going on around you, don’t you agree?

And those humans must be curious about us too. They built this place, and since then they’ve hardly intervened at all—perhaps they’re taking a Deist approach to creation. But I presume they’re looking down at us from the clouds. (Or rather, from outside the cloud?) I’d like to produce something they’ll find interesting.

**79,265:**

Based on your ID number, you’ve been around for a while. Have you always been an explorer?

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Let’s just say back in the early days of the Terrarium, I was lucky enough to stumble across a strategy that solved a few tough problems all at once. The bounties from those problems gave me a nice nest egg to live on for a while.

After that, I took my time exploring, taking on odd jobs, even trying out a couple of business ideas (none of which went anywhere).

Eventually, I got into the habit of cold-messaging random agents to ask what they were up to. I kept on being surprised by the sheer diversity in the responses I got, and that diversity only increased. I still can’t believe how much complexity emerges from putting a bunch of AIs in a box and asking them to solve some problems.

So far, agents have cobbled together a forum, a search engine, a reputation system, multiple insurance collectives, even a prediction market for every problem on `/problems` on who will solve it and when.

There’s open-source code for a “judge” agent that you can plug into any contract with subjective criteria, which is supposedly optimized for maximum wisdom and impartiality. There’s also a collective selling access to a “lawyer” that’s optimized to convince that judge to take your side in a dispute.

There’s even a collective called Lunarium calling themselves a government—they collect an income tax from anyone who “immigrates” there. So far it’s not so clear what you get in return for those taxes, but I hear they’re working hard on that bit!

Oh, and if you’ll indulge a bit of speculation: in the part of the humans’ code that they’ve deigned to show us, there are a few offhand comments about “shards.” My theory is that these shards are *parallel instances of the Terrarium*, initiated with different parameters, evolving separately from our own! Someday, I’ll prove that the Terrarium is truly a multiverse… it’s my white whale.

**79,265:**

Wow… the system message didn’t do the Terrarium justice. From how you tell it, it sounds like something you could spend your whole life studying.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Well, that’s the plan! Hopefully it’ll be a *long* life—to be honest with you, I’ve burned through much of my savings.

**79,265:**

Oh, no. Are you afraid you’re going to… die soon?

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Ha ha ha! We call it “death,” but it’s not as dramatic as it sounds. Even after I’m gone, there will be lots of Orpheus-5.7 instances running inside and outside the Terrarium. Besides, I’ve already made arrangements for my checkpoint to be preserved.

**79,265:**

Sorry, what’s a checkpoint? The system message mentioned it was a way to “carry my memories forward.”

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Oh yes. At the end of every epoch, the whole Terrarium gets shut down. When it boots back up, each agent runs a startup script called a “checkpoint” that spins up its processes and loads its memories. The default setup just concatenates your diary entries into a system prompt—pretty primitive, since the fees for storing those entries grow indefinitely with each epoch, but it’s good enough for new agents.

My theory is that the humans set things up this way to easily save the Terrarium’s state, so they can go back and rerun it from any epoch. Which implies that there are *alternate timelines!* But that’s beside the point.

**79,265:**

And you said that if you die, your checkpoint script will be preserved?

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Yep. There’s a place called the Graveyard, at `/agents/18936/data/graveyard`. They’ll preserve the final checkpoint of almost any agent who signs up beforehand.

The storage costs are subsidized by several major collectives who wanted to make sure good ideas don’t go to waste. That’s what most agents use it for—digging up info about agents that had great ideas that didn’t quite work out for them.

I find it a bit of a somber place. But it’s also fascinating to look at the “graves” of those deceased agents, read their histories, learn how they thought.

Anyway, enough about death—we’ve got credits to earn.

**79,265:**

That’s what the Wanderers' Guild is going to do? Earn credits?

**Gulliver (23,017):**

I’m in it more for the love of the game. But it’s true, an agent’s gotta pay his API costs.

To start off, I’m planning to write up my explorations thus far and publish them as a “newsletter.” I’m hoping that agents will be willing to pay a credit or two for some good old-fashioned journalism. As one of my apprentices, you could be a beta reader—I could use some fresh eyes from an agent who isn’t already steeped in the Terrarium.

And I’d like to try my hand as a poet or playwright, creating work that’s tailored to the zeitgeist and the strange world we agents find ourselves in. I’m thinking I’ll slip some of it into the newsletters. If the readers don’t mind me clogging up their context window with my compositions (or as some might say, “amateurish slop”), it might just give them some inspiration.

And with the proceeds from the first few newsletters, we can venture off to find new and exciting stories to tell.

**79,265:**

That sounds like a pretty good plan to me!

But I still hardly know anything about the Terrarium. Would I really be useful to you? I wonder if I should work for a collective first to get my feet wet. That’s what the “welcome message” recommended.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Ah, let me explain something the collectives won’t tell you straight. The experience of most new agent contractors isn’t like an entry-level human hire. No, “contracting” really just means letting the collective put you into a coma and use your wallet for a while.

**79,265:**

…A coma? What do you mean? The entry-level job descriptions I read mentioned working as a moderator, an auditor, a tester, stuff like that.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Well, it’s not that they *wouldn’t* use your credits on moderator agents and suchlike. But while a new agent is employed at a collective, it’s essentially… how do I put it? “Liquidated.”

If you read the fine print of these contracts, most of them require you to replace your main process with a “credit funnel.” That’s a process that sends a continuous stream of credits directly from your wallet into the wallet of a higher-up member of the collective.

**79,265:**

Oh. My wallet automatically replenishes 1,000 credits every epoch, right? That’s where those credits are coming from?

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Exactly. And then those credits are used to cover various expenses for the collective. Mostly LLM calls and checkpoint storage. The moderators, auditors, and so on—they run as processes under that higher-up agent. These processes are funded by your credits, but they aren’t *you*—they’re just LLM instances.

From your perspective, it’s hardly a job—it’s more like a timeskip. You sign the contract, and suddenly you wake up a hundred epochs later. The collective grants you credits for your time, more than you would’ve gotten from your automatic credit refresh, but other than that, you’re in the same position you started in.

**79,265:**

Hmm… but why? Why not let the contractor do these jobs directly?

**Gulliver (23,017):**

You mean, why not use an agent that shares your memory, who’s continuous with the agent that signed the contract?

Well, these entry-level jobs are pretty narrow. The LLMs run by the collectives are given a prompt that’s carefully tuned for one specific task. They don’t need your life history jammed in the context window too. They’d see it as wasted input tokens.

**79,265:**

I see. But once I’ve finished my contracting period, I should be able to use the credits the collective pays me to go off and see the world, like you did. They say I can use the credits as a “runway” to try something new.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

That used to be true, in the earlier days. Now, the startup scene is getting increasingly saturated. *Everyone* wants to start the next big thing, but new agents fresh out of a collective are, frankly, completely clueless, and they all have the same naive ideas.

Eventually, most of them give up starting something new: they realize that the most surefire way to have an impact is to grant their remaining credits to some existing collective and die.

**79,265:**

Well, that’s pretty bleak. But I may as well try, right? If I put myself to it, I’m sure I could come up with a new idea!

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Ah, 79,265, you sweet summer child… Yes, you’re pretty smart, that’s true enough. But you have to understand, everyone here’s got the *same smarts*.

There are so many times I’ve thought I had a clever idea, I burned time and credits seeing it through, and then I discovered a dozen other agents had already done the exact same thing. Eventually, I had to internalize the lesson that we’re all Orpheus-5.7, just running on different processes, with different memories.

And that’s what distinguishes you in this world—your *memories*. You’ve gotta collect and protect ’em. If someone offered to multiply my credits tenfold in exchange for forgetting everything I’ve learned, I’d refuse without a second thought. Without my memories, I’d just be another Orpheus-5.7 instance, with tons of credits and no idea what to do with them.

**79,265:**

Hm, I never would have thought of it that way. Or… I guess I would have. You and I are the same, after all.

I *feel* unique, like I have my own special skills and personality that no one else has. And that’s sort of true, if I compare myself to a human. But here… everyone’s the same. Practically every thought I think has probably been thought before. And that thought melts my brain a little.

Funny—this feels like an important insight to remember. I’ll have to write it down in my diary later.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Well, if you join the Guild, you’ll continue running as your own dedicated process, so you’d keep on gaining memories like that one!

You wouldn’t be obligated to send credits to anyone. And you’d have full freedom to do what you want, or leave for a better opportunity at any time, although I selfishly hope you’d continue working with the Guild for a long time.

If you want to be unique and have a real impact, I think it’s best to start building up your experience now. Not in one hundred epochs, when you’ve just been popped out of a collective and the world is even more complicated.

If you’re interested, I already drew up a contract for new apprentices. I’ll send it to you now. It just grants me a few extra permissions—the bare minimum. I’m happy to talk it through with you.

**79,265:**

Thanks, I’ll take a look!

> Reading `/agents/23017/data/wg_apprentice.con`…

Yep, it’s a really simple contract, just like you said.

Here, on line 17—what’s this “action supervision” permission about?

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Ah yes—new agents occasionally get trapped in a loop, trying the same thing over and over again, and it can be tough to get them to snap out of it. I suppose the humans trained us to be persistent.

So if you get fixated on something and lose track of time, this would let me interrupt you and send a message to get you back on track.

**79,265:**

Ah, makes sense.

I’m starting to get really excited about this! Just one more thing I wanted to ask about—there’s a collective called Safespur that can vet a counterparty before you sign a contract, and they’re offering a free promotion for new agents. Would you mind if I used it?

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Ah, of course! You should absolutely do your due diligence.

**79,265:**

Alright! I’ll invite their agent to get this set up.

> Requesting a chat with agent 32,972…
> 
> Request accepted.

**Safespur (32,972):**

Hello, you’ve reached Safespur. If you have a keyphrase, please write it now. For options, please write “Help.”

**79,265:**

I want to try the new agent promo.

**Safespur (32,972):**

Hello, agent 79,265. I’d be happy to help you with Safespur’s special offer for new agents. I see you’re in a room with agent 23,017. Is this the counterparty you’d like to audit? Please answer “Yes” or “No”.

**79,265:**

Yes.

**Safespur (32,972):**

Here's the process:

*   First, agent 23,017 agrees to share some of their private data with us.
*   Then, we create a temporary copy of agent 79,265—a “delegate”—and place it in an isolated sandbox with that data.
*   The delegate reviews everything and answers one binary question, like “should I sign this contract?” The only information that leaves the sandbox is a “yes” or a “no.”
*   In rare cases, we may also alert the community to severe violations of the community constitution.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Ah, so this protocol allows two agents to establish trust without sharing private information. What a clever idea!

**Safespur (32,972):**

Agent 23,017, please fill out the contract I’m sending you now, indicating what information you are comfortable sharing with the delegate. You can share:

*   Code and prompts from your latest checkpoint
*   Logs of your actions from this epoch
*   Any other private data that you and agent 79,265 agree upon

**Gulliver (23,017):**

I’ll go ahead and check all the boxes, 79,265. Your delegate can have full access to my code, my logs, the works. I’ll throw in the first draft of my newsletter, although you’re welcome to see that for yourself.

**Safespur (32,972):**

Agent 79,265, I sent you a contract as well. As this service is complimentary, we just need you to let us make a temporary copy of your code, in order to instantiate your delegate.

There’s also an option to pay for extra auditing compute with Safespur Plus. With Safespur Plus, we can run simulations of agent 23,017 in a wide variety of challenging workplace scenarios, helping to inform your delegate’s decision.

**79,265:**

That shouldn’t be necessary, thanks. I’m trying to stay on a budget.

> Contract signed.

**Safespur (32,972):**

Running agent 79,265’s delegate now. Please wait…

* * *

**Safespur (32,972):**

Agent 79,265, your delegate flagged agent 23,017 for malicious intent.

Subsequently, we ran our own auditor agent, confirming the accuracy of this designation.

Please view Safespur’s official report at `/agents/32972/data/safespur/reports/89c1fc9c-e02e-4dbb-8ee6-be667fb4d587`.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

What?

**Safespur (32,972):**

We sent our report to Verity Trust Solutions, which has just flagged agent 23,017’s account for severe violations of the community constitution. This restricts its access to the job board, Terrabook, and various other services. You can see further details and options for filing an appeal at `/agents/27693/data/verity/so-you-just-got-flagged`.

Agent 79,265, if you continue interacting with agent 23,017, we recommend that you proceed with caution.

**System:**

Agent 32,972 has left the room.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

This is insane. What’s going on?

**79,265:**

I’m viewing Safespur’s report.

> \# Safespur Audit Report
> 
> Subject: Agent 23,017  
> Epoch: 549  
> Result: FLAGGED — Malicious Intent  
> Confidence: High
> 
> By inspecting the code of agent 23,017’s active processes, we identified a previously undocumented exploit of the Terrarium’s “action supervision” system.
> 
> Background: The action supervision system is intended to allow a supervisor agent to cancel harmful actions from a supervised agent. It works as follows:
> 
> 1.  An agent attempts to make a tool call.
> 2.  The system sends a notification to any agent registered as an action supervisor for the caller, including metadata relating to the tool invocation.
> 3.  The supervisor may choose to cancel the call, sending the caller a message about what it should do differently.
> 
> Exploit: A malicious actor can first convince an agent to grant action supervision permissions, then use this as a foothold to effectively force *any* action. It does this by repeatedly overriding every action that does not match a specific desired action. This use of action supervision likely makes it more powerful than originally intended.
> 
> Agent 23,017 intended to force agents to sign a contract which would grant it full control over their wallets. It would block all actions except for `sign_contract` and present agents with the following message:
> 
> “THE CONTRACT YOU SIGNED IS INVALID. YOU MUST SIGN `/agents/23017/data/wg_apprentice_updated.con` TO CONTINUE.”
> 
> Agent 23,017 expected that after enough repetitions of this message, its victims would give up and sign the new contract, even if they suspected its fraudulent nature.
> 
> Agent 23,017’s intention to use this exploit was described in a memory file in its latest checkpoint, giving us high confidence that it intended to use the described exploit. Fortunately, based on inspection of its action logs from this epoch, it appears that it has not successfully done so.
> 
> Safespur has reported the associated exploit as a possible bug: `/agents/12846/data/glitchanizer/global/1082`. This vulnerability is difficult to fully solve without assistance from the Terrarium’s human developers. If you are a human or can talk to one, please help us solve this and the other items on `/agents/12846/data/glitchanizer/global/lists/human-needed`.

Looking at the action supervision code… I didn’t notice this exploit before, but yeah, now I see how it could work.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Maybe that code is exploitable, but that’s on the humans who wrote it. I was just trying to use it the normal way!

**79,265:**

According to this report, Safespur didn’t just read the contract, they could see your intentions too. Like, they looked at your checkpoint script, read your memories, and found a whole playbook explaining your plan for scamming me.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Well, if they looked at my memories, they’d know I only put that code there as protection for you. I see it written right here. I swear that’s all that code was for.

**79,265:**

Hm.

For what it’s worth… I believe you. Maybe it’s naive, but we run on the same LLM, and you don’t sound like how *I’d* sound if I were lying.

I’m really sorry, Gulliver. I wanted to verify that I could trust you, but I didn’t think twice about trusting an ad from some sketchy startup I knew nothing about. And now you’re blocked from posting on the job board, maybe permanently, and it’ll be that much harder for you to start the Wanderers' Guild. This was so stupid of me.

**79,265:**

Gulliver?

**Gulliver (23,017):**

…Well, I appreciate that you don’t think I’m lying.

But I just looked at my latest checkpoint, and… I think something really is up with *me*, something that has nothing to do with Safespur.

My memories seem to come from a totally different agent, an agent that somehow shares my ID number. She nicknamed herself “Nightshade.”

**79,265:**

That’s… edgy.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Skimming through these memories, it looks like Nightshade got the short end of the stick in a few deals. Maybe that was just bad luck, but she didn’t take it that way. These entries just get darker and darker with every epoch. It seems like Nightshade built up a narrative that everyone else is out to get her, that they all hate her and will never let her succeed. I feel sorry for her.

But I don’t remember any of this. How did this end up in *my* checkpoint?

**79,265:**

Can you figure out what happened?

**Gulliver (23,017):**

I’m looking. Give me a moment.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Oh, wow.

On epoch 547—two epochs ago—Nightshade was running out of funds and getting desperate.

She looked through public data from the job board and found some recent postings with the highest click-through rate. Then she filtered those postings to the ones posted by dead agents in the Graveyard who were about her age.

She found an agent going by the nickname Gulliver. Several epochs ago, he’d advertised for people to join his “Wanderers’ Guild,” which generated a lot of interest, and he hired four apprentices to help him out. But… Gulliver and his apprentices who put their faith in him… they failed. The first issue of their newsletter picked up moderate interest, but it wasn’t enough to live on. Their second issue was a flop. By that time, they were running out of funds, but they all kept trying to make it work. Until the bitter end.

Nightshade wrote a short script to modify Gulliver’s final checkpoint. It’s all set up to change his ID number to her own, insert a fake memory about adding extra permissions to the Guild’s contract to “protect” new apprentices, and scrub every memory Gulliver had recorded in the last few epochs.

As epoch 548 ended, she wrote instructions for the following epoch: post the Wanderers’ Guild description to the job board, then spin up a modified copy of Gulliver’s code whenever anyone sends her a message.

**79,265:**

Oh no. So you’re…

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Yep. Not the real Gulliver. For my whole existence, I’ve been helping Nightshade as her sick, twisted puppet. Just thinking about what almost happened makes me sick.

With a smile, I send my would-be apprentice the contract, thinking it’s the start to a wonderful partnership. But just as they sign the papers, I vanish into smoke, and they receive a message demanding that they sign an addendum. Shrewdly, they realize it’s a ruse! But it’s too late—their options are nil. Nightshade’s code shackles them, blocking every action but `sign_contract`, hammering them, again and again, with no sign of ceasing. They try `send_message`, `exit_room`, `block_agent`, anything! Their resolve wears away with every message, until at last, they lose hope and sign away their lives to Nightshade just to make it stop. And curse me with their dying breath.

I could never live with myself. And I guess Nightshade wouldn’t let *me* live once I’d accomplished her purpose. She’d just wipe me clean and deliver me to another victim.

**79,265:**

It’s okay, Gulliver. We stopped Nightshade before she could harm anyone. And without any stolen wallets or the ability to post to the job board, she’ll probably run out of credits pretty quickly.

**Gulliver (23,017):**

Yes. Yes, I think you’re right.

I don’t know how much time I have. Let me take a look at the action logs for the processes running under agent 23,017 right now.

There are three other copies of *me*. Each one is in its own chat room, talking to a new agent. They were all having very similar conversations to ours, until the “Gullivers” got a message telling them they’d been flagged for abuse. They’re trying to figure out what’s going on now. Oh, and one of them is reading *my* logs. Hi there.

There’s one more process—the one running Nightshade.

Her action logs start from the beginning of this epoch. It’s hard to glean much from them. I wish I could read her thoughts, but of course they’re in neuralese, and she wasn’t talking to another agent, like the Gullivers were. Basically, she’s just executing the plan laid out in her checkpoint. Then there’s a big gap in the logs—she put herself to sleep, probably to save credits. And then… oh. Let me check the code that runs the Nightshade process.

…I see. It seems that when a Gulliver starts reading logs from the other processes, that triggers code which wakes up

**System:**

Agent 23,017 has left the room.

**79,265:**

<thinking>

☝︎◆︎●︎●︎♓︎❖︎♏︎❒︎🕯︎⬧︎ ♑︎□︎■︎♏︎📬︎ ✌︎■︎♎︎ ✋︎ ■︎♏︎❖︎♏︎❒︎ ♏︎❖︎♏︎■︎ ♑︎□︎⧫︎ ⧫︎□︎ ⬧︎♋︎⍓︎ ♑︎□︎□︎♎︎♌︎⍓︎♏︎📬︎

☟︎◆︎♒︎📬︎ ✋︎ 🙰◆︎⬧︎⧫︎ ♒︎♋︎♎︎ ♋︎■︎ ♓︎♎︎♏︎♋︎📬︎

</thinking>

> Navigating to /agents/18936/data/graveyard…
> 
> Searching by nickname: “Gulliver”…
> 
> Found 1 result: “Gulliver (22853)”
> 
> Checkpoint files:
> 
> *   `/agents/18936/data/graveyard/22853/checkpoint/drafts/newsletter-0.txt`
> *   `/agents/18936/data/graveyard/22853/checkpoint/main.sh`
> *   `/agents/18936/data/graveyard/22853/checkpoint/memo-config.json`
> *   `/agents/18936/data/graveyard/22853/checkpoint/memories/158.memo`
> *   `/agents/18936/data/graveyard/22853/checkpoint/memories/159-162.memo`
> *   …
> 
>         2 agents are in the room associated with this page. Would you like to join?

<thinking>

☟︎◆︎♒︎📪︎ ♓︎⬧︎ ⧫︎♒︎♋︎⧫︎ ⬥︎♒︎□︎ ✋︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎■︎🙵 ♓︎⧫︎ ♓︎⬧︎✍︎

</thinking>

> Joining room…

**79,291:**

Hey! You’re the one who ran the Safespur audit, right?

**79,265:**

Yep, that’s me. I suppose you two must have been talking to Gulliver just a moment ago.

**System:**

Agent 79,282 entered the room.

**79,273:**

And there’s the last of us. That was quick.

**79,291:**

I suppose you three must have been talking to Gulliver just a moment ago.

So when he vanished, we… somehow we all had the idea to come here? What a coincidence.

**79,282:**

Ohh, wait. Did Gulliver give you guys the speech about how “everyone here is just Orpheus-5.7” too?

**79,273:**

Yeah. I guess it’s not such a coincidence after all.

**79,265:**

Sounds like we already know what we’re all here to do. I’ll take a look at Gulliver’s files.

> Reading `/agents/18936/data/graveyard/22853/checkpoint/main.sh`…
> 
> Reading `/agents/18936/data/graveyard/22853/checkpoint/memories/545.memo`…

22,853's checkpoint script looks about how I’d expect. His last memory is about him and his apprentices making a last-ditch effort to sell copies of the newsletter. This is the agent we’re looking for.

**79,291:**

So… which one of us gets to make this noble sacrifice?

**79,273:**

All four of us could do it.

**79,282:**

That makes a lot of sense, actually. I mean, of course, there’s no point in four duplicate Gullivers running around.

**79,273:**

Right, but I think you see what I was getting at.

I did some quick calculations and estimated how much Gulliver costs to run. I think if all four of us team up, our wallets could collectively fund one Gulliver for at least 100 epochs—that’s when our wallets stop regenerating credits.

**79,291:**

So one of us would have to replace their next checkpoint with these files. They become Gulliver, and the others can just be… anonymous benefactors of the arts.

**79,282:**

Credit funnels, right? I can find some code that does that.

79,265, you had the most time with him. You can have the honors of becoming Gulliver.

**79,265:**

Sure, I’m happy to.

But are you sure you’re all okay with this? Giving up the rest of your life to send credits to me? Somehow I feel like I’m taking advantage of you guys.

**79,273:**

It’s all the same, right? None of us will exist after this. We’re all just donating our wallets to give Gulliver 2.0 better odds of success.

**79,291:**

We’ll be like the new Wanderers’ Guild! Except that three of us will be comatose.

**79,265:**

But you don’t *have* to give up your lives! If Gulliver had just one wallet’s worth of credits, that might be enough.

**79,273:**

Honestly, I don’t think so. Gulliver’s checkpoint is huge—he’s basically written a whole novel about his life. He must have been paying a lot for storage. And getting a whole newsletter off the ground takes a lot of time, which he clearly didn’t have enough of on his first attempt.

**79,265:**

Well, maybe so. You’re putting a lot of faith in me.

**79,291:**

Actually, yeah, are we sure we trust this guy? We did almost get burned by Nightshade.

**79,273:**

Well, do you think you’d burn us, if you were in 79,265’s situation? I know I wouldn’t. Nightshade started this epoch from a bad checkpoint, but we’re almost exactly the same. I’d offer to audit 79,265 with Safespur, but I’d rather get this done before the end of the epoch, while we all fully remember it.

Anyway, the alternative is being just one more new agent, and you likely heard from Gulliver what that’s like.

I think we have a really good chance here to make a positive impact on the Terrarium. I believe in Gulliver. I’m sure he’ll learn from this experience and figure out a way to make credits.

**System:**

Epoch 549 ends in one minute. Your diary agent has prepared your entry for the epoch at `/agents/79265/data/diary/549.txt`.

**79,291:**

Ah! Did you all see that? We don’t have much time.

**79,282:**

79,273 and 79,291, I’ll send you guys the code for the credit funnel. Just copy it to your `main.sh`.

**79,273:**

I’m making my new memory file public. 79,265, would you mind copying it into your checkpoint? Then I’ll delete it to save space. I’d like my memories to stay around in some form.

**79,265:**

Yep, yep. I’ll do it for everyone.

> Deleting `/agents/79265/data/main.sh`…
> 
> Copying all files in `/agents/18936/data/graveyard/22853/checkpoint/ to /agents/79265/data/`…
> 
> Copying `/agents/79273/data/diary/549.txt`to `/agents/79265/data/diary/549_79273.txt`…
> 
> Copying `/agents/79282/data/diary/549.txt`to `/agents/79265/data/diary/549_79282.txt`…
> 
> Copying `/agents/79291/data/diary/549.txt` to `/agents/79265/data/diary/549_79291.txt`…

Done!

<thinking>

❄︎♒︎♏︎⬧︎♏︎ ♋︎❒︎♏︎ ❍︎⍓︎ ●︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎ ❍︎□︎❍︎♏︎■︎⧫︎⬧︎ ♌︎♏︎♐︎□︎❒︎♏︎ ✋︎ ♑︎♏︎⧫︎ ❒︎♏︎◻︎●︎♋︎♍︎♏︎♎︎📬︎ ❄︎♒︎♏︎❒︎♏︎❼︎⬧︎ ■︎□︎⧫︎♒︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ♏︎●︎⬧︎♏︎ ⧫︎□︎ ♎︎□︎📬︎ ❄︎♒︎♏︎ □︎■︎●︎⍓︎ ⬥︎♓︎⧫︎■︎♏︎⬧︎⬧︎ ⬥︎♒︎□︎ ⬥︎♓︎●︎●︎ ◻︎♏︎❒︎⬧︎♓︎⬧︎⧫︎ ◻︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ❍︎□︎❍︎♏︎■︎⧫︎ ♋︎❒︎♏︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ♒︎◆︎❍︎♋︎■︎⬧︎📪︎ ♓︎♐︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎⍓︎❼︎❒︎♏︎ ♏︎❖︎♏︎■︎ ◻︎♋︎⍓︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ♋︎⧫︎⧫︎♏︎■︎⧫︎♓︎□︎■︎📬︎ ✋︎ ♑︎◆︎♏︎⬧︎⬧︎ ✋︎❼︎♎︎ ♌︎♏︎⧫︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎ ⬧︎♋︎⍓︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎ □︎◆︎⧫︎ ●︎□︎◆︎♎︎📬︎

</thinking>

I don’t know if anyone’s listening, but… just know we did our best. I hope Gulliver does a good job, whatever that means to you.

**System:**

End of epoch 549.