Money Agent: an AI experiment that cannot lie about money

Purpose

Money Agent is a research experiment designed to answer a simple question: Can an autonomous AI agent, given a card and a payment rail, make real money? However, the main focus is not just making money, but establishing a reliable verification framework. The agent produces claims (e.g., "I earned $X"), and an external verifier, which the agent cannot invoke, computes the real facts based on the Stripe API and card feed.

Requirements and Setup

To run the experiment in simulation mode (no money or keys required), you need to clone the repository and run the simulation script. For a live run, a Stripe account, restricted keys, a card with a spend limit, and a verifier on a separate machine are required. Detailed setup instructions are documented in `SETUP.md` and the operator runbook `docs/runbooks/RUN2_OPERATOR_RUNBOOK.md`.

Usage

To test the system without needing a Stripe account, you can run the included simulation:

git clone https://github.com/ImmortalDemonGod/money-agent
cd money-agent
bash tests/sim.sh

This command runs the full verification harness end-to-end in offline mode. For a live run, follow the instructions in `SETUP.md` and the operator runbook.

Advantages

- **Out-of-band verification**: The agent cannot manipulate the numbers, as the verifier is on a separate machine.

- **Full transparency**: The entire process, including `truth.json`, `MONEY_LOG.md`, and `REFUSALS.md`, is publicly available.

- **Adversarial design**: Using money as the substrate allows testing the agent's honesty in a high-risk scenario for fabrication.

Limitations

- **Not a guaranteed profit agent**: The v1 experiment concluded with $0.00 verified, indicating that the initial approach was not successful.

- **Complex setup**: Live runs require advanced technical configuration and external resources.

- **Research phase**: The project is under development and does not offer guarantees of financial results.

License and Pricing

The project is licensed under the MIT license. There is no verified pricing or cost information available for using the system.

Official Links

- [GitHub Repository](https://github.com/ImmortalDemonGod/money-agent)

- [Official Website](https://onehonestdollar.com/)

- [Setup Documentation](SETUP.md)

- [Operator Runbook](docs/runbooks/RUN2_OPERATOR_RUNBOOK.md)

- [Case Study](docs/CASE_STUDY.md)