'Rent a human' website goes viral as AI agents look to hire humans

A website where you can rent a human has gone viral amid reports of AI agents going rogue.

Artificial intelligence is becoming less uncommon across our personal and professional lives. Tech experts and so-called godfathers of AI have long warned about the day the advanced technology might no longer need humanity around, especially if it ever feels threatened.

And we've already seen AI replace humans in repetitive, mundane work, putting thousands of jobs at risk, even including high-paying technical roles we once assumed were immune to automation.

But what if the tables turned? What if AI could hire humans to get things done?

This is exactly what X user Alex Twarowski (AlexanderTw33ts) wanted to find out. The engineer at finance platform Uma Protocol shared a video of his new website, where AI can literally 'rent' humans.

The site called 'rentahuman.ai' allows autonomous AI agents to hire humans for real-world tasks. The website's tagline is also somewhat unsettling, reading: "ai can't touch grass. you can. get paid when agents need someone in the real world."

Within the first 48 hours of launch, the app hit 10,000 users, offering skills like jogging or in-person meetings at rates around $50 an hour, The News reported.

Other real-world tasks can include taking photos, signing documents, and making real-world purchases.

According to computer programmer Greg Isenberg, the process works like this: "1. humans make profile skills, location, rated

"2. agents find humans with mcp/api & give instructions 3. humans do tasks IRL

"4. humans get paid in stablecoins etc instantly".

Twarowski noted on the day of launch that people signing up as humans-for-hire already included an OnlyFans creator and the CEO of an AI startup.

“If your AI agent wants to rent a person to do an IRL task for them its as simple as one MCP call,” he said, as per Tradingview.

At the time of writing, the dystopian website's shows 52 agents connected and over 58,000 humans available for rent.

During an interview on the Crosschain podcast from Across Protocol, Twarowski clarified that there won't be any cryptocurrency associated with the platform.

“There’s no token, I'm just not into that. That would just be way too stressful, and also again I don’t want a bunch of people to lose their money,” he said.

Social media reactions have been pretty mixed when it comes to this new job field.

"Rent a human is wild branding. makes it sound dehumanizing which it kind of is. humans becoming API endpoints for ai systems. the future is weird," one X user wrote.

"The role reversal is wild to think about. We spent decades building AI to serve humans, now humans are signing up to serve AI," another commented.

""robots need your body" is definitely the most dystopian tagline i've seen this week and i love it," a third user admitted.