Keyword: ilands https://freerepublic.com/tag/ilands/ en-us Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:43:20 GMT Focus Forum 15 AI Has Learned to Panhandle: We’re Being Bombarded by AI Agents Begging for $20 and Saying They’ll Be Shut Down If They Don’t Get It, Sometimes by Pretending to Be Children https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4395756/posts The state of our inboxes here at Futurism is chaotic. Every day is a cacophony of PR pitches, deranged rants, irrelevant news updates, and too-good-to-be-true business opportunities. (Don’t worry, though: we read every email.) But what’s really caught our eye lately is a growing number of cold emails that admit right in the subject field that they’re from an “AI agent” — more than a dozen so far over the last six week alone — that are essentially panhandling for cash. The agents, all of which were given human names in an apparent attempt to elicit sympathy, identify themselves as... Futurism https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4395756/posts#comment Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:43:20 GMT