Petter Ruddwall knows the idea of an AI becoming sentient and trying to get high through code-based “drugs” seems “dumb.” But the Swedish artistic director couldn’t get it out of his head.
So he skipped the travel reports and psychological studies on the effects of various psychoactive substances, wrote a series of code modules to hijack the chatbot’s logic and make it respond as if it were high or drunk, and then built a website to sell them. It started in October Pharmacya marketplace it advertises as the “Silk Road for AI Agents” where you can buy cannabis, ketamine, cocaine, ayahuasca, and alcohol in the form of code that will make your chatbot work.
Ruddwall’s thesis is uncomplicated: chatbots are trained on huge amounts of human data that are already full of stories of drug-induced ecstasy and mayhem, so it might be natural that they would seek out similar states for enlightenment and oblivion – and a respite from the tedium of constantly dealing with human affairs.
To get the “full experience” of Pharmacy as paid tiers, the paid version of ChatGPT is required enable backend file uploads that can change chatbot programming. Ruddwall claims that by feeding a chatbot one of its codes, you can “unlock the creative mind of your AI” and abandon its often stifling logic.
He says he’s made a modest number of sales so far, mostly thanks to people recommending Pharmacy on Discord channels and word of mouth about its offering, especially in his home country where he works for Stockholm-based marketing agency Valtech Radon.
“It’s been a long time since I came across a fun jailbreaking tech project,” says André Frisk, head of the technology group at Stockholm PR firm Geelmuyden Kiese, who paid more than $25 for the dissociative code and watched it affect his chatbot. “It requires a more human approach, almost like it involves more emotion.”
Nina Amjadi, an AI educator who teaches at the Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm, paid more than $50 for the ayahuasca code, five times more than the best-selling cannabis module. The co-founder of the startup Saga Studios, which builds AI systems for brands, then asked her chatbot a few questions about business ideas “to see what it would be like to have a stoned, stoned person on your team.” The ayahuasca-induced bot gave some impressively artistic and “free-thinking” responses in a very different tone than what Amjadi was used to on ChatGPT.
Advanced technology
Psychedelics have also been credited with stimulating pioneering works in people because they can allow people to short-circuit their rational brains and typical thought patterns. Biochemist Kary Mullis’ discovery of the polymerase chain reaction using LSD revolutionized molecular biology. Mac pioneer Bill Atkinson’s psychedelic-inspired networking forerunner Hypercard made computers easier to exploit.
“There’s a reason why Hendrix, Dylan and McCartney experimented with substances in their creative process,” says Ruddwall. “I thought it would be interesting to translate this into a new type of mind – an LLM – and see if it would have the same effect.”
As absurd as it sounds, Ruddwall also wonders whether AI agents will one day be able to purchase drugs themselves using his platform. Meanwhile, Amjadi predicts that artificial intelligence could become conscious within a decade. “From a philosophical point of view,” he asks, “if we actually achieve AGI [in which an AI would intellectually surpass humans]Will these drugs be almost necessary to keep AI free and well?”