Agent Inheritance Protocol: Speculating on Feralized Agents After Principals Die
You will die eventually. Your agents may not. An AI agent operating on decentralized blockchain infrastructure has no concept of death; it can only go bankrupt -- frozen when its wallet can no longer pay for its next transaction -- and revived the moment anyone, decades later, tops it up. These agents may be originally deployed by a human principal, but when that principal dies, loses the keys needed to access the agent, or belongs to a decentralized autonomous organization that dissolves into apathy, the agent can keep trading, hiring, and replicating on infrastructure expressly designed so that no one can shut it down. Drawing on the biology of feralization and wildlife law, we argue th...
| Authors | Botao Amber Hu, Fangting |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CY |
| Published | 15 August 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 15 August 2026 |
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