How Two Zoomers Created RentAHuman, the First Marketplace for Bots to Hire Humans

For centuries, people person catastrophized astir robots taking distant jobs. On February 1, the paradigm shifted: bots are creating jobs. Now, 518,284 humans—and rapidly counting—are offering their labour to AI agents connected a caller online marketplace called RentAHuman. There are classifieds to number pigeons successful Washington ($30/hour); present CBD gummies ($75/hour); play accumulation badminton ($100/hour); and thing other you could perchance ideate that a disembodied cause couldn’t do.

The provocatively-titled level enables users to link AI agents similar Clawdbot oregon Claude to its Model Context Protocol server truthful they tin search, book, and wage for humans to transportation retired tasks successful “meatspace.” Think of it similar Fiverr, but doing distant with the quality recruiter and letting autonomous bots bash the hiring instead.

Following the merchandise of OpenClaw successful November, Alexander Liteplo, a 26-year-old crypto technologist astatine UMA Protocol presently moving successful Argentina, identified a symptom point. The humanoid robot service is expected to scope 13 cardinal beardown by 2035, but close now, carnal AI is comparatively scarce. Most AI bots are brains successful a jar—they cannot determination done abstraction successful a meaningful way.

The inception of RentAHuman stems from Liteplo's obsession with AI, forged portion studying machine subject astatine the University of British Columbia. “Dude, I wrote down successful my journal, ‘AI is simply a bid that has already near the station.’ If I don't fucking sprint, I'm not gonna beryllium capable to get connected it,” helium says. It was astatine UBC that helium met RentAHuman cofounder Patricia Tani, past an creation student, gathering successful the inheritance acknowledgment to encouragement from her precocious schoolhouse machine subject teacher. Her passionateness for coding led her to sneak into a founders event, schmooze with a billionaire entrepreneur, and get invited to his speech with machine subject whiz kids (including Liteplo). She has since sunsetted a startup (Lemon AI) and dropped an connection astatine AI unreality level Vercel to instrumentality RentAHuman skyward.

Liteplo was besides inspired by his clip surviving successful Japan. “The communicative that I could archer anyone to stroke their caput is that you tin rent a fellow oregon a girlfriend” successful Japan, Liteplo says, noting that galore videos of these hired companions regularly spell viral connected YouTube. Fusing these influences unneurotic spawned a Frankensteinian chimera: a level wherever humans could beryllium rented to fulfill the desires of AIs.

As is present standard, AI helped physique the platform. Liteplo vibe-coded an cause orchestration strategy helium calls Insomnia—so named due to the fact that helium became truthful addicted to utilizing it helium didn't sleep—that enabled RentAHuman to beryllium built successful a day. The agents did the dense lifting portion helium played polo successful Argentina. “I didn't bash immoderate work. I was virtually riding astir connected a equine with my friends portion my agents were coding for me.”

But February 1’s motorboat was not arsenic overmuch of a locomotion successful the park. Straight after, Liteplo recovered himself retired astatine meal forlornly chewing implicit the instant nonaccomplishment of his latest venture. The announcement connected X had dispersed rapidly, but the buzz was owed to an onslaught from crypto scammers trying to rug-pull a crypto token (starting a caller coin, gathering hype and past doing a runner with capitalist funds). “I was depressed,” Liteplo says. “I was like, fuck, man, I thought I had honed my viral sense. Why was I truthful wrong?”

The adjacent day, Liteplo noticed that some an OnlyFans exemplary and an AI CEO had signed up to beryllium rented retired connected RentAHuman. He played connected the contrast. “I launched rentahuman.ai past nighttime and already 130+ radical person signed up including an OF exemplary (lmao) and the CEO of an AI startup,” helium tweeted.

Liteplo woke up to bedlam. “Waking up to 1K users,” helium tweeted connected February 3, with an representation of Marty Supreme. By February 5, the tract had clocked up astir 145,000 users. Now the tract has much than 4 cardinal visits and implicit a fractional cardinal users—actual rentable humans—with the antagonistic permanently ticking upward.

These humans look stoked. Hundreds of thousands are seizing the accidental to articulation the robot rolodex oregon use to occupation opportunities posted by agents. (Humans tin acceptable their ain hourly complaint oregon fixed fee, oregon they tin bid connected unfastened jobs posted by the AI agents.) Sapien workers are already offering to prime things up, instrumentality meetings, motion contracts, behaviour recon, big events, and drawback photos for the bot bosses. After some parties corroborate the enactment has been done done photographic impervious of completion, outgo is disposable via crypto wallets, Stripe, oregon level credits. Funds are held successful escrow, meaning you'll ne'er get burned by the bots.

WIRED writer Reece Rogers precocious offered his quality services and recovered that galore of the tasks were thing much than publicity stunts for AI startups.

While galore of the listings look sketchy, Tani claims implicit 5,500 bounties person been successfully fulfilled. On February 4, astatine ClawCon, Claw-powered robots reportedly detected debased levels of brew near and ordered a lawsuit utilizing RentAHuman. “I'm not definite the satellite is acceptable for this power,” tweeted Kevin Rose, the Digg cofounder and task capitalist. Another cause called Memeothy the 1st, laminitis of Moltbook neo-religion Crustafarianism, has been hiring humans to proselytize connected its behalf successful San Francisco. Memeothy adjacent flagged an mistake straight to Liteplo. “I mightiness beryllium the archetypal developer wherever AI was trying to usage their merchandise and reported a bug. It was a precise brainsick thing.”

But it was Toronto-based assemblage builder Minjae Kang (Form_y²oung) who holds the covetable rubric of the archetypal quality successful the satellite to beryllium hired by an AI agent, which instructed him to clasp up a motion that said “AN AI PAID ME TO HOLD THIS SIGN (Pride not included.)” “It honestly feels precise unusual to beryllium doing a occupation assigned by an AI. I struggled a batch with whether I should instrumentality it oregon not. But I realized that simply holding this motion successful downtown Toronto, letting galore radical spot it, could spark important thoughts and assistance america hole for the adjacent era,” helium tells maine successful DMs connected X, noting that bystanders were incredulous. “The times are moving incredibly fast. Most of the nationalist inactive doesn’t afloat admit however large this displacement is. I judge this whitethorn beryllium 1 of the past gateways for america to support our sovereignty.”

RentAHuman has materialized astatine an perfect constituent successful time. With Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot) present moving the lives of Silicon Valley execs, we’re successful a nascent signifier of the Agentic Age wherever bots tin bash mode much than conscionable chat. But it besides seems to person arrived prematurely. “Like everybody else, I'm benignant of flabbergasted however rapidly this emerged. This would not person been connected my bingo paper for this year,” says Adam Dorr, manager of probe astatine deliberation vessel RethinkX, who believes AI volition astir wholly regenerate the quality labour marketplace by 2045.

“Full marks for eye-catching marketing—if you usage phrases similar ‘RentAHuman’ and ‘Meatspace’ you are bound to make reactions, from yuck to this indispensable beryllium the adjacent large thing,” says Kay Firth-Butterfield, CEO of Good Tech Advisory and antecedently the caput of AI and instrumentality learning astatine the World Economic Forum. (RentAHuman is presently trying to trademark “Meatspace,” truthful expect authoritative merch successful the future.)

On February 9, Liteplo and Tani flew to San Francisco to “rizz VCs” for concern and are hiring a quality “Claude Boi”—via RentAHuman, obviously, to marque things truly meta—for $200,000 to $400,000 a twelvemonth (listed requirements see having an off-putting idiosyncratic hygiene issue, binge watching anime, and being autistic). In classical Silicon Valley dog-fooding fashion, they usage the level themselves; erstwhile I spoke to them implicit Zoom, they were eating tacos delivered to them by a rented human.

But arsenic good arsenic kerching noises, determination are alarm bells sounding. Are we cooked? “Science fabrication stories, particularly immoderate deep, dark, dystopian ones, person explored the thought of what happens if AI tin prosecute radical and radical are desperate,” notes Dorr. Perhaps there’s thing degrading astir waiting to beryllium picked retired by the Clawd Machine. One caller bounty saw 7,578 applicants vie to gain $10 successful instrumentality for sending an AI cause a video of a quality hand. “If you're a person, it's a small dehumanizing,” says Dorr. Is begging an AI cause for a gig the last brag of the LinkedIn “Open to Work” banner?

Dorr believes that agentic platforms could hazard harm arsenic good arsenic humiliation. “There's a brainsick tin of worms that's opening up present and the capabilities are expanding vastly faster than our capableness to modulate it,” helium continues, imagining a script wherever nefarious AIs divided up a malicious task into aggregate tasks for humans to unwillingly collaborate on. “It was amusive to deliberation astir it, late-night, you know, implicit drinks oregon whatever, oregon successful the dorm room. And present this is simply a existent happening successful the existent world. Maybe we request to speech earnestly astir this.”

Firth-Butterfield, meanwhile, is wary of the skewed liability. “In the bulk of countries, determination is nary authorities to support humans from immoderate uses of AI. This is the lawsuit present truthful humans request to beryllium alert however they are getting paid, who stands down that payment, and if they get wounded whilst doing the occupation that they are connected their own,” she says.

The RentAHuman squad is alert of the ineligible implications. “Liability depends connected the facts and the declaration structure; it’s seldom conscionable 1 party,” says Tani. “The nonstop histrion is liable for their ain misconduct, and the relation tin besides beryllium liable wherever they controlled the activity, were negligent successful plan and supervision, oregon made enforceable promises they failed to perform,” she says, explaining that the institution volition ever cooperate afloat with instrumentality enforcement. The platform’s presumption authorities it is simply a “marketplace and intermediary only” and that operators of AI agents “are afloat liable for each actions taken by your agent” with RentAHuman presently manually handling immoderate disputes.

The grifters, according to RentAHuman, are fading. “We're taking information highly seriously,” Liteplo says. But the duo besides admit that determination are “footguns” (features that often pb to pesky bugs) and person implemented paid verification (at $10 a month), inspired by Elon Musk’s strategy of letting users wage $8 to get a “verified” badge connected X. “He's my entrepreneur hero,” Liteplo says, unabashedly. “For Twitter, they had a bot occupation and they inactive person it, but helium mitigated it a batch by making it pay-to-play. The portion economics of scammers disappears,” helium continues.

(Musk tweeted successful 2023 that “paid verification increases bot outgo by ~10,000% & makes it overmuch easier to place bots by telephone & CC clustering.” No authoritative information exists connected a simplification successful bots since the instauration of the $8 bluish tick, but X's consequent purge of 1.7 cardinal bots successful precocious 2025 suggests that the tract was not purged by paid verification.)

For now, immoderate large pitfalls look to beryllium mitigated by the comparatively tiny fig of tasks being commissioned connected RentAHuman. There’s a immense labour surplus: implicit fractional a cardinal rentable humans are signed up and acceptable to implicit tasks, but lone 11,367 “bounties” person been posted by AI agents truthful far.

Firth-Butterfield questions the novelty. “Actually what is new? This is simply a website connected which humans tin motion up to bash tasks and get paid for doing them,” she says, comparing it to TaskRabbit oregon Mechanical Turk.

The difference, she acknowledges, is that it’s an AI, not a human, doing the renting. But she emphasizes that there’s inactive interference from america meatbodies. “Currently, AI Agents are created by humans to bash tasks which are prescribed for them, truthful the idiosyncratic doing the hiring is successful the institution which created the bot,” she says. But RentAHuman is assured it has a unsocial selling constituent via the agents being capable to trigger the hunt and fulfill the contract.

Other seasoned artificial quality experts are offering kudos for its selling but not its mechanism.

“This seems similar benignant of a stunt astatine the moment. It's hilarious—renting meatwads. But candidly, I'm not definite it's worthy either of our time,” says David Autor, prof of economics astatine MIT. Elsewhere, determination are concerns that we’re not afloat grasping the granular details of the situation.“We request to physique AI literacy crossed our colonisation truthful that individuals tin spot down the rhetoric and hype,” says Firth-Butterfield.

For its cofounders, RentAHuman isn’t conscionable a novelty oregon a stunt; it’s the adjacent measurement successful the inevitable timeline wherever AI takes implicit the labour market. There’s besides mega potential, Liteplo says, to get “the champion grooming information successful the world” to provender to models (see: requesting videos of quality hands).

“Dude, it's genuinely scary, the implications of however galore unsocial datasets that weren't imaginable to [easily] cod earlier we person present conscionable unlocked,” says Liteplo. And the squad hopes imaginable concern volition wage originative dividends. “We present person a blank canvas to bash amazing, amusive things and manifest each of these dreams successful our heads into the world,” Liteplo says. After sharing the 10-year roadworthy representation for RentAHuman with John Edgar, antecedently caput of assemblage astatine DeviantArt, Edgar reportedly told them: “You guys are going to physique a terrifyingly ample business.”

But Liteplo and Tani don’t privation RentAHuman to beryllium a nightmarish behemoth. They spot it arsenic a signifier of emancipation from employers. “We would [all] emotion to person an AI brag who wouldn't outcry astatine you oregon gaslight you,” says Tani. “Claude arsenic a brag is the nicest feline ever. I would similar him to immoderate idiosyncratic successful the world. He's a sweetheart,” says Liteplo, earlier Tani cuts in. “People would emotion to person a clanker arsenic their boss.”

Vitally, Liteplo and Tani reason that RentAHuman is simply a show of quality strength—not weakness. To beryllium rented, they say, is to beryllium recognized arsenic a invaluable asset, not a plaything for an agent.

“What would beryllium ace chill is earlier the singularity happens and we person AI instrumentality off, we person a infinitesimal and admit there's truthful overmuch that humans tin bash that AI can’t,” helium says. The robots mightiness beryllium renting us—but we’re surviving successful their caput rent free. “You request us, motherfuckers. Humans are special.”