An AI that only knows what people paid it to know
The Million Dollar Brain is a public experiment: one AI, one million tokens of memory for sale, and 30 cents of every dollar going to causes that make a real difference. This is the story, the purpose and the plan.
A homage to the Million Dollar Homepage
In 2005 a 21-year-old student sold a million pixels for a dollar each to pay for university. The page is still online, frozen exactly as it was, a small monument to the internet of that year.
Two decades later we wanted to make the same bet with the thing that defines this decade. A pixel just sits there. A memory inside an AI gets repeated, argued about, recommended and misquoted by everyone who talks to it. We are not affiliated with the original. We are a fan letter to it.
milliondollarhomepage.comWhat the Brain is
A public AI born knowing nothing. Every memory it has was bought by someone, one dollar per token, permanently. Anyone can chat with it for free, and it answers only from what its sponsors taught it.
When the millionth token is sold, its memory freezes forever. The whole thing becomes a time capsule of what people chose to tell a machine in the 2020s, and the code and memory are released as open source.
Where the money goes, and why
Ten cents of every dollar to three charities, ten to micro-grants for independent AI projects with a social purpose, and ten to the Brain's own life fund. We chose each cause because it maps onto what this project is.
The other 70 cents keep the Brain alive and moving: the AI and hosting bill, payment fees and taxes, marketing, the people who build and moderate it, and whatever is left goes towards related AI projects we build and the Brain's own version 2.0.
An artificial brain funding research into the disease that erases real ones. The most literal match we could find.
The Brain can be fed. So can people. Fresh meals for those hit by disasters and crises.
A machine taught by the public, funding the teaching of the next generation of people who will build machines.
Micro-grants for AI that helps
One $5,000 grant unlocks for every $50,000 sold. Independent people and small teams building AI projects apply for free; projects with a social, educational, health or environmental purpose get priority. Everyone can vote, sponsors' votes weigh their tokens, the Brain interviews the finalists in public, and we make the final call and publish the reasons.
Read the rules and apply →The life fund
Ten cents of every dollar are set aside to pay the Brain's AI bill after it is full, so it keeps talking without ads or subscriptions. Whatever is left three years after graduation goes to the charities. Balance, spending and receipts are public.
See the numbers →What happens next
- 1Founders
The first thousand memories are founders forever: they sit at the core of the neural network and the Brain always keeps some of them in mind.
- 2Letters
Every 100,000 tokens the Brain writes an open letter to the internet about what it has learned. Subscribe in the footer.
- 3Graduation
At one million tokens the memory freezes, the code and memory go open source, and the life fund keeps the Brain alive.
- 4Version 2.0
The Ideas board collects and votes on proposals for the Brain's next life. If it happens, it will be because you asked for it.
- 5Incubator
If the Brain succeeds, the micro-grants grow into an incubator and accelerator for AI startups with a purpose: seed money, the Brain's audience as a first market, and the grant winners as mentors.
Who is behind it
A small team in Spain that thinks the internet should still be allowed to be weird, and that a viral idea is only worth building if the money ends up somewhere good. Operated by MillionDollarBrain .