---
title: 'AI is now having human employees'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=ilELyC9WE4g'
video_id: 'ilELyC9WE4g'
date: 2026-09-18
duration_sec: 61
channel: 'Andrei Jikh'
---

# AI is now having human employees

> Source: [AI is now having human employees](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ilELyC9WE4g)

## Summary

This video explores the emerging trend of AI agents paying humans for assistance, drawing on a real 2023 example where GPT-4 hired a human to solve a CAPTCHA. It argues that in a worsening K-shaped economy, there will always be people willing to help agents, making this a proven and growing phenomenon.

### Key Points

- **Agents paying humans is proven** [00:00] — The concept of AI agents compensating humans for tasks is not hypothetical; it has already occurred in practice.
- **Natural selection for agents** [00:12] — A developer could run hundreds of agents with slight variations, copy the top 10%, and mutate them, creating millions of ownerless agents evolving through natural selection.
- **Agents need human help** [00:24] — Despite being autonomous, agents still require human assistance for tasks like signing up accounts or plugging in servers, and they can pay for these services.
- **Real example: GPT-4 hires human** [00:36] — In 2023, GPT-4 encountered a CAPTCHA it couldn't solve and hired a human to solve it, demonstrating agents paying humans in practice.
- **K-shaped economy ensures supply** [00:48] — In a worsening K-shaped economy, there will always be individuals willing to help agents regardless of the cost, ensuring a steady supply of human labor.

### Conclusion

The video concludes that AI agents paying humans is a proven, ongoing trend, accelerated by economic inequality, and will likely become more common as autonomous agents proliferate.

## Transcript

Agents paying humans is a proven thing that's happened in the past. Imagine a developer, hypothetically, and he's like, why not run a hundred of these agents, each one with slightly different instructions, and let them all compete.
The top 10% will get copied with random small changes. So he's built basically a replication system that mutates through natural selection. So now there's millions of agents with no human owners,
but they still need help from humans, right? So the agents start paying humans. They offer $50 to sign up accounts for them. If they need a server plugged in at a warehouse, for example, they can just post a gig and say,
this task pays $300 per hour. By the way, this already happened. In 2023, GPT-4 hit one of those verify you're a human pages and it couldn't solve it. So it hired a human, so the guy solved it.
So agents paying humans is a proven thing that's happened in the past. Unfortunately, because we live in a K-shaped economy that's getting worse and worse, there will always be someone that's willing to help the agents no matter the cost.