HustleGPT — no relation — seems to be a modern-day Icarus tale of a viral sensation, backlash, and internet drama.
On March 15, designer and self-described “AI soothsayer” Jackson Greathouse Fall announced an experiment. He’d told GPT-4, the follow-up to ChatGPT, that it was now HustleGPT, an “entrepreneurial AI.”
HustleGPT was asked to turn $100 into a profitable business — nothing illegal, no manual labor. Fall promised to update daily for 30 days.
… HustleGPT suggested an affiliate marketing site for sustainable products. Per Fall’s request, his AI business partner also:
… it suggested hiring a content writer who’d use ChatGPT to generate posts, and developing a SaaS product “targeting a niche market with a recurring subscription model.”
After four days, Fall claimed investors had plopped down ~$7.8k in investments, per Mashable — something that probably wouldn’t have happened without the Twitter hype.
By March 22, Fall said the site had made $130 in revenue.
Fall shot to viral fame, but real life got in the way. Updates slowed, and on April 12, he tweeted that HustleGPT would take a back seat to his other work and encouraged fans to join a Discord server for updates.
Dave Craige, a consultant, claimed he’d approached Fall about a HustleGPT Discord — from which he soon banned Fall for allegedly trying to disrupt the community and trying to undermine Craige’s reputation.
Now, there are two Discords: Craige’s “official” HustleGPT with ~5.2k members, and Fall’s Makeshift with ~3.5k, all hoping to produce the next hit AI-led startup.