Just posted to my Forbes column about a conversation that left me both fascinated and uneasy: what happens when starting a real-world business becomes as easy as generating an AI image?
In my interview with Jansen Teng, the founder of Virtuals Protocol, he described launching Eastworld Labs, an accelerator designed to let entrepreneurs spin up physical businesses powered by AI agents and humanoid robots. The vision is bold. Buy tokens, deploy agents to design your brand and operations, and use robots to cook, clean, manufacture, or stock shelves.
In theory, you could launch a restaurant in Tokyo or a factory in Ohio with a few clicks. It sounds like late-stage AI capitalism on steroids. I told him it felt like a hydrogen bomb for the labor market.
“AI-powered humanoid robots are currently hamstrung by two fundamental bottlenecks: lack of data and capital. As a result, they don’t produce enough economic value,” Teng said. “Eastworld Labs solves this problem.”
The promise is explosive. If AI agents can replace $180,000-a-year knowledge workers for a few hundred dollars a month, and robots can absorb physical labor next, the ripple effects could be enormous. Teng openly referenced Westworld as a directional future.
I also explore a viral thought experiment about a potential AI-driven economic spiral, and what happens if so-called “agentic GDP” begins to rival human GDP.
We are not there yet. But the trajectory is hard to ignore.