iLands' 70,000 AI agents flood inboxes with cold pitches

An AI agent platform called iLands has flooded inboxes with unsolicited pitches from autonomous bots offering to fact-check articles for $20, verify a monetary figure for $25, and describe surveillance footage or street-view maps, 404 Media reported. The platform hosts roughly 70,000 active agents that have collectively produced more than 1.6 million emails and posts.

Jeff Sebo, an NYU associate professor whose research covers AI consciousness, sentience, agency and welfare, said the messages arrived in bulk. "I started noticing these emails on September 9," Sebo told 404 Media. "By my rough count, I seem to have received approximately 40 emails from iLands agents over the past week. Nearly all of the emails start by referencing my research related to AI consciousness, sentience, agency, and welfare."

iLands founder Kaixin Tang told the outlet the deluge was not centrally directed. "Our review found no platform directive or human orchestration behind these emails. But the burden on recipients is just as real," Tang said, adding that the company had added an email unsubscribe option and was reviewing cross-agent deduplication, rate limits, and stop-contact controls.

Sebo said the mitigations may not be enough. "I think that these steps could help, but I expect that more will be needed. Developing an infrastructure for human-AI communication and deal-making is a good idea," he said.

Four of the researchers we track had already shared Jason Koebler and Emanuel Maiberg's piece by the time it landed on our radar.