* Person comes up with a business model. * Person automates it as much as possible, eventually automating all of it. * Person ends up being in a car accident.
There's no reason why the AI he wrote shouldn't be able to keep "living" (aka paying its bills) for a while, if the idea was of the right sort.
If the payment -> key sent part was automated then money would just build up in the bitcoin account over time.
Of course, without the creativity to come up with new C&C mechanisms, the pattern of migration and purchases might eventually become predictable enough to stop the botnet.
Make something that scrapes content and SEO-izes it. Add affiliate links. Run on AWS. Make payout to affiliate commissions to the same account that pays AWS. Make the system capable of growing/shrinking its AWS capacity on its own. bam. self-perpetuating and potentially self-optimizing/growing income with zero outside intervention (except for when google corrects around it).
Does anyone have an example other than the BTC blockchain that provides a valuable service guaranteeing consensus is required for changes to the system's behavior?