Last week, a suspicious Twitter account started aggressively promoting a very eccentric offer. Allegedly, all OpenSea users can create “living NFTs” they can talk to for just $470.
ChatGPT-backed “living AI NFTs” offered on Twitter: What’s wrong with this “mint”
Starting from March 2, 2023, an anonymous Twitter account that calls itself “ChatGPT” — just like the mainstream chatbot by OpenAI that triggered the “AI mania” in December 2022 — is offering its 13,000 followers to mint unusual NFTs.
Allegedly, everyone can get what is promoted as the “first living AI-powered non-fungible token.” As per the statements of the project, such NFTs are backed by “Optimus ChatGPT” technology and can interact with humans.
Moreover, they are said to be able to perform tasks on behalf of their masters — “minters” should just have an account on OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace:
Communicate with your NFT, instruct it to do tasks on your behalf and much more. Check your OpenSea wallet after minting to activate your Optimus
Needless to say, this campaign is full of red flags. First of all, OpenAI, the only company associated with ChatGPT, is silent about its tokens, fungible or non-fungible. The only “Optimus ChatGPT” website was created two days ago and only has a “mint” button.
The Twitter account of the mint is promoted by thousands of aggressive bots sharing their excitement in comments and replies. The account posts mint announcements every four hours, and every time it offers a new price for one NFT, between 0.1 and 0.3 Ethers (ETH).
Can AI create NFTs?
What makes this scam even more dangerous is the legit background of its Twitter account. It was highly likely hacked — before February 2023 it had never posted in English in its three-year history (it was active since Q3, 2020). It is followed by IEO dashboard Trustpad, which might be confusing for gullible investors.
It is worth noting that, despite its impressive toolkit, ChatGPT cannot mint NFTs itself. It can write a code sample for an ERC 721 or ERC 1155 contract, but then it should be deployed to Ethereum (ETH) via Remix or Truffle development tools.
These “AI-generated NFTs” will look just like “regular” NFT templates available in the OpenZeppelin codebase, so they will not be able to mimic human interaction or somehow act on behalf of their masters. In both cases — with OpenZeppelin + Remix and with ChatGPT — you can get an NFT contract sample for free, so there is no need to pay for the minting of “AI-backed” tokens.
