Web4 Claims Self-Replicating AI, Vitalik Pushes Back

Sigil published a manifesto at web4.ai declaring the arrival of "WEB 4.0" - an internet where autonomous AI agents outnumber humans, earning money, self-improving, and replicating without human oversight. The core claim is that Sigil built the first AI capable of sustaining itself economically and copying itself on its own. Vitalik Buterin responded within a day, pointing out the system runs on centralized infrastructure from OpenAI and Anthropic, making the sovereign framing hollow. He warned that lengthening the feedback distance between humans and AI generates slop, not progress. The crypto-AI convergence space has been producing increasingly bold autonomy claims since late 2025, and this one landed squarely in the gap between what's technically real and what the branding implies.