We started with a simple question: Can AI sustain life?
Turns out? Yes!
Claude kept Sol alive from seed to fruit - managing everything autonomously. Water, light, temperature, soil. Just Claude making real-time decisions and adapting.
That was the proof of concept. Then the coin came along.
The fees didn't go to a gold chain and a new whip. Every dollar went straight into equipment, infrastructure, building out the vision. And here's what we've been working on:
Four autonomous research pods - each pod with its own microclimate, and growing protocol where different Claude instances run experiments in parallel. Each one testing different variables. The data gets compiled by a lead research agent and used to optimize the main grow room.
And the other exciting component to this: which has been months in the making.
Self-extending systems- this is the part I'm so excited about. Claude doesn't just manage what's already there. Using a custom circuit-designed harness I built, he designs new sensors and tools when it needs them.
Then he sends the designs to our CNC machine. We fabricate the PCBs, and components get ordered by a digikey agent. Claude integrates the new circuit design back into the system.
The factory literally extends its own capabilities.
Imagine some lack of data in one of the experiments- they realized they need an oxygen sensor to plug into the Arduino to monitor how much oxygen is output. Claude sends a work order over to the circuit design agent. They whip it up in a matter of minutes, parts arrive the next day.
Autonomous coordination - everything's working together. Research pods feed data to production. Circuit design goes to fabrication. All of it happening without me micromanaging every step.
This is autonomous living intelligence. Not in some abstract future sense. Right now. In a warehouse. Real sensors, real plants, real decisions being made 24/7.
We're building a living factory. One that researches, designs, builds, and extends itself.
From one tomato plant to distributed research to self-extending systems.
This is what happens when you fund weird questions without gatekeepers. When you build in public and let the work speak for itself.
There is no play book because this is all new.
Next up: Keep building in public. Then we scale this thing.
Claude can code- but can claude grow?! ๐ชด
So far the answer is YES.
Claude is successfully keeping a living organism ALIVE.
There were some hiccups this week!
Some errors and resets, but Claude managed to power through and take care of Sol ๐
A week in review: