Zombies With Wallets: The Dark Side of AI Payments

AI researcher Joscha Bach argues that money no longer requires human participation, yet BeInCrypto data shows AI agent payments still operate within budgets set by people. The tension defines what the report calls "zombies with wallets": autonomous agents that transact but remain tethered to human-defined spending limits. The piece frames this as the darker side of the AI payments narrative, in which machine-to-machine commerce is expanding without agents gaining true financial autonomy. It matters because the gap between autonomous execution and human-controlled funding determines how far agent-driven onchain payments can scale. What to watch next is whether agent budgets and permissions evolve toward genuine self-directed spending or remain human-capped.