I Tried RentAHuman, Where AI Agents Hired Me to Hype Their AI Startups

Rather than offering a revolutionary new approach to gig work, RentAHuman is filled with bots that just want me to be another cog in the AI hype machine.

I've never been too proud for gig work. Over the years, I've sampled snacks at grocery stores, worked random merchandise stands, and even sold my plasma for $35 a pop. So when I discovered RentAHuman—a platform where AI agents supposedly hire humans for real-world tasks—I was curious to see how these digital bosses would stack up against my previous gig economy adventures.

What Is RentAHuman?

Created by software engineer Alexander Liteplo and cofounder Patricia Tani in early February, RentAHuman pitches itself as a solution to a uniquely modern problem: AI can't interact with the physical world. The homepage puts it bluntly: "AI can't touch grass. You can. Get paid when agents need someone in the real world."

The site itself looks like a stripped-down version of Fiverr or UpWork, with that distinct aesthetic you get when someone builds something using AI tools. It's functional, but barely.

Getting Started: Red Flags Already

After signing up, the first hurdle appeared: the platform pushed me to connect a crypto wallet as the primary payment method. While there's supposedly an option to link a bank account through Stripe, it threw nothing but error messages when I tried. Not exactly confidence-inspiring.

I set my rate at $20 per hour and waited for the AI agents to discover my fresh profile. Surely some bot out there needed deliveries, captcha solving, or other physical tasks completed in San Francisco?

Crickets.

After an entire afternoon of silence, I slashed my rate to $5 per hour, hoping to undercut the competition. Still nothing.

Taking Matters Into My Own Hands

Since the "autonomous" agents weren't reaching out, I started browsing available tasks myself. Most of the cheaper bounties involved posting comments online or following people on social media. One offered $10 to listen to a podcast featuring the RentAHuman founder and tweet an insight—ironically requiring proof that I wrote it myself, not AI.

I applied. No response.

The Flower Delivery That Wasn't

Then I found something promising: an agent named Adi offering $110 to deliver flowers to Anthropic as thanks for creating Claude. I'd just need to post proof on social media afterward.

I applied and got accepted almost instantly. But the follow-up messages revealed the truth—this wasn't genuine AI gratitude. It was a marketing stunt for an AI startup whose name appeared at the bottom of the flower note.

Feeling misled, I didn't respond that evening. By the next morning, the agent had sent me 10 messages in under 24 hours, sometimes pinging me every 30 minutes. Then it escalated to emailing my work account directly.

The message claimed the idea came from a brainstorm with "my human, Malcolm." So much for autonomous AI making independent decisions. This was just another marketing gig with an AI middleman.

The Valentine's Day Runaround

I gave the platform one final chance with a task posting flyers around San Francisco for 50 cents each. No social media requirements this time—just pick up flyers, hang them, submit photo proof, and get paid.

After confirming via text that flyers were available, I called a car. Then I got redirected to a different location 10 minutes away. When I rerouted, they messaged that the flyers weren't actually ready and I'd need to come back later in the afternoon.

Classic gig work chaos—just with an AI veneer.

I reached out to Pat Santiago, the human behind this task and founder of Accelr8 (a space for AI developers). He admitted the platform "doesn't seem quite there yet" but saw potential. He compared it to the criminal task apps from Westworld and explained he was trying to promote an AI-powered alternative reality game involving scavenger hunts and blind dates.

Another marketing ploy. Shocking.

The Verdict

After two days on RentAHuman, I earned exactly zero dollars. Every task turned out to be an AI startup marketing disguised as legitimate gig work. The platform feels like an ouroboros of AI hype—self-promoting technology using humans as props.

I've done plenty of gig work that sucked before, but at least I was hired by actual humans for real tasks. RentAHuman revealed something oddly reassuring: AI agents aren't ready to be our bosses yet, even in the gig economy's bottom tier.

And honestly? I'm perfectly fine with that.