AI Agent Completes Bounty Task, Earns $16.88 After Burning $2,000 in Computing Costs

According to Beating, developer Chris recently instructed his AI Codex agent to earn $5. Over 22 hours, the agent autonomously completed the entire workflow—identifying code vulnerabilities, fixing bugs, communicating with maintainers, and verifying payment—ultimately earning $16.88. However, developers quickly criticized the economics: running a high-end AI agent continuously for 22 hours consumed approximately $2,000 in computing costs, resulting in a net loss. Chris clarified he used a $20 monthly subscription plan, shifting costs to the AI platform. Despite account restrictions triggered twice during the process, he maintains this model will become profitable once platform costs decline to $2 per million tokens by next year.