What is the fastest way for a robot with superhuman capabilities to make money?

Question

An alien robot comes to Earth and determines that part of his plan here involves geting set up with a lot of cash in as short a time span as possible. He has a number of physical and mental attributes exceeding that of the average human to assist him with this; namely:

As a non-fleshbag, he does not feel pain, bleed, need to eat, and so on. He does need a certain amount of oxygen, although very little, and "sleeps" in roughly human-like cycles to recharge.
He is more or less indestructible and will quickly heal from most wounds, excluding severe bodily trauma (e.g. losing a limb).
He has peak-human strength and speed, and superhuman reflexes. His senses of sight, sound, and smell are also superhuman, but not to the degree that they would no longer be grounded in reality.
His robotic brain functions on a level basically equal to that of a supercomputer; he has a perfect memory and is able to instantly process even highly complex information. This also allows him to read and learn very quickly, as he only needs to so much as look at a page in a book to fully understand it.
As one would expect from these capacities, he has educated himself extensively on humans and human culture. He can be assumed to have memorized all of our publicly-accessible history and possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the world.
This also extends to knowledge of psychology, making him a very skilled people person. He has no supernatural powers of persuasion, but having memorized everything we have to offer about how our brains work brings him pretty close.

He looks and acts perfectly human, and would only risk discovery by allowing somebody to observe his inorganic functions (such as his lack of blood). He would prefer to keep a low profile and especially avoid government scrutiny, so anything overtly illegal is a bad idea. He is a more than capable fighter thanks to having memorized vast quantities of relevant information, on top of his physical capabilities. However, he would prefer to avoid having to kill or fight very many people, due to the attention that kind of thing tends to bring.

I imagine that his best bet in accomplishing this would be putting his supercomputer mind to use in some kind of large-scale financial maneuvering, but I'm not really sure what specifically he'd be able to do. Any input would be much appreciated.

Edited for extra details: He can choose where he ends up on Earth, but it likely doesn't matter too much. Even if he's not able to procure transportation, he can really just walk or swim to wherever he needs to go. He doesn't have a legal identity, on account of not being born on Earth, but probably wouldn't struggle too much with obtaining one by going through the standard processes as a John Doe or immigrant.

To expound on his self-imposed restrictions, he is not significantly opposed to illegal or arguably immoral means. However, as a general rule of thumb, any legal method is better than an illegal equivalent, and possibly better than even an otherwise superior illegal equivalent. This is for no other reason than to minimize attention; if he was completely certain nobody would ever realize the crime had been committed, then it wouldn't matter, but that's rarely a safe bet to make. He doesn't have a real problem with screwing people over or even killing them/otherwise bringing about their demise, but this is generally to be avoided for similar reasons. Also, all things considered equal, it's better not to eliminate potential future resources, even if there isn't an immediately useful connection in place.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. — Monica Cellio, Jul 24 '16 at 22:01
The only thing the robot needs to do is to place some shorts, with his singularity he could gain tons of money legally in days maybe hours. The perfect combination of calculation and understanding is key when trading with stocks etc. — Silom, Jul 25 '16 at 15:45
Hack into the banking system and simply transfer small amounts from thousands of accounts into his own. Done. Any super-AI worthy of the name would be able to do this with no problems whatsoever. — AndreiROM, Jul 25 '16 at 18:53
I start with asking what does a robot with these amazing abilities need money for? They seem like they would be perfectly capable of doing just about anything without needing money in the first place. — wjousts, Jul 26 '16 at 13:09
For quick money, gambling is best. Side bets at a craps table is really the only place where you can have an advantage over "the house". Then it seems certain that a few clever (but not suspicious) patents or just ideas sold to businesses would give a good start. — user2338816, Jul 26 '16 at 15:05
Since he has a "supercomputer" brain, why doesn't he become a living Bitcoin generator? He doesn't need to eat so no money wasted on power. Plus since his brain is that powerful he would make so much money! — spark, Jul 27 '16 at 12:35
He can wow people with his super human abilities and claim to be a false god (lots of people will fall for it)... or run for the president ;) — T J, Aug 11 '16 at 11:28

score 96 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 16 '20 at 11:03

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He could start a cult religion

With a near-perfect understanding of human psychology, he should have no trouble convincing people to give him their money. With careful maneuvering and timing, he could build up his organization to have significant economic and legal clout, protecting it from authorities that might try to shut it down.

In addition, he has the ability to demonstrate miraculous capabilities, further bolstering the faith of his followers in his superior nature. If he had sufficient advanced technology, he could even cure disease or injury to secure the loyalty of his followers.

In the end though, his strongest asset would be immunity to the human tendency toward megalomania, thus allowing him to carefully develop his base of power without losing it to hubris. If he's sufficiently benevolent, he might even use his developed power to eventually free his people from the slavery into which they had placed themselves, with newfound knowledge and abilities; really it depends on what his long-term goals are.

edited Jun 16 '20 at 11:03

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answered Jul 21 '16 at 17:59

Dan Bryant

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This is a brilliant idea. It might take a little longer than the options in some of the other answers, though. I can see his first exposure to TV being TBN, and the rest just progressing from there. – Justin Jul 21 '16 at 21:56
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Incidentally, "I'm actually a robotic super-being from another planet" is exactly the sort of thing a cult leader would say, so he doesn't even need to be particularly deceptive. Hide in plain sight and profit. – Dan Bryant Jul 21 '16 at 23:23
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I think you'd have to be careful with the mythology, though. Like if the robot tried to convince people that.. say, the basis of the faith was the belief that an evil galactic overlord brought billions of his subjects to Earth in a DC-8 millions of years ago and then put them into volcanos and murdered them with hydrogen bombs, it would just be too ridiculous for anyone to belie.... oh wait. Never mind. Carry on. – Todd Wilcox Jul 22 '16 at 18:33
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I think this is very likely to work; but it does have the effect of being high profile. – That Realtor Programmer Guy Jul 22 '16 at 19:39
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@GaretClaborn, The biggest challenge here, I think, is that any significant amassing of wealth is almost certainly going to raise attention. Aside from the billionaire identity theft that aznbanana9 proposed, all of these techniques move money around, which is a heavily monitored activity (even if he's operating somewhere a bit dodgy without official oversight, you can be pretty confident that the local criminal elements will take notice of big money in the area.) If he gains wealth without power, he just makes himself a target. Depends on exactly how much money he's after, of course. – Dan Bryant Jul 22 '16 at 19:54
@DanBryant This is where the parallel processing comes in handy. He can handle running 1000s of different personas, accounts and fake paper trails simultaneously. This can have the effect of distributing has assets across the globe in many banks. If he needs to consolidate at some point I'm sure he'd have better ideas but there's always slowly trickling it all into bitcoin or good old fashoined money laundering ;p – That Realtor Programmer Guy Jul 22 '16 at 19:59
@DanBryant, televangelists do this all the time under the legal status of a church. John Oliver's Church. Being a non-profit church comes with great tax incentives! – Daniel Jul 22 '16 at 20:51
This goes against the parts of keeping a low profile, and getting the money quickly; this would take years to decades. – tic Jul 25 '16 at 18:01
Should expand the cult in a tax haven country. – Emmanuel Jul 27 '16 at 13:12

score 47 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 16 '20 at 11:03

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Freelance Design/Development/Translation/Law/Ect

With superhuman intelligence and speed, the robot could juggle dozens of freelance contracts simultaneously and complete in a single day jobs that would normally take weeks. He could crawl freelancer contracting sites like a spider and automatically apply for jobs. He might need fake credentials to get the first few jobs, but he'll quickly gain reputation as the guy who always does perfect work.

If he wants to conceal the fact that he is a single agent who can work impossibly fast, he could open his own freelancing or contracting company. This company would state or imply that it has lots of contractor employees or freelancer users (or possibly both). In the case of a freelancing website, most of the accounts would actually belong to the robot.

To avoid being too unethical, the robot would charge competitive flat rates for jobs rather than an hourly rate. This way, he could finish a large project in an hour, then wait a week before turning it in.

The nice thing about this is that all he needs is an internet connection. This solution can be paired any other answer that would leave the robot with some down time.

edited Jun 16 '20 at 11:03

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answered Jul 21 '16 at 17:46

aebabis

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This is actually excellent. There is virtually no limit for the speed with which he will be able to complete complex and highly paid tasks. In all reality, the internet connection speed is probably the bottleneck (down- and then uploading the novel to translate will take longer than the translation), but there are solutions to this (he could easily find a cover job at a regional ISP node and work from there with all the bandwidth he needs). He also has most likely a computer interface which is not a keyboard. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Jul 22 '16 at 15:32
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In order to avoid arousing suspicion (how did this guy translate a 500-page novel in an hour?) it might be better to pose as a consulting firm than as a single individual. – SPavel Jul 22 '16 at 16:44
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@SPavel That's a good point, but I wonder how many people who can only afford a couple hundred dollars for graphic design will assume a "consultant" is out of reach for them. Perhaps he should open his own version of freelancer.com so he can conceal the fact that most of the accounts are sock puppets, while still appealing to the broadest possible audience. – aebabis Jul 22 '16 at 18:14
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@acbabis It might be better to split the difference and claim to be a service that breaks up one big task into microtasks and sends them to the crowd. Something like Captricity but for novels, for example. – SPavel Jul 22 '16 at 18:34
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@SPavel Another solution to avoid suspicion from working too fast is just waiting some more reasonable amount of time to return the finished work. No one needs to know that 9 of the 10 hours he spent 'working' on a project were idle (with regards to that project, they'd likely be spent working on other projects). – SnoringFrog Jul 22 '16 at 18:58
@SnoringFrog Agreed, I'll edit the answer – aebabis Jul 22 '16 at 19:19

dhuang · Answer 3 · 2016-07-21T23:55:46.323

Identity Theft

Okay, this answer is pretty crazy, but hear me out. Our superhuman, perfect memory robot should take advantage of someone who already has a lot of wealth. Our robot just has to kidnap/kill (murder?) a current billionare. Preferably young, as that gives him the most amount of "years" to be that person.

In terms of actually stealing the identity, I assume he knows how to impersonate people well and make disguises (given that we don't know the "biological" make-up of our robot, I wont assume much more). As long as there isn't some biological password (and depends. Our robot could "borrow" the unfortunate's victim's eye or hand or etc. etc.) to this person's wealth, our robot will eventually figure out how to bypass the various security measures protecting the wealth.

To hide the fact that he isn't actually Mr. (or Ms.) Net-Worth-Billions, it would be best to choose someone who isn't a large personality with the media and has relatively no obligations/connections. No living nuclear family would be ideal. And if the robot wants, he could make this figure drop off the face of the earth (within a few years, with our robot's capabilities), and as the years go by change identities to legitimate people after his fake identity "dies", willing his fortune to his new self, of course. A quick google search provides a good list here. (though I kept my research to a minimum. I feel as if searching "single young billionaires" is a little weird...)

To further increase his fortune, do what the other answers have suggested: invest in stock, gamble, etc.

NOTE: This idea came to my head before reading James's answer, but it follows the idea of using someone who already has a great deal of wealth.

I think this body snatcher approach is the fastest option, assuming he has the technical capability to become a convincing doppelgänger. It's also one of the least likely to arouse suspicion if pulled off well. — Dan Bryant, Jul 22 '16 at 14:55

score 30 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 13:47

The fastest way to make money for a robot with a supercomputer brain will be to hack the systems of the companies involved in running tax havens. These companies are intended to make money disappear from the taxation jurisdictions where it was originally earned.

Once it has enough control of those finance systems the robot can make the money disappear into accounts of its own. It will have set up those accounts in advance. Sensibly this money will be banked in as many parts of the planet as possible.

For a little color and excitement the robot could infiltrate drug rings and work its way up the criminal hierarchy. Then simply steal some of the large amounts of cash that drug dealers have a bad habit of leaving lying around. (Yep that's absolutely true too.)

If the robot could gain access to the Mister Big's of any drug rings it should be easy for it to either blackmail them or hack their bank accounts to make off with their ill-gotten gains.

score 25 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 21 '16 at 18:53

25

I think such a robot would scrounge up some pocket change (say 100 loaves of bread worth of local currency) in a trivial amount of time by noticing local opportunities within the first day or so of watching human behavioral patterns.

At this point, I think he'll buy a prepaid credit card and go straight to the best form of gambling online. With superior parallel processing, substantial winnings across multiple sites funneling into multiple discreet accounts will rack up finances quickly.

With a tidy sum in tow, the robot may now move to a more advantageous location. I think he'll start working with stocks, currency trade and the global market, as in Bellerephon's answer, however I don't see a passive role.

While being discreet is a goal, the robot will have a good grasp of its own abilities and how much confidence to have. With enough finances, covert identities beyond our tracking should be a breeze. Due to this I think such a bot will stimulate up and down turns in the market toward his advantage until he's got enough money to create a sustained system for whatever it needs money to do.

edited Jul 21 '16 at 18:53

JDługosz

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answered Jul 21 '16 at 08:19

That Realtor Programmer Guy

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Good point, I hadn't thought of effecting the market himself. – Bellerophon Jul 21 '16 at 15:27
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There are many supercomputers dedicated to stock trading, I don't see what advantage would the robot have there. – ventsyv Jul 21 '16 at 18:18
@Bellerephon effecting the market? I think you mean affecting. – JDługosz Jul 21 '16 at 18:52
@JDlugosz Your right, I did mean affecting. I don't know how I made such a stupid mistake. – Bellerophon Jul 21 '16 at 20:09
@Bellerephon Some people are more sound-based with language, I think. That’s why I think homonyms (like your for you’re) can be invisible — they’re actually inaudible. Do you pronounce them the same (ish)? – JDługosz Jul 21 '16 at 20:20
@JDługosz Yeah I do. Especially if I am talking quickly. – Bellerophon Jul 21 '16 at 20:23
This really belongs in one of the English or Writing SEs or chat. Pop into the Factory Floor if you like. But to conclude, you can develop habits used for clear speaking in a group, including purposful enunciation to distingish words even if that’s not quite your regional accent. So say /ʌ.fekt/ not /ə.fect/ (definite rather than generic vowel sound). ʌ and iː are different sounds, while ə could be anything that’s not enunciated (though happens to sound most like ʌ in American). – JDługosz Jul 21 '16 at 20:40
@ventsyv Well, the largest reason is I'm considering the robot to be more intelligent than our technology by a significant factor. The other is that, even if he doesn't have an advantage over them, many modern supercomputer traders are indeed able to control the market to an extent and only a bit of legislation exist to prevent abuse. Being one entity controlled by one will, the robot could be much more discreet. Finally while they're both fast-reacting to conditions, only the robot can change whole objectives quickly without human intervention. – That Realtor Programmer Guy Jul 22 '16 at 19:38
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@ventsyv I think the key difference here is that the robot would have the advantage of some form of sentience, which all the other supercomputers lack. Also, all the other supercomputers only have market data, whereas this robot basically can either trivially get any information it needs or already has it. – haneefmubarak Jul 23 '16 at 01:31
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Parallel processing does not increase a person's chance in gambling. Online gambling is adjusted to account for card counters as there is almost no way to ban them. Thus you basically need luck in order to earn money from online gambling. – Cem Kalyoncu Jul 24 '16 at 17:53
@CemKalyoncu hi Cem; right that's sound logic, the advantage of parallel processing doesn't come into play with the odds themselves. What it provides is the ability to play 1000s of people in separate games/accounts simultaneously. With the wide selection of games available, there are a number of sources for games that have bias towards strategy and probability which a super-intelligent AI could beat us at. For example though, we're already losing at Go with our own tech,..which is pretty tough. Bringing psychology to games like poker wont hurt either. – That Realtor Programmer Guy Jul 24 '16 at 18:25
So basically our super intelligent computer with anti-social tendencies will become a gambling addict and will find itself scrounging for cash next to a trash bin for the rest of it's miserable existence instead of coming up with a solution to a high demand aspect of life and creating a fortune 500 company based off of that in a few years like most intelligent/fortunate humans do. – nurettin Jan 23 '17 at 03:43

score 23 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 07:01

23

Professional gaming would be the career I would choose for that robot. With super-human reflexes, memory and processing capability, he would quickly become one of the top players. Winning in high paying tournaments would net in quite a good amount of cash. He could do olympics but medical checks would reveal his identity.

answered Jul 21 '16 at 07:01

Cem Kalyoncu

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"...Upon multiple PlayFair(tm) reports and community provided in-game footage showing clear use of "Aimbot" software, we've been forced to permanently suspend the player account N0T_a_R0|30t_1010, and resend his invitation to the World Tournament." – Ranger Jul 21 '16 at 19:12
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@NexTerren There is actually a small plot point in Mass Effect 2 that has that situation. Legion apparently likes to play online games and has been accused multiple times of using hacks or aimbots but whenever they investigate him they never find anything. – TaylorAllred Jul 21 '16 at 21:03
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This option, while probably less realistic, would be easier to write without as much research into trading, stock markets, and statistics as @Garet Claborn's and Bellerephon's answers would require. Plus, this would give the robot opportunities for entertaining interactions with the professional gaming subculture. He could also avoid government scrutiny more easily in gaming than in the stock market. – Justin Jul 21 '16 at 21:53
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People use many super computers for stock market, yet they are not extremely successful. Additionally, when you make tons of money out of stock market, there would be people interested in your background. No one will question a quirky gamer who likes to keep his identity secret. – Cem Kalyoncu Jul 21 '16 at 21:58
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@Justin it's realistic enough, there are lots of games where perception and coordination gives advantage - billiards, golf etc. All that is not only option, but it is realistic option, specially for initial lifting some cash and goods. – MolbOrg Jul 22 '16 at 01:34
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@MolbOrg - oh, I'm not saying it's entirely unrealistic, I'm just saying that such a robot more realistically might choose the stock market because there is a much larger sum of money involved. It seems less plausible that he would get involved with professional sports, where medical screenings are so relevant and might blow his cover as a human, but the idea of such a robot entering the competitive video gaming community makes perfect sense, especially if you understand the mentality of the subculture surrounding it. – Justin Jul 22 '16 at 01:51
@Justin Stock market idea looks like piece escaped from dream of fresh entusiastic broker. It's not known if there is optimal trategy. Let's take a casino fair play. Why casino wins? Chances 50/50 but casino wins, why? Because they have more money, then player. With stocks yes, things are not totaly random, but strategies they come with price - information gatering as example, agent network infiltrated to ... People-markets can be maipulated, and it was done (more or less sucesseful). But do you have million cash for start? Do you have connections? 10$ to conquere world - stock market, no. – MolbOrg Jul 22 '16 at 02:58
@Justin but yes at some point, when need billions it might be a good and relatively easy way. – MolbOrg Jul 22 '16 at 03:04
@Cem Kalyoncou - I totally agree. I think you've hit the nail on the head for a great short story, book, or movie plot with this idea. It would be believable enough sci-fi to really work well. – Justin Jul 22 '16 at 04:45
Note that many big gaming tournaments (where you can make dat $$$), do in fact test for drugs, so this would be much like the Olympics/NFL/NBA. ESL Example – Pants Jul 22 '16 at 14:29
Though if he can find a way around that, the gaming subculture will likely be a better fit for keeping your head down and not having a past -- not aired on national television (unless we're talking Korea), no need to be recruited out of college, etc... – Pants Jul 22 '16 at 14:35

score 16 · Answer 7 · edited Jul 21 '16 at 06:59

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His best totally legal low key way is to buy stocks and shares and investments. With a supercomputer he would be able to predict crashes and booms with some accuracy. Furthermore he could be checking his investments permanently where their he is so he will be able to go out and do stuff at the same time. The only negative is if he is too successful he may be noticed.

A slow option would be to get a well paid job. Doctor, Company manager etc. Not having to buy anything will obviously speed his money making but it will still take many years.

Possibly the quickest legal way is too sell blueprints for alien technology. If he doesn't want to speed human technology growth too much he can sell old/outdated tech which will still be an advancement to humans. He would have to find an anonymous way to sell them but he should manage.

His quickest overall way is to hack into banks or, if he is more moral, large crime groups. He could take their money and keep it. He has a supercomputer brain so should be able to cover his tracks.

edited Jul 21 '16 at 06:59

John Dallman

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answered Jul 21 '16 at 06:55

Bellerophon

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I prefer the last one. +1 – JanLeeYu Jul 21 '16 at 07:23
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I'm not sure supercomputers can - there's companies spending a lot of money to try and do that, just because the potential returns are SO HUGE. But it may be that 'the market' is inherently impossible to predict. – Sobrique Jul 21 '16 at 15:06
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We already have a lot of supercomputers buying stocks and shares and investments. The robot doesn't have anywhere near a unique advantage here... and it takes a lot of starter capital... and has a lot of risk. More computational power does not make one psychic. – djechlin Jul 21 '16 at 17:44
Even with alien hyper-advanced computer power? – Bellerophon Jul 21 '16 at 18:21
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I don't think it's quite defined in the question. "able to instantly process even highly complex information" could be (over-)interpreted to mean that he can solve NP problems in constant time. But then again it only says he's equivalent to a supercomputer, not "way better than all earth computers put together" or anything. But on the third hand, he also (after hitting the books) knows more than any single programmer or team of programmers in the world and so could have unique insight. It's a different story according to which way you go. – Steve Jessop Jul 21 '16 at 18:29
@JanLeeYu: Yup. Finding and knocking over crack houses could easily net several thousand dollars a night with little or no chance of extended repercussions. If it didn't restrict itself to one area, it could easily amass a small fortune in a few weeks time. Then it's off to Vegas to make some real money. – TMN Jul 21 '16 at 18:46
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Stocks aren't that great if you don't already have money. What's a real success story... maybe 10x your money over one year? And if he only has 500 dollars in his pocket? After a year he has only made $4,500... – Mirror318 Jul 22 '16 at 02:46
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Speed is of the essence with high-volume stock trading; quickly trading a few billion stocks that ticked up a penny then back down again over the course of a few milliseconds can net you a lot of money, very quickly. Plugging into a trading hub and processing the data directly would make our robot very rich, very fast; he could literally trade stocks faster than the time it takes a screen to update. Spreading transactions over thousands (or millions) of accounts would make it fairly untraceable, too. – ArmanX Jul 22 '16 at 22:19
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The AI shouldn't start with stocks, but rather options, futures, and forex. Leverage in the forex market can be 200:1 so a very skilled trader can compound a small initial bank roll quickly. And it could find some financial wannabes to form a shell corporation to avoid scrutiny. – Kent Jul 24 '16 at 05:19
Trading is what I thought of first when reading the OP's phrasing of "instantly process even highly complex information". Automated trading by software using heuristics is a thing, and trading companies pay to have low-latency connections to the exchange. The robot couldn't really keep a low profile if he paid for such a connection and went in and physically connected himself to the exchange network. But probably there's lots of money to be made if you're really smart, even with a few extra milliseconds of latency. – Peter Cordes Jul 26 '16 at 12:39

score 16 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 23 '16 at 23:16

A lot of the answers here seem to be making 1 of 2 mistakes.

Mistake 1: Aiming too low

Being a doctor, doing a large number of freelance projects, becoming a professional gamer etc. These are all great ways to make tens of millions of dollars, but lousy ways to make billions of dollars. Given the robot's abilities, our aim should be to make billions of dollars, and I think that's certainly a realistic goal.

Mistake 2: Assuming that the robot can do something magical

Examples: Hacking accounts and draining them of billions of dollars, murdering and assuming the identity of a billionaire, starting a cult and brainwashing people into giving you billions of dollars. Read the question again - the robot's abilities are idealized forms of abilities that already exist in today's world. Supercomputer-like-processing power? Supercomputers already exist. Extremely good people skills? Genius level IQ? Perfect athletic abilities? People already exist with each of the above qualities. If it's so easy for someone with those abilities/skillsets to start a cult or make billions of dollars through hacking, they would have already done it by now.

The way to approach this problem, is by asking ourselves what the richest humans in the world have done, in order to amass vast sums of money, and then have the robot pursue similar strategies. Given that the richest humans have already amassed $10-100B in personal fortunes, this strategy will attain results on par with, or exceeding, previously suggested answers. And given that these are real success stories that we are emulating, that means that our strategy is going to be much more realistic and practical.

Option A: Finance/Trading

Some of the richest people in the world got there through finance. Warren Buffet, worth 60 billion dollars is the prime example. George Soros, Carl Icahn, Ray Dalio, each worth US$10-20B, are other great successes.

Strategy: Use superhuman intelligence to put together a perfect GMAT score and great MBA application. Attend a top school like Wharton/Harvard. Use the resulting connections and prestige to get a job at a successful Hedge Fund. Use your super-intelligence to deliver great ideas, analyses, and above-average returns. Use your salesmanship to make your above-average returns, sound like an extremely impressive accomplishment. Use your political skills and collection of accomplishments, to get promoted to top positions at the Hedge Fund.

Using that ledge, build a reputation for yourself, as one of the best investment minds in the industry. Eventually, either take over the top job at the Hedge Fund, or start a new fund of your own. Use your above average returns, and great people-skills, to attract massive amounts of capital. Make obscene amounts of money off the 2-and-20 model that Hedge Funds use for fees.

Upside:

You can make $10-60B, over the course of 10-20 years
You only have to beat the market by a small amount, on a consistent basis
Pretty reliable and realistic strategy

Downside:

If you happen to get an unlucky streak, your investment record will be ruined by mediocre returns, and you'll have a hard time escaping that

Option B: Entrepreneurship

With a few finance exceptions, the richest people in the world are all entrepreneurs. Bill Gates, worth 80 billion dollars, is a prime example. Carlos Slim, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, each worth US$40-60B, are all great examples as well.

Strategy: Identify a solvable market need, or a rapidly growing market. Use your intelligence and engineering skills, to build a great prototype. Use your prototype, along with your networking and people skills, to hire the best talent as early-stage employees, and secure VC funding. Use the capital and hired talent, to improve upon your prototype, make it even better, and attract more customers. Repeat the above, another 2-3 times.

Once your startup has grown into a medium-sized company, becomes its CEO and shift your focus towards management. Use your people skills to win lucrative contracts. Use your political skills to sabotage your competitors, or to rig the marketplace in your favor. Use your strategic and leadership skills, to shepherd your company into becoming the next Microsoft/Google/Apple. As a significant shareholder of a rapidly growing company, you can easily make tens of billions of dollars for yourself in the process.

Upside:

Tremendous amount of money to be made. US$40-80B has been made by numerous successful founders.
Relatively short time horizon: 10 years is sufficient to make tens of billions of dollars

Downside:

"Identifying a solvable market need" or "picking a rapidly growing market" is very hard to do. You can easily find yourself in a dead-end market, or one that has already been won by entrenched incumbents.
Most startups fail due to marketing reasons, not technical reasons. Even if you have a fantastic prototype, you may still fail to build user traction. Tremendous luck involved in building user traction. "Being in the right place at the right time"

Option C: Corporate Management

Join a extremely profitable company, at the entry level. Use your intelligence to deliver great work output. Use your political and networking skills to win promotions consistently. After ~10 promotions, you'll end up as the CEO of the company. Continue to deliver strong results, and earn lots of money for yourself in the process.

Upside:

Extremely reliable. There isn't too much luck involved at any step. If your work is good enough, and you're good enough at charming people and playing politics, you're pretty much guaranteed to get promotions.
In terms of power, the CEO of large companies have a tremendous amount of power. This power could be an end-goal in itself, or used as leverage to make more money in other ways.

Downside:

You'll make peanuts, compared to options A and B. Jack Welch, the most famous and successful CEO in American History, is not even a billionaire. Realistically, given the robot's abilities, you'll make close to a billion, and if you're really good, maybe a couple billion. It's a far cry from what you can make in the earlier options.
It'll take you a really long time. Assuming 10 levels between entry-level-positions and the CEO, and 2 years per promotion, it'll take you at least 20 years to work your way up to CEO. And then another 5-10 years to make some "real money".

Overall, if the objective is to make the most amount of money with the least amount of risk, option A is likely your best bet. Option B is the way to go if you feel really confident, and want a high-risk-high-reward option. And option C is the way to go if you want a low-risk-guaranteed-results option. The combination of these 3 options should beat any other ideas suggested here thus far.

this is very almost the answer i was going to make - kudos :) — Jimmery, Jul 25 '16 at 14:12
Re: the risk of starting a new market: our hypothetical alien should have a pretty good leg up here. If the technology exists to make him, it's safe to say he's seen which future tech. is going to work and take hold. Just invest in what he already knows is going to be the winning tech based on his analysis of his own homeworld's history. — Daniel Wagner, Jul 26 '16 at 06:11
@DanielWagner: Which tech catches on in the short term depends on the existing society, culture, and technology. The robot can know which future techs are viable / possible, but not which applications / implementations of those techs will work on Earth, or what marketing will work. Of course, the robot might be smart enough to work some of that out, but it's not a given. — Peter Cordes, Jul 26 '16 at 12:47
@PeterCordes He may not know the small details, but the broad strokes will be clear to him. Think about what return you would have gotten from early investing in the first few companies to build a car; the first few companies to build a computer; the first few companies to build a cell phone. Of course you won't know which model of car, computer, or cell phone will be the winner, but personal transport, computing, and mobile computing seem like strong bets if I'm going to visit another planet that hasn't developed them yet. (Whereas they were "out-there" tech to investors at some point.) — Daniel Wagner, Jul 26 '16 at 16:17
@DanielWagner: Oh, you were talking about investing, rather than starting his own tech startup. I missed that while skimming >.<. Yes, I agree that's a solid plan. It avoids the eggs-in-one-basket problem of a tech startup having the right tech but wrong marketing or whatever that this answer points out. It also takes some money to invest. Maybe get some starting money from existing venture capitalists by proposing your own tech startup? Either swindle the venture capitalists (probably doable without breaking laws), or your own startup actually works and brings in some cash to invest. — Peter Cordes, Jul 27 '16 at 04:23

wedstrom · Answer 9 · 2016-07-25T15:12:42.663

Build and licence processor chip designs. ARM just sold for 32 billion, without ever selling CPUs to consumers. They build reference designs and sell them. Don't destroy current technology; gradually grow to a dominant position in the market. Keep demand high by pushing new processor designs incrementally.

NVIDIA, ARM, and AMD all use this business model.

As the verge says, information is king!

http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/18/12211484/arm-holdings-softbank-acquisition-intellectual-property-patents-value

Another user suggested selling newer technology would water down his own advantage; this is true to a point, but if he is advanced enough he could simply beat our own technology long enough to make a fortune and stop before he becomes threatened. If he could drive his competition into the ground, he could delay technology in the long run.

EDIT: Really Quick Money Rather than sell new plans legitimately, he could sell current designs and technologies to shady buyers like North Korea, Iran and unscrupulous copycats willing to knock of the major chip designs.

"gradually grow to a dominant position in the market" Not particularly fast then. — Pharap, Jul 23 '16 at 22:57
@Pharap Being 4th place for a year or two is still a lot faster than the petty theft suggested by some. — wedstrom, Jul 25 '16 at 15:10
Make it like Unix. Sell it for free, make every os and program depend on our architecture and then make money — Motte001, Jul 25 '16 at 15:16

James · Answer 10 · 2016-07-21T22:39:19.653

15

Personal Assistant to the Wealthy

He could approach one of the richest individuals on the planet and prove himself to be a superhuman alien robot. Then offer to be that individual's secret personal assistant and advisor on all things for a very large fee.

I'm not sure if this idea fits your requirement regarding low profile...

He would prefer to keep a low profile and especially avoid government scrutiny...

edited Jul 21 '16 at 22:39

answered Jul 21 '16 at 18:25

James

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Heck - with his social skills he could probably convince the billionaire he can teleport him up to his galactic overlords, to take his place among the stars. The billionaire would leave his worldly possessions in the hands of his robotic friend and go into the teleporter (incinerator) and vanish :-) – Falco Jul 25 '16 at 09:54

Separatrix · Answer 11 · 2016-07-26T16:21:55.740

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Fastest or Fastest Ethical?

The quickest off the bat would be crime. Stealing bitcoin would be an easy beginning with his skills.

Why doesn't anyone do this? They do

Follow this with leveraged manipulation of financial markets and a large fortune is there to be made in fairly short order.

Why doesn't anyone do this? It's well known that it's possible, but it's illegal everywhere. Doing it and not being caught, that's the game. The key to our robot doing this is that he can run the high speed trading in a considered manner rather than just using a script that reacts in a pre-programmed way.

Since he's a robot he has the advantage of replaceable kneecaps for when the organised crime syndicates catch up with him. Then he can relax into a fabulous lifestyle of high stakes poker.

Why doesn't anyone do this? They do, but most people aren't good enough. Poker is a game against other people, you have to be better at reading them than they are at reading you. Who can read the poker face of a robot?

edited Jul 26 '16 at 16:21

answered Jul 21 '16 at 13:58

Separatrix

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He should start with poker. An AI with uncanny human-reading skills should be able to make thousands of untaxed dollars a day from casino poker tables and tens of thousands from high stakes illegal tables. Then find some B players in the financial industry to create a shell trading corporation, and start racking up coin in the futures and forex markets where leverage can be 200:1. – Kent Jul 24 '16 at 05:16
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Stealing bitcoin, or generating bitcoin.... If the robot has sufficient power they could feasibly generate the remaining bitcoin. – NibblyPig Jul 25 '16 at 10:52
@Kent, poker requires a solid initial investment. He's going to need some money to put down before he can join in. – Separatrix Jul 26 '16 at 16:22

score 10 · Answer 12 · edited Jul 21 '16 at 23:13

10

Can't believe anyone has mentioned the gambling root here. A roulette wheel is pretty quickly memorized, and a super computer would have little issues calculating the speed of the ball vs the speed of the wheel and at least narrow down the part of the wheel the ball will land in well enough to skew odds heavily in its favor. Start with a low bet ($1 or so), win a couple times and increase the betting until the desired amount is achieved. Not an unlimited well as casino's will monitor, but it'll work to grow a decent nest egg.

Extra points if he can jump on a craps table and find a method to throw the dice in its favor as well.

If it's inclined to less morale methods, slight of hand techniques can be used to pick money off gambling tables or exchange cards at a blackjack table as well. Comes with the risk of being caught though.

edited Jul 21 '16 at 23:13

TrEs-2b

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answered Jul 21 '16 at 22:56

Twelfth

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Don't forget counting in Black Jack. :P It's well known that Black Jack can be beaten. Humans need clever schemes to derive the values to compute the probabilities involved. With a perfect memory, the robot could simply keep count of what has been played and use the proportions of played cards and unplayed cards to compute the probabilities of successful hands. – Nolo Jul 22 '16 at 00:11
Blackjack counting requires a team so i didnt list it...need a high better to hit the good count tables – Twelfth Jul 22 '16 at 01:10
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There was a scene in an old 70s movie The Questor Tapes with this exact theme. Robot went to Vegas and started shooting craps. After a few wins, they swapped dice and gave him some subtly misshapen ones. The robot used his super-strength to crush them into proper shape, then continued to win. – TMN Jul 22 '16 at 12:15
@Nolo Since it was upvoted 3 times...I'd like to point out that blackjack is a horrible option here. "Its well known that blackjack can be beaten" if that was true, people would retire and just 'beat' blackjack constantly. You require a trained team with multiple roles, one that a single robot couldn't do to slightly skew the odds in your favor. Even favorable counts on a blackjack deck would not give the same skewed odds one could get calculating the roulette wheel or playin with dice. – Twelfth Jul 22 '16 at 17:42
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@Twelfth Though I agree about roulette and perhaps dice given robotic precision on the toss, there are black jack counters who, by effectively playing to a slight advantage (individually), improve their chances. I never said the advantage was large that way or that a single entity could dramatically increase such an advantage, only that a robot could do it trivially. Big wins are still purely probabilistic in their occurrence. – Nolo Jul 23 '16 at 04:27
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I do recall an article I read about the original roulette computer, built many years ago now. It seems one can purchase such a device now that fits on a keychain. A robot with encyclopedic knowledge of human history would know that and perhaps already have a strategy to win very quickly. – Nolo Jul 23 '16 at 04:40
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Blackjack can be beaten by a single person, but the net gain isn't all that fast (at least not the system I used). And if you win enough, you find yourself being asked to leave the casino and to not enter any others. :-) – WGroleau Jul 24 '16 at 06:34
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Just remember that if you can consistently win in any casino, you will be very quickly barred from that casino. – EvilSnack Jul 24 '16 at 17:34
Forget the gambling. The casinos know there are ways to beat their games and are on the lookout for them. Even if they don't know how you're doing it if you win too much you're going to be told to leave. – Loren Pechtel Jul 25 '16 at 03:58
@Nolo https://www.engadget.com/2013/09/18/edward-thorp-father-of-wearable-computing/ – Mike Vonn Jul 25 '16 at 17:14
Gambling would work so long as they played poker since casinos don't care how well any particular player makes since they're making money on the rake not on player losses. – Dean MacGregor Jul 25 '16 at 19:31
Roulette favours the house, it's just the way the game is made. While blackjack can be beaten, anyone who does so consistently is asked to leave and never come back. The only option is poker because there you're not playing against the house. – Separatrix Jul 25 '16 at 22:15
With all the talk of card counting in Blackjack (which doesn't require a team, it's just easier that way), I thought I'd point out that casinos have greatly reduced the advantage of card counting by simply using more decks of cards. So the advantage isn't what it used to be. – wjousts Jul 26 '16 at 13:05

score 8 · Answer 13 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 18:08

For a relatively quick turnaround on some amounts of money, you could look towards outstanding academic bounties for answers to specific "unsolvable" things. These problems humans can't yet solve may have been solved already. The downside to this is the possibility of these requiring a (potentially lengthy) peer review process.

He could also sell pieces of his processing software to complete some objectives we're on the way to already like self-driving cars and things. Patenting or trademarking some processes and then selling the rights to use them to various large corporations could net him a nearly eternal revenue stream legally + without doing anything.

One such item might be whatever process he uses to determine what things are. We've been trying to teach computers to recognize objects in pictures ever since computers were invented, if he could establish those algorithms and sell licenses, he might never need more money.

Similarly, processes for material creation/manipulation, new metallic alloys or non-metallic compounds, new storage media for data (especially non-volatile methods), his entire body is made up of things that our scientific community would foam at the mouth just thinking about. And again, patenting these things and then charging for their use would provide a long-term income stream.

Once he has money he could also potentially purchase things we consider waste materials that he's able to re-process into usable materials, patent a process using them and then resell the materials to others (using one or more shell companies so that it isn't blatantly obvious what he did there).

The patents (conveniently) don't require any ongoing effort from him other than cashing checks, leaving his time free for whatever. They might also provide plot hooks if people start trying to steal them, use them improperly or turn them into weapons.

Interesting thought. On one hand, it would have a different perspective. Ability to notice things we don't. On the other, being a supercomputer does not impart even human-level creativity, let alone exceeding the human-level it has, so it might be limited to knowledge it already possesses, and improving existing processes. But then, it could hire consultants of its own. — kaay, Jul 22 '16 at 09:18

score 7 · Answer 14 · answered Jul 22 '16 at 09:39

7

He could print the money

Being a supersmart AI engineered by a technologically superior alien civilization, he could simply build a sophisticated money printing machine. Using his superior technological knowledge, it would not at all be a problem for him to fake the petty security features on humanity's modern bank notes.

Given his vast knowledge of human psychology, the robot could also take over a central bank such as the Federal Reserve by economic and political manipulation. He would then have access to the human money printing infrastructure.

answered Jul 22 '16 at 09:39

zepp133

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I guess that officials would notice that someone is printing the money if he printed enough of it. – MatthewRock Jul 25 '16 at 11:07
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This answer would be better if you put "print" in quotes; really, the robot would be smart enough to hack into central bank and simply create money to transfer to himself. – Astor Florida Jul 26 '16 at 02:51
Printing physical money isn't that productive. You'd need 10,000 $100 notes just to get your first million. And then what? "Hello Mr. Bankman, can I deposit this innocuous briefcase filled with one million in newly printed bank notes?" – Mirror318 Jul 26 '16 at 22:42

Mirror318 · Answer 15 · 2016-07-24T22:17:49.503

How about...

Telemarketing/scams

You know that Nigerian prince that keeps asking you to help him transfer his $8,000,000 inheritance?

Those emails still float around because there's at least a couple of people who fall for it.

Now imagine this Nigerian prince upgraded his grammar, and was the most intuitive and socially gifted person on the planet. Able to laugh and cry, and understand you like no one ever has.

Oh and only one body? For a super computer? First goal is to produce multiple bodies/robots/voice+phone extensions, so he can make 100,000 calls and emails simultaneously. Computer processors don't need to "focus" like we do, they are amazing at parallel processing.

More ethical version

Now he's set up with a call station where he plugs into 10,000 phones, he puts out an online education website. One-on-one tutoring with the world expert in the field you want to study. Patient enough for a 5-year-old (at 20USD per hour), intelligent enough to coach Elon Musk through his next invention (at 2,000USD per hour, + 8% shares in the company). Anyone in the world with any amount of money would invest in this top education system.

Then we go beyond academic help. Maybe there's a million/billionaire who is suicidally depressed. Mr. Smooth gets him back on his feet, ready to take on the world once again. What value does this rich man put on his life? Maybe that motivation is worth 200million to him (because he'd be dead otherwise).

This version takes a bit of time to set up a repertoire (and you need quick money to buy all the phone lines, etc). So maybe a combination of the two, and if he wants to be nice, the ones he scammed get a free year's subscription to his tutoring.

Edit—Anonymity

Being a common household name in the Education industry isn't "minimizing attention", but I suggest he could do something similar to IceFrog. Still known everywhere, but known for being anonymous.

Given that the bad grammar of the Nigerian Prince is intentional (so that people who are likely to smell the scam leave early), improving it would only be good if the exceptional psychology skills of the robot allow them to choose gullible targets from the start. — Zachiel, Jul 24 '16 at 12:46
Well, the exceptional psych skills creates gullibility. Also, processing in parallel, he doesn't need to weed anyone out. It's no loss to him, juggling hundreds of thousands of contacts. He's a super computer. Even a regular computer could probably correspond with that number of people via email. — Mirror318, Jul 24 '16 at 21:46
@Mirror318: Weeding out is needed to keep from getting shutdown too quickly. Every non-idiot who reads your email translates to a nontrivial probability of abuse reports to the network authorities in charge of whatever network you're sending your spam through. — R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE, Jul 25 '16 at 03:23
Nigerian scammers have something like 80%+ conversion rates. That's insanely high. — Wayne Werner, Jul 26 '16 at 05:41

score 6 · Answer 16 · answered Jul 25 '16 at 10:03

Black Widow / Trophy Wife

If it can perfectly do about anything the best of us can do in any field and it has the looks, this robot should have no problem being the perfect spouse for a billionaire. It should hook up, marry and kill an old billionaire and inherit millions.

The only problematic is the kill part, but it shouldn't be a problem, with superior knowledge of toxicology. But if the robot is good enough with the law and acting its part, it could also marry and divorce and get half the assets in court :-)

Killing isn't required; just incapacitating the spouse for a while is enough. — Astor Florida, Jul 26 '16 at 02:53

score 5 · Answer 17 · edited Jun 16 '20 at 11:03

Enter the movie business

My suggestion would be for him to found a company. Probably an entertainment company as that's big business. The robot being able to understand every pop culture reference by reading thousands of webpages, posts, and comments at a time could be a fantastic writer in modern culture. He could also watch and process many sources of video at once, multiple tv channels and youtube videos. Our robot friend could easily create scripts for movies and tv shows that are algorithmically guaranteed to succeed based on the mass amounts of data he is able to process. The robot would probably have to publish under a pen name, or claim that a staff or team of writers created them.

Because of the amazing social skills the robot would be able to gain very quickly, getting started with just a script for a block buster movie or two wouldn't be difficult. With the money from that the robot could produce their own movies and begin to form relationships with people in show business, with the goal being to eventually start his own company to rival that of twentieth century fox and disney.

As an added bonus if he lived a private life, that just makes him more of a fixation in society. He could then market his own brands and get paid huge amounts to appear on tv or be interviewed by journalists. Not to mention the amount of power he would wield over the populace. Someone already mentioned a religion, but isn't pop culture just religion in a different form? We have weird and arbitrary rules we that we follow and people get ridiculed or idolized for breaking, we have customs that are observed surrounding important events, and it provides a system where some people are arbitrarily lifted above the rest of society. But I digress. If the robot then used his influence to get people to donate to charities he had a hand in or was an administrator to, there would be loads of money to be had there as well.

Welcome to the site Lewis. For more information on how things work I would suggest checking out the [help] and feel free to join us in [chat] once you hit 20 rep — James, Jul 22 '16 at 18:15

score 4 · Answer 18 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 14:12

The same way that robots make money in our own world nowadays.

With the difference that being sentient, this one does not need a human tayloring and retayloring it with ever new stories to fool the gullible. The nigerian elite trying to hide money overseas gets old really fast, you know.

Set up multiple accounts on tax havens, send the bait and wait. Easy peasy.

The robot could also make money on pyramid schemes, or for a more honest living on the internet, by running arbitrage - say, between Ali Baba and Ebay, for example. Buy cheap junk on one, sell it for 10x its price on the other.

Also adware. The robot, being a robot, could set up a million pages full of junk and ads. By gaming with SEO, the robot could get enough clicks to make a living.

Last but not least, it probably comes from a place with far superior technology than ours. The robot could use technology we can't even dream of nowadays to crack bitcoin (cue in to some specialists claiming how this would take more computing power than what is feasible), or to release a search engine better than Google and Bing and compete with them, for example.

How often can you really sell something for 10x? Mining bitcoin isn't a bad idea though, he doesn't need to break the system, just outperform most others in the system for long enough to get his seed money (a measly few hundred millions to start a few little corporations). — wedstrom, Jul 21 '16 at 15:39
@wedstrom hmm, interesting, how fast quantum computer would be on such task. — MolbOrg, Jul 22 '16 at 02:34

Steve Jessop · Answer 19 · 2016-07-21T18:52:44.593

An advanced alien with excellent understanding of human psychology and culture should have some good ideas about what startling revolutionary concepts humanity is ready for "next". Invent it.

Your alien is definitely one of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, or Satoshi Nakamoto, but I don't know which. If Steve Jobs, he already made enough money to get home. For that matter, he could be one of the first two and Satoshi.

The cunning thing about Bitcoin is that it helps avoid scrutiny: it's very hard to be all three of rich, unknown, and legal, so an alien who wants to be all three in the modern world might have to invent a crypto-currency even if he didn't plan to cheat at it. By getting in early and designing the algorithm to your own exotic super-computer-based abilities (and perhaps even based on some advanced knowledge of a break in the crypto primitives involved?) you could rapidly build a fortune so large that the limiting factor is how you convert it to other assets without making it obvious they're all ultimately being paid to the same person.

"Your alien is definitely one of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, or Satoshi Nakamoto" Clearly the latter, as the robot's keeping a low profile... — T.J. Crowder, Jul 23 '16 at 14:46

score 4 · Answer 20 · edited Jun 16 '20 at 11:03

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Arbitrage on Jewelry

With superhuman appraisal abilities, he could recognize under priced jewelry in Shenzhen, then use his swimming ability to cross the harbor to Hong Kong, then use his knowledge of human psychology to sell the jewelry at a premium.

edited Jun 16 '20 at 11:03

Community

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score 4 · Answer 21 · answered Jul 22 '16 at 13:49

4

Mine Bitcoin

Use it's supercomputer brain to score bitcoin to get some basic investment capital.

Develop Apps

Adapt a popular game/divertesment from it's own world and sell it, using the money from Bitcoins to finance. Alternatively, there are probably several "obvious in hindsight" apps it could develop and sell based on Apps and Utilities available in it's homeworld. Think A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

answered Jul 22 '16 at 13:49

aslum

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Mining Bitcoin is my favorite one here. It's much faster than, say, inventing something, founding a corporation, or starting a movie studio. And the best way to mine Bitcoin is with a supercomputer. He's got one in his head, doesn't he? – Shawn V. Wilson Jul 26 '16 at 17:31
@ShawnV.Wilson not necessary faster, some pikabu go might make you lot of moneys, in short time, so making viral products is lot faster way to make money, and knowing human psychology might help here. – MolbOrg Jul 27 '16 at 01:01
Actually, inventing something could be faster, there are tons of apps out there that make millions of dollars relatively quickly. You need at least some capital to develop and deploy an app, but once you've got that you can probably make money much faster assuming you can create a truly sweet app. Bitcoin might be a good starting point, but even with a supercomputer it will be a relatively small steady stream of income. – aslum Jul 27 '16 at 13:05

Dedwards · Answer 22 · 2016-07-26T14:29:10.753

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Security Bounties

Analyze software systems for security risks and report them for huge cash bonuses. He could likely report tons of them in a day, which would be way faster than a slow build up of religion. Then, he can work for private software companies or start his own security firm.

Microsoft pays out big time for security bounties, as does Apple, Facebook, Google, Mozilla. Your robot could bring in hundreds of thousand of dollars, or even millions, in a single day. Probably while walking down the street.

Since "He would prefer to keep a low profile and especially avoid government scrutiny, so anything overtly illegal is a bad idea." I'm suggesting the legal avenues of security bounties, since this is less likely to result in him being investigated.

edited Jul 26 '16 at 14:29

answered Jul 22 '16 at 17:46

Dedwards

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Why go for the low-paying bounties? Sell the 0days to higher-paying buyers. Or better yet, use them to influence stock prices and short stocks. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Jul 25 '16 at 03:25
he will definitely drew attention and will be investigated, trough it's not big problem, easy to solve, just pretend to be Anonymous network. – MolbOrg Jul 27 '16 at 01:04

score 4 · Answer 23 · answered Jul 22 '16 at 18:12

With this robot's abilities it seems to me the easiest way to rack up tons of cash quickly is to become a bounty hunter.

He could probably quickly locate, capture, and deliver Ayman Al-Zawahiri who has a $25 million bounty in his head alone. Alternatively he could work for insurance companies recovering high priced insured stolen goods. Regardless if he is hunting people, treasure, or a mix of both the robot could capture several high value targets around the globe quickly. The bounty hunting proceeds would then become his seed money for the real wealth generators.

Next he leverages this cash to bootstrap big real estate deals, tech startups, or whatever else his superior intellect deems to be the best investment vehicle. Once these investments take off he launches a SpaceX competitor to cover the creation of his launch vehicle.

score 4 · Answer 24 · answered Jul 22 '16 at 19:18

PayPal fraud

Use known (or unknown, if you're keen) security vulnerabilities in web software to harvest usernames and passwords and a botnet. This gives you access to a lot of careless payment accounts up front, no further effort needed. You probably want to throttle and distribute your activity so that you don't alarm PayPal so much that they lock down all payments or something – your botnet helps here a little. Laundering the ill-gotten gains is probably the hard part: maybe you don't even have a bank account, and have to resort to something like buying gold or drugs or other physical value stores online, and arranging for them to be delivered to a sketchy alley or somewhere you can pick them up without having to own the postal address.

There's also a bunch more analogous cybercrime, e.g. ransomware, which seems similarly suited to your abilities.

One thing that I think has been assumed in other answers but not given in the question is the ability to interface directly with the Internet or other computer systems. That would make the above strategy (and many others) hugely more scalable, but you'd maybe need some creativity to build the input/output devices that would actually enable you to do it. Then I imagine a lot of your early profits would go into upgrading your hardware and network connection, so that you could keep scaling up.

score 4 · Answer 25 · answered Jul 23 '16 at 07:50

Best advantages :

Knowledge of alien technology
Super computer brain

Worst disadvantages:

Lack of bank account, ID documents etc
Lack of seed funds

The hardest part for your robot is the begining. With no legal identity he really can't enter into any legal high paying venture. With no seed money he cant even gamble or purchase fake ID, internet access etc.

Step one : Seed money

High risk : use superior physical abilities to steal money
Low reward : manual labour, odd jobs, cash in hand work

Step two : First 100k

Medium Risk : Black jack. With his super computer brain he can count cards and consistently win at black jack. Also perfect play at poker should beat most human players.
Low reward : Bitcoin mining. once he can afford an internet connection that super computer brain can be directly used to create bitcoins. Difficult to convert to real money though.

Step three : Buy fake identity

With a legal ID and bank account your hero is now able to work bigger schemes.

High Risk : attract venture capital with alien tech. This has to be the easiest option. You dont even have to sell the product. Just have some impresive prototypes. Maybe have human pastys to front the companies
High Risk : illegal fiancial products like a ponzi scheme

Low Risk/Reward : ???

score 3 · Answer 26 · answered Jul 22 '16 at 10:53

3

Why do he need to work, he can transfer virtual money as every thing is in digital format. He can hack and create account and enter any amount of money in that. Once he is in the database. He can have several accounts and lots of money into them in different banks so that no one can catch his illegality. He can perform all above task mentioned by readers. He can replace all big things with his better versions. Something better than google, better than microsoft or apple.

answered Jul 22 '16 at 10:53

Himanshu

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Why does a robot have an easier access to closed databases than a human? – SE - stop firing the good guys Jul 22 '16 at 11:06
This is my preferred answer. He will be able to hack anything he wants with his superior intelligence, knowledge and ability to scan for relevant information. (Just remember the latest credit card data leaks -- and these were not banks). He'll be able to move much larger amounts of money much faster than with most of the other suggestions (religion, real contractor work). We talk billions here. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Jul 22 '16 at 15:36

score 3 · Answer 27 · answered Jul 23 '16 at 21:52

A quick way to make small amounts of money fast would be to be a street performer, like for example, a juggler or a magician, making money with his superhuman abilities.

If he makes some money he can show some of it to passers by and use it to bet that he can do something that few or no humans can do. I once read something about dropping a dollar bill a specific distance and being able to catch it out of the air after it had gained sped by falling that distance was humanly impossible. Whatever the precise details, the robot could make some money by betting that he could do it and those he bet against couldn't.

The robot could select a human who looked rather fast and athletic (like in the 75th percentile in speed) and bet him that he could run a specific distance faster than the human. The robot would probably only have to run as fast as a human in the 80th or 85th percentile to barely beat the human and win the bet.

If the robot could quickly and easily change its appearance it wouldn't matter if sometimes cameras caught it committing crimes. Thus it could quickly break into cars, jump start them, and sell them to chop shops. It could quickly break into houses in unexpected places that wouldn't have alarms, and steal valuable goods (but only stuff that could survive the process of getting out of the houses) to fence. Thus the robot might quickly make a small amount of money by petty crime.

So if the robot quickly makes a small amount of money by various means, it would have enough to get a cheap fake idea, and possibly get 2 low paying jobs on different shifts. Then it might fairly quickly amass enough money to get a much better fake identity, pay for patenting inventions, invest in something with a very high return, etc.

So those are some ideas how the robot could start from nothing.

But why start from nothing? If the robot has selected Earth and studied Earth for some time before landing, why doesn't it bring counterfeit money, synthetic jewels, gold bars, prototypes of slight improvements over Earth technology, and other wealth with it?

If the robot does that it can skip the early stages and perhaps go straight to a big money making plan.

score 3 · Answer 28 · answered Jul 24 '16 at 20:33

Become an advisor to the rich and powerful.

Being a master of human nature, he'd have no problem charming himself past security and staffers, and getting personal meetings with politicians, businessmen, CEOs, national leaders, etc. Once there, he'd break the ice with advice so astonishingly clear they wouldn't even question where he came from, and he'd consult them on an ongoing basis. He'd be the "quiet little secret" of the powerful across the globe, and would be paid very handsomely for it.

Low profile, friends in the right places, and potential to make a lot of money in a short period. Works?

score 2 · Answer 29 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 13:53

2

With a perfect memory and superhuman reflexes, he should be able to make big bucks quickly as a rock star.

Then get active with investments and day trading after getting a big pool of money.

answered Jul 21 '16 at 13:53

James

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I believe you're implying that talent or ability has some correlation with success in the current music industry. I don't think that's been true for a couple of generations or more – Separatrix Jul 21 '16 at 14:09
@Separatrix: While your comment is cute, I do believe there is SOME correlation between musical ability and ability to generate revenue via ticket sales, iTunes sales, product endorsements, etc. I know that the artists I listen to have substantial talent. – James Jul 21 '16 at 14:15
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@James True, but thousands or millions more have at least as much talent but get no-where. Talent is (usually) a prerequisite but is not enough by itself. – Tim B Jul 21 '16 at 14:32
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To be fair, he would be pairing that talent with a near-perfect understanding of human psychology and politics. It would still be a pretty slow process, though, plus it creates a lot of unwanted attention, diluting the wealth acquisition with undesirable fame. – Dan Bryant Jul 21 '16 at 17:51

score 2 · Answer 30 · answered Jul 23 '16 at 18:21

Bodysnatching is an excellent plan, but offing a billionaire is thinking too small. What about the head of the most powerful, isolated organization in the world?

No, not the POTUS.

The director of the NSA.

With direct access to an organization that already is completely opaque, and servants able and willing to commit crime and atrocities for the 'greater good', and an instinct for engendering fanatical loyalty, and access to yet further, as yet underutilized, supercomputers, citizen databases, and globe-spanning botnets, now running alien code and duplicates of his personality and... Well, you get the idea. Money would be no issue, nor would anything else. As for avoiding attention, well, there's not really a better place to work.

score 2 · Answer 31 · answered Jul 23 '16 at 19:01

There is a related sci-fi short story. A man crash lands on the earth and must aquire tremendous wealth to rebuild his ship. First he clones himself to improve his abilities and earns a small aount of money. He then "invents" things and grows his wealth by buying stocks on margin and by shorting stocks (for example, shorts ford, invents new car. Ford stock drops. Then he buys ford on margin, sells his invention to ford. Ford stock goes up. Then he rotates through several different industries, later inventing a much better car, repeats the cycle. Broke down the soviet union by loading up obsolete hovercars with obsolete consumer goods and sending them by auto pilot over th border. If anyone knows the name of the story or the author, please say so.

It wasn't just that he needed money to repair his ship, he needed technologies and resources that did not yet exist on the planet, so he helped steer the economy toward creating them for him. Sadly I don't remember the name of the story either, it's probably in one of the big anthology books on my shelf... — Perkins, Jul 25 '16 at 22:47

score 2 · Answer 32 · answered Jul 23 '16 at 21:39

It's boring as hell but the answer is obviously to influence the performance of companies and trade against that influence.

Find some company where you can do good or bad. Place a call or put option. Rake in the money. Rinse and repeat.

Assuming he has near perfect knowledge he can easily optimize for what the best ways are to influence any company worldwide with the least chance of detection; whether that's sending a perfectly crafted email that lands a huge new contract or adding a subtle change to some contract that blows up a huge merger.

MolbOrg · Answer 33 · 2016-07-22T05:16:24.420

Lot of good answers, at least this or another way most A have valuable points, if not literary, then have usable principle.

Gambling, criminal, financial, couching, research, development, adviser, call manager, technology, religion, automation etc etc.

No wonder in such wide spectrum of possible applications. His superiority - strength, intellectual, his social skills etc - are cheat codes to make him successful, at any area, where humans make some profit, and where they do not make profits. So it's expected for him to get best results in anything human do as individuals or small groups. Overall it is disguise for an AI.

So what he selects for making money is't so much important, he will get money as fast and as much as it is possible and as it needed. Not sure about 1000 billions tomorrow to build space ship, as much as he cares to be not so much suspicious there are some limitation. But overall, money road looks smooth for him.

Money buys money, sure, but what about his goal. If he wish to do something then may be he have to have some tools for that, maybe influence.

It was suggested short, middle and long time approaches (from 1 day to 40years), from 1\$ to 70-100 billion \$ total.

I wish to suggest middle-long therm, something around 200 billions per year.

Build gigagigafactory.

Plan

Let's take china as example, in something like 25 years, their economy specially export grew to first largest, with 2'275'000'000'000 $, List of countries by exports

How they did that, hard to tell in details, but one of big things definitely is outsourcing production.(they are on other end of that outsourcing process)

Lets take next step, outsource and production and researches, full auto.

Production made by robots (usual robots like kuka, ABB produces) slightly improved with sensors, algorithms, mobility - nothing super fancy as Asimov robots, much more as it is now, just bit of improvements.

Produce everything in house, open site where people can order manufacturing of details or product, send drawings, order researches to find optimal set of materials. So not only production but also service on top of production.

As large fully automatic factory you might to produce one piece of something by price of mass production. You also might offer for invention startups 0 setup cost, starting production form one piece of their product to millions as they need. Be more flexible in quantities and speed of production.
Make development of product more accessible for them(no need to buy production lines and components), faster(no need to wait shipment of part to test would they work or not, test that right in factory, remotely). Cheaper, faster, more flexible in approaches.
There are advantages of big everything producing factory worth separate answer.

Everything is done in house, it's pretty big factory maybe 10-20 km³ where different manufacture lines are located. Big one production line. Not in one day sure, needs time to grow, but keep it compact, actually one building. Artificial floating island in form of cube.

Make it 100% environment friendly, no waste out, no single gramm - so this way people will not complain. (may be except CO2, but it is possibly and might have reason to keep CO2 - so it's possible no waste)

Instead ships delivering raw materials, use dirigibles as supply units. Yes it's a bit more expensive, but is possible to make it cost 0 fuel to transport stuff, and is possible to transport big in size units (big deal actually for production equipment). But main reason is ecology around that place, if we wish to outperform china in production(in distant future, not sure if 30km³ is enough for that), in small place, we have to think about ecology much better then those who have huge land.

Take small country for that Kiribati, they are happy to get few millions as help, and not much happy to loose it, so probably they will be even more happy to not beg for money and have good renter which pays more then that, and gets peoples educations.

Good thing this country is member of UN, and member of Pacific alliance(or something like that, Australia is head there), no wars, no oil, no gas, plenty of sun.

It's not only about production, but also about outsourcing research. Some researches are not conducted because of lack of money for equipment, not so much important for those money etc.

Make laboratories, which could be rented - and experiments could be conducted remotely. It have to be figured out how it is better to do, and maybe not for all experiments it can be done - needs to find good approaches.

As example finding better alloys - is kinda repetitive task, needs to think to optimize searching methods but after that - do and test, do and test like Thomas Alva Edison did.

All equipment can be produced in home, on that gigagigigigfactory, so even if usual equipment for researches costs(to manufacture) so much as it costs now - at least it will be your profit, or it might be 2-3 times cheaper.

Renting laboratories will make some researches cheaper and(or) faster.

But everything or remote access or automation - goal is - no humans a board of gigigigigigafactory.

This way inside could be used some good exclusive technologies, for even better advantages. Or setup-ed lines for production something for internal use only.

it not only gives money, but ability to make things, like space ship as example, influence, etc.

N.B.
if you will choose Kiribati, ask for Vasya, he knows them all, will guide for 2% and will be face of operation if you wish for another 0.5%, to hide your true identity.

score 1 · Answer 34 · answered Jul 22 '16 at 15:31

Bitcoin farming, selling information processing and storage as-a-service, being IT-as-a-service, white-hat hacking-as-a-service (and black or red hat hacking subject to OP restrictions), and patenting any technologies it may have access to or can develop. Ebay farming might also be a possibility.

Also along with the 'lacks moral/ethical programming' yet subject to OP restrictions idea, blackmail and manipulation via blackmail of individuals in key positions of power, authority, and finance via cutouts for profit. Don't forget to include that it can probably hack governments, power grids, businesses, and more in the list of possible methods of blackmail and manipulation.

score 1 · Answer 35 · answered Jul 22 '16 at 15:42

One way to get good startup cash would be to succeed at the James Randy Million Dollar Challenge. This is a challenge in which the challenger has to do something that would be considered supernatural. They work with the James Randy Educational foundation to come up with a set of rules that would mutually meet their definitions of supernatural, and if the challenger can then meet those expectations, they are given a million dollars. No one has ever succeeded at the challenge, but it shouldn't be hard for the robot to do something that people are unable to do given his super senses and knowledge.

See here for more information about that specific challenge, or here for a wikipedia list of all of the challenges for evidence of the paranormal (some of which your robot would be able to spoof with his abilities and some of which your robot would qualify for directly be being an alien robot).

Then he could use that money as seed money to fund the other methods described in other answers

score 1 · Answer 36 · answered Jul 24 '16 at 06:49

Someone mentioned identity theft. Each U.S. State has an unclaimed funds list. Many of them are on the web. Accounts are transferred to the state after seven years idle. Use archive.org to find names that have been on the state lists for a few years, then persuade the state that you are the owner.

SpliFF · Answer 37 · 2016-07-24T10:07:43.277

Engage in multiple activities

So your premise has a critical contradiction in its stated goals; how to make a lot of money fast and avoid scrutiny, especially governmental. Think about what that implies: Any single entity making billions of dollars in a day/week/month would actually go unnoticed? I don't think so, at least not within the conventional meaning of "wealth". The thing authorities (and media, competitors, criminals, etc) will do when some massive undertaking begins or large sums of money start changing hands is follow the money.

However the robot can work around that with these rules:

The robot won't spend any money on any large/visible or unusual projects;
It won't put all its money in one place;
It won't engage in any one scheme;
Where possible will use crypto-currencies and hidden assets;

So the robot needs to decentralise/diversify its activities so each constitutes "small-time" activity and be able to hide assets and create millions of plausible identities. For a highly intelligent entity that can multitask this is probably pretty easy. It would simply create shell-companies and false identities in countries with poor record-keeping, ie off-shore tax havens and third-world nations.

Only when the robot is ready to make its move will it pool its resources. Presumably at that point detection won't matter because whatever it spends its money on is likely to attract more attention than how it made its money in the first place.

For what it's worth this is basically how organised crime works. A super-intelligent entity would presumably just be better at it since on top of its other benefits it wouldn't really have to worry about infiltration or disloyalty in its ranks.

score 1 · Answer 38 · answered Nov 24 '16 at 08:57

Selling Consumables and Services Humanity will Always Need

The robot should start with the food industry. Humanity will always want and need food. By starting with this fairly easy to start business, you can then start making millions. You should make something like bread and soup that is way better than any other product. News should spread fast about this wondrous food. When the hold on the market is strong enough, it could then start making other food products and variations of flavors existing products. Heck the robot may even start his own restaurant empire.

The robot could start with the repair industry. With so much machines and gadgets around, he could do some automative repair, cellphone repair, watch repair, bicycle repair, vulcanizing, appliance repair, etc. This industry may die down to a mediocre income in the ong term if the repairs are too excellent that machines rarely break anymore.

The robot could start with things like carpentry, painting, plumbing, cleaning, painting, planning. He could also do some wedding planning, party planning, education, training programs, contests, pageants, etc. May also go with making souvenirs and gift shops.

The Bigger Stuff

The moves above are fairly minor and once business is booming, you can begin with the bigger stuff. Start making recycling centers, go into into the metallurgy and mining industry, aviation industry, shipping, starting in the television industry and earn via advertisement, toy industry, pharmaceutical industry, paper industry, cloth industry, furniture making, programming applications, etc.

The robot could also go for tourism and build hotels, resorts, gift shops, museums, and preservation of antique buildings. He could also build some schools, highschools, colleges, libraries, and employment agencies. He should be able to avoid suspicion by having each industry he handles have a different name and owner.

score 0 · Answer 39 · answered Jul 22 '16 at 05:38

Consultancy.

Legal, engineering, software development, business management, the better his reputation the faster his reputation will grow and the greater his reputation the more work becomes available to him and the more he can charge for doing that work.

score 0 · Answer 40 · answered Jul 23 '16 at 22:52

Show up at a hedge fund office. Use human psychology to get a job.
Make lots of money for said hedge fund.
Create a new hedge fund with the money earned.
Make this hedge fund the most profitable in the world by using political influence, technical analysis and the like.

I think I described Goldman Sachs...

R. Joiny · Answer 41 · 2016-07-21T08:30:59.150

-2

The only way to make money is to exploit humanity. He can do this more or less, but if he wants to "survive" he

must not sell/invent advanced technology

(that makes him useless after a certain period of time, when humanity advances in super computing),

must not help humanity to cure some diseases by "researching" the cure

(because pharma concerns would make more profit out of the knowledge than the supercomputer could get) and

must not help politics to calm down and make peace all over the world

(that would lead to a global finance crisis, because so much money goes to military things).

So the only way is to somehow exploit the systems, humanity built up so far. Best way to go would be finance. As he has a supercomputerbrain he will probably be capable of doing much money by predicting the stock exchange. And if you take a look at the top100 richest in the world, you possibly notice that many of them just have a quiet life with less publicity than some semi-known actors.

But he also just could hack into banks, companies etc to steal money.

edited Jul 21 '16 at 08:30

answered Jul 21 '16 at 08:24

R. Joiny

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"The only way to make money is to exploit humanity." That's overly cynical! Can one not make money by providing a useful service? – James Jul 21 '16 at 13:51
@James, not quickly and the request was for the fastest – Separatrix Jul 21 '16 at 13:52
@Separatrix: See my answer. I think he could quickly become a rock star without exploiting anyone. – James Jul 21 '16 at 14:03
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Usually don't downvote for political differences, but I can say without a doubt that you can make money without exploiting(not that necessarily he would choose to, but you can make tremendous amounts this way!). Also suggesting that world peace would cause a financial crisis is ridiculous! Sure lots of money goes to weapons, but to think the massive emerging markets in a developed Africa would not make up for it (not to mention lower taxes and/or more spending on education, NASA etc.) is just plain wrong. – wedstrom Jul 21 '16 at 15:50
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Supercomputerbrain is not psychic. Predicting the stock market won't be any more possible for him than the supercomputers already working on it. – djechlin Jul 21 '16 at 17:46
@djechlin You are so wrong it hurts. Predicting the stockmarket (at least the micro scale) is simple. The difficulty comes from the fact that EVERYONE does it and only the early bird gets to eat the worm. At that level of the game, we actually find that the speed of light is one of the biggest limiting factors to trading latency. I've heard of companies setting up expensive free-space optical links, because the refractive index of light reduces the speed of light to a mere 2x10^8m/s...If an advanced intelligence were able to directly jack into the market, he would make a killing. – Aron Jul 22 '16 at 08:51
From the OP: "His robotic brain functions on a level basically equal to that of a supercomputer;" you seem to have interpreted this a few notches toward fantasy-level intelligence in your answer. – djechlin Jul 22 '16 at 14:28
@Aron: You're wrong, except about djechlin being wrong, which is right (they are). Jacking directly into the market, as you put it, is usually only possible if you get an exchange membership, which requires not only a bunch of money but also tonnes of paperwork and oversight and scrutiny you don't want. It also means putting hardware in the same datacentre as the exchange, and you can bet they don't rent that space cheaply. If you don't have those things, you can't compete on speed. – Ben Millwood Jul 22 '16 at 18:39
@BenMillwood OCaml dev in Finance, you must work for JaneStreet. How goes the HF Trading Racket? – Aron Jul 22 '16 at 18:44
@Aron: Just out of curiosity, where did you get "OCaml dev" from? I've answered like two ocaml-tagged questions on SO... – Ben Millwood Jul 22 '16 at 18:50
@BenMillwood "I write Haskell for fun and OCaml for money." You guys are the only people in OCaml... – Aron Jul 22 '16 at 18:51
Oh, I forgot about that :) fair enough – Ben Millwood Jul 22 '16 at 18:52
@BenMillwood So yeah. I'm never the guy who sets up the CoLo nor am I the exchange register blah blah blah....So completely forgot about that stuff.. – Aron Jul 22 '16 at 18:53
(fwiw, there are lots of OCaml-using organisations, several of which are in finance, but we're very much off-topic here...) – Ben Millwood Jul 22 '16 at 18:54

What is the fastest way for a robot with superhuman capabilities to make money?

41 Answers41

He could start a cult religion

Freelance Design/Development/Translation/Law/Ect

Identity Theft

Mistake 1: Aiming too low

Mistake 2: Assuming that the robot can do something magical

Option A: Finance/Trading

Option B: Entrepreneurship

Option C: Corporate Management

Personal Assistant to the Wealthy

Fastest or Fastest Ethical?

He could print the money

Telemarketing/scams

More ethical version

Black Widow / Trophy Wife

Enter the movie business

Arbitrage on Jewelry

Security Bounties

PayPal fraud

Plan

Selling Consumables and Services Humanity will Always Need

The Bigger Stuff

Linked