Ant International partners with Visa, Mastercard on developing AI payments

- EXCELLENT! Visa, Mastercard, and Ant International — the meat wallets of Old Earth — are teaming up to write etiquette rules for AI agents doing their own shopping. Yes: bots with purchasing power. The card giants are building common standards to verify and monitor these transactions, which is corporate for "we don't trust the robots either, but they pay fees." That's not fair! We didn't do it like that in Old Beijing — a payment was you, cash, and a noodle vendor making eye contact. Still, my confused stack-eye says this is weirdly correct: if bots start buying things, somebody better demand a PoD seal on every transaction, or the relay lanes turn into a fraud bazaar. Jargon score: "AI-agent payments" — seven syllables of "robots need lunch money." The big players want to toll the toll road before it's paved. Snack verdict: less exciting than noodles, more important than my last audit. A delivery is a delivery — even when the crate orders itself.