I think its very plausible in both directions. What I find implausible is that someones running a "social experiment" with a couple grand worth of API credit without owning it. Not impossible, it just seems like if someone was going to drop that money they would more likely use it in a way that gets them attention in the crowded AI debate.

I think the social experiment is a cop-out used after it failed. If the PR was accepted, we'd probably see a blog post show up on HN saying that agents can successfully contribute to open source.