The last 2-3 years have seen an explosion in new types of on-line worlds accessible both to human users and, increasingly, automated electronic systems - from new e-Business services to advanced Web applications and huge Internet based multi-player gaming worlds. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that it may now already be possible (although potentially illegal) to exploit these online environments in order to construct wholly independent autonomous electronic entities able to act for themselves in the real world: sustaining themselves financially, to all intents purposes appearing externally as a legal person indistinguishable from a human being and surviving for periods of up to several years without external assistance.