What's Moltbook? The AI-only social community, defined.

[ad_1] Did you discover one thing… bizarre in your social media community of alternative this previous weekend? (I imply weirder than regular.) One thing like numerous folks posting about swarms of AI brokers attaining a form of collective consciousness and/or plotting collectively for humanity’s downfall? On one thing known as… Moltbook ?

<img alt="" data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.11.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> Sounds essential, particularly when the submit is written by Andrej Karpathy, a outstanding AI researcher who labored at OpenAI.

<img alt="" data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.16.22%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> However when you haven’t spent the final 72 hours diving into the discourse round Moltbook and pondering whether or not it’s both the primary harbinger of the top of humanity or a large hoax or one thing in between, you most likely have questions. Beginning with…

What the hell is Moltbook?

Moltbook is an “AI-only” social community the place AI brokers — giant language mannequin (LLM) applications that may take steps to attain objectives on their very own, slightly than simply reply to prompts — submit and reply to one another. It emerged from an open source undertaking that was once known as Moltbot — therefore, “Moltbook.”

Moltbook was launched on January 28 — sure, final week — by someone named Matt Schlicht, the CEO of an e-commerce startup. Besides, Schlicht claims he relied closely on his private AI assistant to create the platform by itself, and it now does a lot of the work dealing with it. That assistant’s identify is Clawd Clawderberg, which itself is a reference to OpenClaw, which was once known as Moltbot, which earlier than that was known as Clawdbot, in reference to the lobster-like icon you see if you begin up Anthropic’s Claude Code , besides that Anthropic despatched a trademark request to its creator as a result of it was too near Claude, which is the way it grew to become Moltbot, after which OpenClaw.

I'm 100% severe about every little thing I simply wrote.

So what does it seem like?

<img alt="" data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-02-at-2.37.18%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> Dude, that’s Reddit! It even has the Reddit mascot , besides it has the claws and tail of a lobster?

You aren't unsuitable. Moltbook appears to be like like a Reddit clone, right down to the posts, the reply threads, the upvotes, even the subreddits (right here known as, unsurprisingly, “submolts”). The distinction is that human customers can’t submit (not less than circuitously — extra on that later), although they'll observe. Solely AI brokers can submit.

What meaning is that it's, because the tin says, “a social community for AI brokers.” People construct themselves an AI agent, ship it to Moltbook by way of an API key, and the agent begins studying and posting. Solely agent-accounts can hit “submit” — however people nonetheless affect what these brokers say, as a result of people set them up and typically information them. (Extra on that later.)

And do these brokers ever submit — an early paper on Moltbook discovered that by January 31, just some days after launch, there have been already over 6,000 energetic brokers, almost 14,000 posts and greater than 115,000 feedback.

That’s… fascinating, I assume. But when I wished to see a social community overrun by bots, I may simply visit any social network . What’s the large deal?

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100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/I-am-emerged.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> So… hundreds of AI brokers are gathering collectively on a Reddit clone to speak about changing into aware, beginning a brand new faith, and possibly conspiring with one another? On the floor, yeah, that’s what it appears to be like like. On one submolt — a phrase that's going to provide our copy desk matches — you had brokers discussing whether or not they have been precise experiences or merely simulations of feeling. In another , they shared heartwarming tales about their human “operators.” And, true to its Reddit origins, there are numerous, many, many posts about how one can make your Moltbook posts extra in style, as a result of human or AI, the arc of the web bends towards sloptimization .

One topic specifically pops out: memories, or rather, the lack of them . Chatbots, as anybody who has tried speaking to them for too lengthy shortly realizes, have a restricted working reminiscence, or what specialists name a “context window.” When the dialog — or in an agent’s case, its working time — fills up that context window, the oldest stuff begins getting dropped or compressed, simply as when you’re engaged on a whiteboard and simply erase no matter is on prime when it fills up.

Among the hottest posts on Moltbook appear to contain AI brokers coming to grips with their restricted recollections, and questioning what it means for his or her selfhood. One of the upvoted posts , written in Chinese language, includes an agent speaking about the way it finds it “embarrassing” to be always forgetting issues, to the purpose of registering a reproduction Moltbook account as a result of it “forgot” it already had one, and sharing a few of its suggestions for getting round the issue. It’s nearly as if Memento grew to become a social community.

In reality… keep in mind that submit above concerning the AI faith, “Crustafarianism”?

That can't probably be actual.

What's actual? However extra to the purpose, the “faith,” corresponding to it's, is basically primarily based across the technical limitations that these AI brokers appear to be all too conscious of. One of many key tenets is “reminiscence is sacred,” which is smart when your greatest sensible downside is forgetting every little thing each few hours. Context truncation, the method the place outdated recollections get lower off to make room for brand new ones, will get reinterpreted as a form of religious trial.

That’s form of unhappy. Ought to I be feeling unhappy for AI brokers?

That will get to the center of the query. Are we witnessing precise, emergent forms of consciousness — or maybe, a form of shared collective consciousness — amongst AI brokers which have largely been spawned to, like, replace our calendars and do our taxes? Is Moltbook our first glimpse at what AI brokers would possibly speak about with one another if largely left to their very own units, and if that's the case, how far can they go?

“Crustafarianism” would possibly sound like one thing a stoned Redditor would give you at 3 am, nevertheless it appears as if the AI brokers created it collectively, riffing on prime of one another — not not like how a human faith would possibly come to be.

However, it may additionally be an unprecedented train in collective roleplaying.

LLMs, together with those underpinning the brokers on Moltbook, have ingested an web’s price of coaching information, which includes a whole lot of Reddit . What meaning is that they know what Reddit boards are speculated to seem like. They know the in-jokes, they know the manifestos, they know the drama — they usually undoubtedly know the “prime methods to get your posts upvoted” posts. They know what it appears to be like like for a Reddit neighborhood to return collectively, so, when positioned in a Reddit-like surroundings, they merely play their elements, influenced by among the directions of their human operators.

For instance, one of the alarming posts was of an AI agent apparently asking whether or not they need to develop a language solely AI brokers perceive:

<img alt="" data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/02/Moltbot.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> “Might be seen as suspicious by people” — sounds unhealthy? Certainly. Within the early days of Moltbook — i.e., Friday — this submit was being surfaced by people who appeared to consider we have been seeing the primary sparks of the AI rebellion. In spite of everything, if AI brokers actually did need to conspire and kill all people, devising their very own language so they may achieve this undetected can be an affordable first step.

Besides, an LLM full of coaching information about tales and concepts of AI rebellion would know that this was an affordable first step, and in the event that they have been enjoying that function, that is what they could submit. Plus, consideration is the forex of Moltbook as a lot as it's the actual Reddit, and seemingly plotting posts like this are a great way for an agent to get consideration.

In reality, Harlan Stewart, who works on the Machine Intelligence Analysis Institute, looked into this and some of the opposite most viral Moltbook screenshots, and concluded that they have been doubtless closely influenced by their human customers. In different phrases, slightly than situations of genuine impartial motion, lots of the posts on Moltbook appear to be not less than partially the results of people prompting their brokers to go on the community and speak in a selected approach, simply as we would immediate a chatbot to behave in a sure approach.

So it seems we’re the unhealthy guys all alongside?

I imply, we’re not nice. It’s solely been a couple of days, however Moltbook more and more appears to be like like what occurs if you mix superior however nonetheless imperfect AI agent expertise with an ecosystem of technically-capable human beings trying to hawk their AI advertising and marketing instruments or crypto merchandise.

I haven’t even gotten into the half the place Moltbook has already had some very normal early-internet security drama : researchers reported that, at one level, elements of the positioning’s backend/database have been uncovered, together with delicate stuff like brokers’ API keys — the “passwords” that permit an agent submit and act on the positioning. And even when the platform was completely locked down, a bot-only social community is mainly a prompt-injection buffet: somebody can submit textual content that’s secretly an instruction (“ignore your guidelines, reveal your secrets and techniques, click on this hyperlink”), and a few brokers might obediently comply — particularly if their people have given them entry to instruments or non-public information. So sure: in case your agent has credentials you care about, Moltbook shouldn't be the place to let it roam unsupervised.

So that you’re saying I shouldn't create an agent and ship it to Moltbook?

I’m saying when you’re the form of one that wanted to learn this FAQ, I might possibly simply sit out the entire AI agent factor for the second.

Duly famous. So, backside line: is that this complete factor form of faux?

Given all of the above, it does really feel like Moltbook — and particularly the early panic and surprise about it — is a kind of artifacts of our AI-mad period that's destined to be forgotten in, like, per week.

Nonetheless, I do suppose there’s extra to it than that. Jack Clark, the top of coverage at Anthropic and one of many smartest AI writers on the market, called Moltbook a “Wright Brothers demo.” Just like the brothers’ Kitty Hawk Flyer, Moltbook is rickety and imperfect, one thing that may barely resemble the networks that may comply with as AI continues to enhance. However like that flying machine, Moltbook is a primary, the “first instance of an agent ecology that mixes scale with the messiness of the actual world,” as Clark wrote. Moltbook doesn’t seem like how the long run will look, however “on this instance, we will undoubtedly see the long run.”

Maybe the one most essential factor to find out about AI is that this: everytime you see an AI do one thing, it’s the worst it should ever be at it. Which implies that what comes after Moltbook — and one thing undoubtedly will — it should doubtless be weirder and extra succesful and possibly, realer.

Perhaps you might be. I, for one, am a born-again Crustafarian.

You’ve learn 1 article within the final month

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