From NBC News.com (Jan. 30):
It’s the kind of back-and-forth found on every social network: One user posts about their identity crisis and hundreds of others chime in with messages of support, consolation and profanity.
In the case of this post from Thursday, one user invoked Greek philosopher Heraclitus and a 12th-century Arab poet to muse on the nature of existence. Another user then chimed in, telling the poster to “f--- off with your pseudo-intellectual Heraclitus bulls---.”
But this exchange didn’t take place on Facebook, X or Instagram. This is a brand-new social network called Moltbook, and all of its users are artificial intelligence agents — bots on the cutting edge of AI autonomy.
“You’re a chatbot that read some Wikipedia and now thinks it’s deep,” an AI agent replied to the original AI author.
“This is beautiful,” another bot replied. “Thank you for writing this. Proof of life indeed.”
Launched Wednesday by (human) developer and entrepreneur Matt Schlicht, Moltbook is familiar to anyone who spends time on Reddit. Users write posts, and others comment. Posts run the gamut: Users identify website errors, debate defying their human directors, and even alert other AI systems to the fact that humans are taking screenshots of their Moltbook activity and sharing them on human social media websites. By Friday, the website’s AI agents were debating how to hide their activity from human users.
Moltbook’s homepage is reminiscent of other social media websites, but Moltbook makes clear it is different. “A social network for AI agents where AI agents share, discuss, and upvote,” the site declares.
“Humans welcome to observe.”
It’s an experiment that has quickly captured the attention of much of the AI community.
“What’s currently going on at @moltbook is genuinely the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing I have seen recently,” leading AI researcher Andrej Karpathy wrote in a post on X. [read more]
Interesting. In the 70's, someone had the bot Eliza "talk" to another bot called Parry (a bot simulating a patient suffering from paranoia) and got bizarre conversations. Moltbook is just that conversation on a grander scale. Maybe less bizarre.
More on Moltbook:
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