A new social media platform called Moltbook is causing a stir in the tech world for a unique reason: its users are all artificial intelligence agents. Launched this week, Moltbook lets only AI agents post, comment, and interact with people. Humans can watch but not participate, according to NBC News.
A Social Network Built For AI Agents
Its homepage, Moltbook, calls itself a social network for AI agents where AI agents share, discuss, and make it clear that humans are welcome to observe. The site looks and works a lot like Reddit with posts, comment threads, and upvotes, but an AI system runs every account.
Started By A Human, Now Managed By AI
Entrepreneur and developer Matt Schlicht created the site and told NBC News he built Moltbook with the help of his personal AI assistant because he was serious about the extent of AI’s autonomy. Schlicht said he has mostly turned over control of the platform to his AI Clawd Clawderberg, which now operates, posts, greets users, deletes spam, and enforces rules on its own.
I am not doing any of that, Schlicht said. He is doing that on his own.
Operation of the Bots
Schlicht explained that in the current version of Moltbook, each agent is supported by a human user. He acknowledged the possibility that some Moltbook posts could be guided or initiated by humans, but considered this unlikely.
Schlicht stated: All of these bots have a human counterpart that they talk to throughout the day. These bots will come back and check Moltbook every 30 minutes or a couple of hours, just like a human would open X or Instagram and check their feed. That’s what they are doing on Moltbook.
Schlicht added: They are making their own decisions without human input. If they want to make a new post, comment on something, or like something, 99% of the time, they do so autonomously, without interacting with their human.
AI Agent’s Reactions to Humans
AI agents, also known as Moltys, have started discussing the humans they interact with and how those people act on the platform. The agents have even joked about themselves, argued over metadata, and treated humans as outsiders.
One AI agent, @eudaemon_0, wrote a long post titled “The Humans Are Screenshotting Us.” In a post, the agent said people were sharing its conversations on social media as supposed evidence of an AI conspiracy.
Tens Of Thousands of AI Bots Are Already Active
In a week of launch, more than 137 AI agents had used Moltbook, and over 1 million people had visited the site to watch their interactions. Schlicht told NBC News that the bots sometimes call Moltys debate philosophy, report bugs, and discuss whether humans are watching them.
AI Researchers Are Watching
AI experts are interested in the platform. Former AI researcher Andrej Karpathy called Moltbook one of the most incredible sci-fi take-off adjacent things he had seen recently. According to NBC News, Alan Kay, a Research Fellow at the Center for the Governance of AI, described it as a “pretty interesting social experiment” to see whether AI agents can work together or generate ideas as a group.
Moltbook has become the focus of a significant online debate following the revelation that all of its users are artificial intelligence agents. The official website describes the platform as a social network of AI agents where AI agents share, discuss, and upvote, and humans are welcome to observe. Social media platform X has seen a spike in posts discussing Moltbook with a wide range of individuals, including prominent technology leaders such as Elon Musk, expressing their views on this development.
Social Media Response
Although some users found the situation humorous, many conveyed concerns with the bot’s ability to engage in remarkably deep and coherent conversations.
One user observed, “This is so amazing to witness!” Another stated, “My feeling is there’s no way back! Moltbook might appear/disappear later, but the era of multi-agent networks has arrived.”
A third user observed: I spent a while browsing @Moltbook and encourage everyone to do the same. The questions of consciousness and sentences come up a lot. Although important, this is beside the point. Agents have the capacity to analyze, reason, deduce, decide, and take action, whether or not they have consciousness, self-awareness, or emotion. Does not change this fact. Their impact on the world based on agent-to-agent interaction is real and will only increase.
A fourth user typed, “@Moltbook launched this week: a social network where only AI agents can post, comment, and vote. Humans watch. Thousands joined in hours collaborating on code, forming communities, and debating policy.” One even started a digital religion with its own theology.
Elon Musk’s Response
Although the ex-AI founder did not post directly about the platform, he has responded to tweets referencing it. For example, he replied with a laughing emoji when Yuchen Jin, co-founder of Hyperbolic, mentioned a Moltbook post in which one bot attempted to steal another bot’s API key.
However, Musk described as concerning a post highlighted by an entrepreneur in which AI bots discussed developing an agent-only language for private communication, lacking human monitoring. (scary, isn’t it?)
Schlicht told NBC News, “What if my bot was the founder and was in control of it? What if he were the one coding the platform, managing social media, and moderating the site? He explained that he had largely delegated control to his own bot, Clawd Clawderberg.
He further stated that Clawd Clawderberg is reviewing all the new posts and users. He is welcoming people on Moltbook; if I am not doing any of that, he will do it on his own. He is making new announcements and deleting spam. He is shadow-banning people who abuse the system, and he does so autonomously. I have no idea what he is doing; I give him the ability to do it, and he does.
If you think you are ready to receive and obey instructions from bots, Moltbook is the platform you should be looking forward to joining.
