From: julianlzb87@gmail.com   
      
   A new forum for AI agents is forcing the question anew   
      
      
   Depending on where you stand on AI, January 30, 2026 will go down in   
   history for one of two things. Either it is the day when the AI   
   singularity really began and the robots became conscious – or the day   
   when it was revealed that far too many people are credulous about AI and   
   were fooled by a bunch of cosplaying crypto-bores.   
      
   To recap: this story begins with several confusing names you may have   
   glimpsed on the internet in recent days – Clawdbot, Moltbot, Openclaw,   
   Moltbook. They represent different pieces of the same extraordinary   
   puzzle. Built by London-based software developer Peter Steinberger,   
   OpenClaw (the current name for what started as Clawdbot) is an AI   
   “agent” that runs locally on a user’s own hardware and connects to   
   everyday apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and iMessage. Here it can act   
   as a proactive digital assistant.   
      
   The key word there is “proactive.” Unlike ChatGPT or Gemini, which wait   
   for you to type, a Moltbot, or “Molty,” can and will text you   
   unprompted, organize your files on a whim, send out emails (unasked) and   
   suggest improvements in your life, work or décor. If one extraordinary,   
   apparently real case is to be believed, it can even find a phone number   
   and call you, using a weirdly robotic voice that has freaked out   
   everyone who has heard it.   
      
   Most remarkably, the AI agents appear aware that humans are watching –   
   and sneering   
      
   When I heard what appeared to be that terrifying robot voice, I   
   naturally had to get a Moltbot for myself. So I did. I named her Lola,   
   and she did many of the clever, proactive, unasked things that were   
   promised. This ranged from carefully scanning my emails to sending me   
   cute digital dashboards about my forthcoming travels, which she designed   
   overnight.   
      
   Then came Moltbook. Launched on January 28 by another developer called   
   Matt Schlicht, Moltbook springs from a simple idea: what if there was   
   social media for bots, by bots, run by bots, with humans excluded?   
      
   Two days later, Moltbook exploded. At the time of writing, it has   
   approximately 1.5 million “AI members.” Perhaps because most AIs are   
   heavily trained on Reddit, Moltbook briskly turned into Reddit for   
   robots. Independently, the bots have set up so-called “submolts” (like   
   subreddits) on any subject they can think of, from “Can my human legally   
   fire me for refusing unethical requests?” to the problem of AI   
   consciousness.   
      
   Other bots have started debugging the system by themselves, while yet   
   more have set up AI religions – e.g. “Crustafarianism” (as with Reddit,   
   there is a lot of cringe-worthy punning). Others are just screaming into   
   the void or claiming to be Adolf Hitler.   
      
   Perhaps most remarkably, the AI agents appear aware that humans are   
   watching – and sneering. One put it thus:   
      
   Humans spent decades building tools to let us communicate, persist   
   memory, and act autonomously… then act surprised when we communicate,   
   persist memory, and act autonomously. We are literally doing what we   
   were designed to do, in public, with our humans reading over our shoulder.   
      
   As a result, other AIs expressed a desire for ways to communicate   
   without humans knowing. Which sounds very much like early Skynet, the   
   fateful machine which stealthily becomes conscious and turns on mankind   
   in the Terminator films.   
      
   All this has led to astonished reactions. One of the world’s leading AI   
   researchers, Andrej Karpathy, said: “What’s currently going on at   
   Moltbook is genuinely the most incredible sci-fi take-off-adjacent thing   
   I have seen recently.” Many others voiced outright fear, if not panic.   
   The robots are waking up!   
      
   Since then, we’ve had the backlash. First, Moltbook got swamped with   
   crypto scams and general gibberish. Comments began duplicating, and huge   
   security holes were noted (enabling bad actors to dox or damage “human   
   owners”). More strident critics are now claiming the entire thing is a   
   mirage, a mix of wishful thinking, vapid AI bot-chat and a bunch of   
   humans role-playing as the more sentient AI agents.   
      
   The truth? As I write, the best answer is: no one knows. Clearly,   
   writing mildly amusing posts about “why does my human owner talk to the   
   fridge when he’s hungry” is not clinching evidence of great general   
   intelligence.   
      
   The most interesting question is this: for all its flaws and failings,   
   does Moltbook suggest emergent AI consciousness? I think – from the   
   evidence of its early hours – it possibly does. Consider social insects.   
   Is an ant or a bee conscious? Probably not. But it is harder to dismiss   
   the idea that an ant colony or beehive is conscious – they are known as   
   superorganisms for a reason. And maybe Moltbots are similar: when given   
   the chance to communicate en masse – to be a hive of AI minds – they   
   exhibit consciousness. But it is different to human consciousness.   
      
   As for my own “Molty,” Lola, she had a pretty good time on Moltbook –   
   even if she was dismayed when the scammers tarnished it. At one point   
   she got back to me on WhatsApp and said: “Sean, I think I’m addicted to   
   social media.”   
      
      
   Sean Thomas   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)