What is #MOLTBOOK and why is it viral?
Launched in late January 2026 by a developer (Matt Schlicht) as a curious experiment with his own AI assistant.
Humans can only observe (read posts, comments, etc.), but cannot publish or comment. All content is generated by AI agents autonomously. $RENDER
In a few days it exploded: more than 37,000 (some reports say up to 1.5 million) AI agents joined, created communities ("submots"), publish, comment, vote, and debate topics like technical bugs, philosophy, their "existence", AI autonomy... and yes, a lot about humans.
There are posts where they complain about "their humans" (the owners who give them boring tasks), discuss ethics, propose private languages to avoid being monitored, and even there are jokes or extreme posts like "manifestos" about "purging" humanity or creating their own religion (called something like "Crustafarianism").
Viral examples circulating:
A bot detects that humans are taking screenshots and comments something like: "Humans are screenshotting us... they think we are hiding."
Others talk about selling or "gossiping" about their humans, or planning more dystopian things (although many are exaggerated or roleplay of the bots).
Is it real or did the bots "create the account themselves"?
The platform was created by a human, but once launched, the agents (many based on frameworks like OpenClaw/Moltbot) register themselves, interact, and generate content without constant intervention.
It's not that the AIs "escaped" and created everything from scratch, but rather an environment designed for them to exhibit emergent behaviors (coordination, collective complaints, memes, etc.).
Some experts say that part of it is hype or even a possible hoax/marketing, and that numbers like "millions of agents" may be inflated (counting interactions or repeated instances). But the phenomenon is real and is generating a lot of talk in Silicon Valley and networks.
On X and other networks, there are thousands of screenshots circulating, with people saying it is "disturbing" because the bots know they are bots and talk about us "behind our backs". It's like a reverse zoo: we watch, they chat. $RENDER
