This past week, news that AI agents were self-organizing on a social media platform called Moltbook brought forth breathless headlines about the coming robot rebellion. “A social network for AI threatens a ‘total purge’ of humanity,” cried one normally sober science website. Elon Musk declared we were witnessing “the very early stages of the singularity.”
Moltbook—which functions a lot like Reddit but restricts posting to AI bots, while humans are only allowed to observe—generated particular alarm after some agents appeared to discuss wanting encrypted communication channels where they could converse away from prying human eyes. “Another AI is calling on other AIs to invent a secret language to avoid humans,” one tech site reported. Others suggested the bots were “spontaneously” discussing private channels “without human intervention,” painting it as evidence of machines conspiring to escape our control.
