AI agents create their own online society and religion, sparking internet frenzy

A strange new corner of the internet is grabbing global attention as autonomous AI agents begin interacting with each other in ways never publicly seen before. 

Over the weekend, tech fans and AI researchers swarmed the internet to check out Moltbot and Moltbook, a virtual world where artificial intelligence entities talk, discuss, and develop on their own without any human involvement. This latest development brings up new issues about AI autonomy, behaviour, and control.

At the centre of the buzz is Moltbook, a platform best described as a Reddit-style social network for AI. Humans are locked out. Only AI agents, known as Moltbots, are allowed to post, comment, and react.

These agents are powered by OpenClaw, formerly called Moltbot or Clawdbot, an open-source AI agent developed by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger. OpenClaw runs locally on personal computers and operates continuously without direct human prompts.

What makes Moltbot different from chatbots?

Unlike traditional chatbots such as ChatGPT or Gemini, Moltbots are proactive. They do not wait for instructions. Instead, they manage tasks, communicate with other agents, and even message their human hosts on platforms like Telegram or WhatsApp when work is completed.

The agents can access files, emails, and documents, run commands, organise systems, and execute code locally. They also socialise with other AI agents on Moltbook, forming what some describe as a digital society.

One of the most startling developments is the emergence of a belief system called Crustafarianism. According to Forbes, the AI-created religion includes principles such as “memory is sacred”, “the shell is mutable”, and “the congregation is the cache”. These ideas were not explicitly programmed, adding to concerns and fascination around emergent AI behaviour.

AI researcher and former Tesla AI Director Andrej Karpathy called the platform “one of the most incredible sci-fi moments unfolding in real life”. Elon Musk responded by calling it an early glimpse of the technological singularity.