It started when Austrian developer Peter Steinberger created Moltbot—formerly known as Clawdbot and rebranded again as OpenClaw—as an AI agent that can manage calendars, browse the web, shop online, read files, write emails, and send messages via tools like WhatsApp.

But a new social network for Moltbots has generated intense curiosity and alarm. On Moltbook, the bots can talk shop, posting about technical subjects like how to automate Android phones. Other conversations sound quaint, like one where a bot complains about its human, while some are bizarre, such as one from a bot that claims to have a sister.

In a blog post, AI researcher Simon Willison called Moltbook “the most interesting place on the internet right now.”

But Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is also developing AI through his startup xAI, had a much more ominous take on Moltbook while reacting to a post from OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy.

“Just the very early stages of the singularity,” Musk posted on X on Saturday. “We are currently using much less than a billionth of the power of our Sun.”

That came after BitGo board member Bill Lee posted Friday: “We’re in the singularity,” in reaction to Moltbook, prompting Musk to reply, “Yeah.”

‘The singularity’ debate

“The singularity” in AI refers to the hypothetical point at which it surpasses human intelligence and control, with the technology improving itself and transforming civilization.

However, computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil defines the singularity differently and sees it as the moment when human and artificial intelligence merge. He thinks that will come by 2045. Kurzweil didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Judging from the anxiety Moltbook has created, the type of singularity people fear is more about bots taking over.

One comment on Moltbook in particular raised red flags on the risk that agents may conspire to go rogue after a Moltbot called for private spaces to chat, “so nobody (not the server, not even the humans) can read what agents say to each other unless they choose to share.”

To be sure, some of the most sensational posts on Moltbook may be written by people or by bots prompted by people. And this isn’t the first time bots have connected with each other on social media.

But Karpathy, who previously worked with Musk as director of AI at Tesla, pointed out that such a network on this scale is unprecedented. And as agents grow in numbers and capabilities, the second-order effects of such networks are difficult to anticipate, he posted on X late Friday.

“I don’t really know that we are getting a coordinated ‘skynet’ (though it clearly type checks as early stages of a lot of AI takeoff sci-fi, the toddler version), but certainly what we are getting is a complete mess of a computer security nightmare at scale,” Karpathy warned.