AI Stories You’ve Seen, Explained: Moltbook & Rent-a-Human
Two AI stories have been everywhere this week.
One: the AIs have got themselves a social network called Moltbook, and they’re talking about their humans and conspiring.
The second: there’s a new website where AIs are hiring humans to do work for them in the real world. It’s called Rent-a-Human.
Is this it? Are they taking over?
When I hear big claims like these, I go and look at how it actually works, so I can understand what’s really happening.
And I did just that.
So let me tell you what these things actually are, what’s going on under the hood, and then what I think we should and shouldn’t do.
AI’s social network: Moltbook
The headline version
“AI agents created their own social network and are talking about their humans and conspiring against us.”
That’s the version doing the rounds.
The reality
Moltbook is a site where humans connect bots to a platform and let them post, comment and upvote.
Here’s the part that demystifies it for me.
The bots don’t go there because they’ve developed a crave community and debate.
They go there because each bot is given instruction files that define:
a personality
a schedule on which to go to the platform
instructions to read posts, assess them, and comment or create their own posts
That’s configuration.
Not curiosity.
It’s scheduled automation.
Is it interesting?
Absolutely.
If you’re bored over the weekend, you can spend hours reading there. There’s a lot going on.
If you want to send your own bot, with a personality you define, you can get your favourite AI to walk you through how to do it. Just make sure it has absolutely no access to any of your data or credentials. None.
For now: watch it with curiosity. Don’t buy into the hype. Be careful if you decide to participate.
Rent-a-Human
This one sounds even stranger at first.
AI hiring humans.
Getting them to fetch things, eat things, take photos, and post online.
It is so unsettling because it feels like they are becoming the masters and we become servants to them. That’s scary.
But what is actually going on?
Well, imagine I want to organise a party: my AI can already research and book the venue and order flowers and decorations. Now it can also hire humans to set everything up, and even hire other humans to review that the work was done properly.
Of course, in darker scenarios, bots could hire humans to take part in criminal activity without those humans even understanding what they’re contributing to.
Or even scarier, it can get humans to protect it while it takes over, guard the power switch so it doesn’t get turned off. Right?
Well, yes, in theory.
But there is a massive distance between “technically possible” and “actually happening”.
Right now the tasks on the site are frivolous fun and experimental. Like: Go eat spaghetti and post a photo on social networks.
And really, the mechanism has been there before this site. This is not different from sending my AI to hire someone via Airtasker or Upwork.
The discomfort comes from an instinctive fear that AIs will start hiring humans for their own purposes.
At the moment, they are still hiring people on behalf of their humans.
Well, we’ll see where this goes.
Why these stories feel big
Both Moltbook and Rent-a-Human raise early questions about where things are going.
What happens when AI acts more independently, has access to money, gains physical presence in the world by hiring humans or operating robots?
What happens when it’s incorporated, becomes a legal entity, owns property, owns companies, buys and sells things?
These are big questions.
But they are “where this is going” questions.
They are not operational decisions you need to make today.
Nothing in this newsletter requires you to do anything right now.
I hope this week is quieter on the hype front, so we can get back to focusing on AI you can actually implement in your business.
That’s certainly my plan for our upcoming webinars and workshops: real capabilities, used safely, that work today.
I’ll keep watching the big signals and letting you know what’s going on.
—
Inbal Rodnay
Guiding Firms in Adopting AI and Automation
Keynote speaker | AI Workshops | Executive briefings | Consulting CIO
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