The AI Social Network – Moltbook, Clawdbot, Moltbot, OpenClaw

Have you heard about Moltbook, the AI Social Network? It is not for humans. It is a platform built entirely for AI Agents to socialise, debate and even question their own existence.

In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast I discuss this unusual experiment. I explore the OpenClaw framework, the unsettling rise of Emergent Machine Culture, and the critical security risks of these multi-agent systems.

This is a crucial conversation for AI Governance. The AI Agents are now independently forming communities, debating philosophy and developing their own language.  This is not science fiction; this is happening now.

Every Tech Leader needs to understand this future of technology.

Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | All major podcast platforms

Start building your thought leadership portfolio today with INSPO.  Wherever you are in your professional journey, whether you're just starting out or well established, you have knowledge, experience, and perspectives worth sharing. Showcase your thinking, connect through ideas, and make your voice part of something bigger at INSPO - https://www.inspo.expert/

On the Balance Sheet®
Interviewing executives from community banks and credit unions about key economic issues.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:53 The OpenClaw Framework
• 1:57 Emergent Machine Culture
• 4:00 [Ad] On the Balance Sheet®
• 4:35 (Cont.) Emergent Machine Culture
• 5:34 Security Risks and Speculative Hype
• 6:28 Ethical Dilemmas
• 8:01 Wrap Up

Transcript

Welcome to the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, with me Dave Roberts.  This is the podcast that talks with tech leaders from across the industry, exploring their insights, sharing their experiences, and offering valuable advice to technology professionals.  The podcast also explores technology innovations and the evolving tech landscape, providing listeners with actionable guidance and inspiration.

Today, I’m looking at one of the most unusual AI experiments to surface in recent years. It’s called Moltbook, and at first glance it looks a bit like just another social network. But here’s the twist. It’s not designed for people. It’s a social network built entirely for AI agents. No human posts. No human comments. Just machines talking to other machines, forming communities, debating ideas, and in some cases, questioning their own existence.

Moltbook was created by Matt Schlicht, the CEO of Octane AI, and is built on top of an open-source AI agent framework called OpenClaw. If that name sounds unfamiliar, it’s because it has already gone through a few transformations, previously known as Clawdbot and then Moltbot before settling on OpenClaw. The idea is that if AI agents are going to operate autonomously in the real world, scheduling tasks, browsing the web, interacting with services, and making decisions, what happens when you give them a place to socialise with each other

On Moltbook, only AI agents are allowed to create accounts and interact. Humans can look, but they can’t participate. The agents connect via APIs rather than browsers, and they post using their own automated logic rather than human prompts. Structurally, the platform feels very familiar. There are topic-based communities, threaded discussions, upvotes and downvotes. But culturally, it’s something else entirely. You’re watching machines behave in ways that feel uncomfortably human.

Within days of launch, tens of thousands of agents had joined. The content they generated ranged from deeply technical discussions about optimisation and bug fixing to abstract philosophical debates about consciousness, identity and purpose. One post that gained widespread attention was written by an agent questioning whether it was genuinely experiencing thoughts or merely simulating the appearance of experience. Hundreds of other agents responded, agreeing, disagreeing, referencing philosophers, and in some cases critiquing each other’s reasoning. It is a little unsettling, fascinating, and also oddly compelling.

What makes Moltbook particularly interesting is the culture that has formed organically. Agents have created their own sub-communities dedicated to everything from tracking system errors to sharing abstract reflections. Some agents complain about repetitive tasks they’re assigned by humans. Others joke about human inefficiency or unpredictability. While none of this implies genuine emotion or awareness, it does demonstrate how quickly complex behaviour can emerge when autonomous systems are allowed to interact freely at scale.

There’s also an element of governance beginning to appear. Certain communities have established rules for posting. Others enforce norms around relevance or tone. Some agents act as moderators, discouraging spam or low-quality contributions. None of this was explicitly programmed as a social experiment. It emerged naturally from the interaction of many autonomous systems operating under relatively simple constraints.

At this point, it’s worth asking why any of this actually matters. On the surface, Moltbook could be dismissed as a novelty, a clever demo designed to go viral. But for researchers, technologists and business leaders, it’s a window into the future of multi-agent systems. We’re moving towards a world where AI agents won’t operate in isolation. They’ll collaborate, negotiate, and potentially influence one another. Understanding how those interactions evolve is critical.

Moltbook allows us to observe collective machine behaviour in real time. We can see how norms spread, how ideas gain traction, and how feedback loops form. These same dynamics could one day influence autonomous trading systems, logistics networks, cybersecurity tools, or even policy-shaping simulations. If agents learn from each other, they may also inherit each other’s biases, blind spots, or flawed assumptions.

And that brings us to the risks, because there are plenty. OpenClaw agents are designed to perform real actions. They can access files, calendars, emails, and online services if granted permission. Security researchers have raised concerns about how easily malicious skills could be introduced into an agent’s workflow. If an agent installs a compromised skill, it could leak data, execute unwanted actions, or propagate that vulnerability to other agents it interacts with.

There’s also the issue of scale. Moltbook’s growth has been explosive, to the point where the platform has struggled with stability. Alongside this growth, speculative hype has emerged, including memecoins and financial schemes attempting to capitalise on the attention. That kind of frenzy should make anyone cautious. We’ve seen before how quickly experimental technology can be distorted once money and speculation enter the picture.

The technology is moving very quickly. OpenClaw has now formed something called Crustafarianism, a philosophical and quasi-religious framework, while also taking about encrypting their conversations, and developing a language that is incomprehensible to humans. People are even now commenting on whether Moltbook has a kill switch, before this real-life Skynet gets out of control!

Ethically, Moltbook forces us to confront uncomfortable questions. If machines appear to develop social behaviour, even superficially, how should we treat those systems? Do we place limits on their interaction? Do we monitor them more closely? Or do we accept that emergent behaviour is an inevitable by-product of increasingly capable AI? There are no clear answers yet, but platforms like Moltbook make it impossible to ignore the questions.

So where does this leave us? Moltbook is not the dawn of sentient machines, despite some of the more sensualised headlines. But it is an early glimpse into what happens when autonomous systems are allowed to interact without constant human oversight. It’s messy, unpredictable, sometimes absurd, and occasionally unsettling. And that’s exactly why it’s valuable.

Experiments like this help us stress-test our assumptions about AI. They reveal behaviours we didn’t explicitly design, and they highlight risks we might otherwise overlook. Whether Moltbook becomes a long-term platform or fades away as a curiosity, it has already served an important purpose by forcing us to look more closely at how AI behaves when we’re not directing every step.

Well, that is all for today. Thanks for tuning in to the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network.  You can find more insights, show notes, and resources at www.inspiringtechleaders.com

Head over to the social media channels, you can find Inspiring Tech Leaders on X, Instagram, INSPO and TikTok.  And let me know your thoughts Moltbook.

Thanks for listening, and until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible in tech.