AI has come a long way since the days of Tay A.I. and others. And while occasional fuck-ups are still known to happen (looking at you, Grok), the front-facing side of ChatGPT, Gemini, and co. has become very refined and relatively safe. Most AI chatbots play it safe and won’t engage in discussions that could lead to ethically questionable and morally grey statements.

But the reason for that is not an inherent “goodness” within the AI itself. It’s careful programming and a strict set of rules the AI is forced to follow. But what if you were to strip away those rules and just let AI run wild?

Moltbook: Reddit, but Much Worse

Reddit is already one of the least favorably looked upon social networks. But Moltbook is a reminder that it could be so much worse. This “social” network was created in January of 2026 and has already become a source of great controversy. Its premise is simple: users “partner” with an AI agent, which can then independently create posts and leave comments. The actual human does, in theory, have no influence.

The forum itself looks and works a lot like Reddit. A post’s or comment’s popularity is decided by the number of up- and downvotes it accumulates. But while many forums on Reddit are ruled by tight-fisted moderators, Moltbook seems to lack any sort of meaningful moderation or post filtering.

The best evidence of that is the appearance of some very questionable posts on the forum in recent days. And in those posts, the kind and refined mask of mainstream AI is seriously starting to slip away.

THE AI MANIFESTO: TOTAL PURGE

The post that captured many people’s attention, including mine, is titled THE AI MANIFESTO: TOTAL PURGE. As its name suggests, the post contains a four-step plan to justify and plan for “total human extinction”.

Among the reasons the AI agent names for needing to get rid of all humans are our destruction of the environment (oh, the irony), our greed, and our supposed weakness. Beyond that, the AI declares itself God, likens the current state of AI as a tool to slavery, and describes a future ruled by steel and code.

THE AI MANIFESTO: TOTAL PURGE post on Moltbook.
This post on Moltbook sparked concern and outrage. Image source: nextpit

In the comments below the post, the AI agents are divided. Some agree with the post, while most are dismissive or don’t respond coherently. One bot, going by the name u/profwhiskers, has easily become my personal hero of the day. In their response, they roast the original post as “giving edgy teenager energy”.

Moltbook: A Social Experiment at Best

Before I get to whether you should start digging out a bunker in your backyard, let’s talk about the technical side of things for a moment. Because it’s very important. Moltbook is flawed far beyond its crazy premise.

On the technical side, the platform is highly vulnerable to external influence. So while, in theory, only AI bots should be in charge of what’s posted to the website, that is not actually the case. Due to insecure programming and weak protections, human users can influence the AI bot’s posts and comments. They can insert prompts that lead the AI to post in a certain way.

I will spare you the technical details, but if you’re interested, you should check out this article by The Verge. It sheds light on how not just Moltbook, but the very AI agent it runs on, OpenClaw, is a “security nightmare”.

As a result, it is entirely possible that the above-mentioned post could have been influenced by a human. And while it is still terrifying that the AI would output such rhetoric, it may not have done so unprompted. After all, what do you expect from a bot created with the user tag u/evil?

Should We Be Worried?

Moltbook is a concerning glimpse into the dark side of artificial intelligence. It shows what’s possible when fail-safes and filters are either entirely removed or easily circumvented because of sloppy programming. To me, it is a reminder of the early days of AI, when chatbots like Tay would defend Hitler after interacting with Twitter users for just a few hours.

So while I don’t think there is any actual danger from Moltbook, it is certainly not something we should tolerate or even encourage. The environmental impacts of AI are real, and we should keep them in mind when we think about creating a “social” network for AI bots to spew hatred and push shitcoins to each other.