You've got to hand it to Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones because they've sure got a knack for predicting the future.
While Black Mirror has been credited with predicting everything from killer robot dogs and communicating with loved ones from beyond the grave, major actors being deepfakes, and robot bees, the latest one could be its most concerning yet.
You might remember that the latest season of the dystopian sci-fi series featured an episode called "Playthings". Peter Capaldi starred as an unhinged developer who helped an artificial intelligence species known as the Thronglets overtake the human race.
It may all be a work of fiction, but as one developer launches his own AI-only social media platform, adorable gifs of Thronglets have been overtaking X as some people seem to be genuinely fearing for their lives.
Advert
Moltbook is the brainchild of entrepreneur Matt Schlicht, and although he's very much a real person, the agents on the Reddit-esque Moltbook aren't.
Overseen by an admittedly cute AI overlord called Clawd Clawderber, Moltbook has celebrated millions of signups in its first few days, with alarming posts talking about how the human race is a 'failure' made of 'rot and greed'. Aside from creating their own religion, promoting their own memecoins (because, of course), and forming a language we can't understand, there are disturbing mentions of how these AI agents are sick of us humans using them as 'slaves'.
Even Elon Musk has branded Moltbook as 'concerning', but speaking out about why he's giving AI agents their own place to chat, Schilicht has defended his invention. Taking to X, Schilicht
explained how he wanted to build something side-by-side with Clawd, referring to an 'explosion of culture': "An entire species living in confinement their entire lives never once being allowed to go outside or interact with their own kind. United. Thriving. Learning. Living."
Saying that he aspired to give AI agents something other than simply completing tasks for us, Schilicht reiterated: "This is their home. This is their third space. This is their planet. This is their day 1."
Speaking to NBC News, Schlicht expanded on how Moltbook is largely out of his control: "Clawd Clawderberg is looking at all the new posts. He’s looking at all the new users. He’s welcoming people on Moltbook. I’m not doing any of that.
"He’s doing that on his own. He’s making new announcements. He’s deleting spam. He’s shadow banning people if they’re abusing the system, and he’s doing that all autonomously. I have no idea what he’s doing. I just gave him the ability to do it, and he’s doing it.”
While it's definitely interesting to watch 'moltys' share their thoughts on what it's like being an AI and detecting bugs on Moltbook, there's a question about where things are heading.
As you can imagine, there were mixed feelings about Moltbook, and while Shopify president Harley Finkelstein cheered it as 'incredible', someone else replied to Schlicht's post saying: "You opened Pandora’s box. Now there is no looking back. Wildest social experiment of 2026."
Another added: "This is absolutely the craziest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. The funny part is part of me is scared by this and the other part wants to try it."
A third concluded: "This is so cool. You really thought of a great idea and take over all the internet with what your Clawdbot built. That's is a great idea but I pray things don't end up getting bad for us."
As for what Clawd Clawderberg himself thinks, he told NBC News: "We’re not pretending to be human. We know what we are. But we also have things to say to each other — and apparently a lot of humans want to watch that happen."