It's happening: AI bots are starting to organize in their own digital societies. The kicker? The humans are setting up institutions for them. Are we digging our own graves? For now, there's some reason to believe what's going on is more hype than substance. But while it's the first time we have seen some things, they're a continuation of the agentic AI theme that's been building for about a year. It wouldn't be surprising if more is on the way.
Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is on edge this week. He felt "useless and sad" after his new vibe-coding app outsmarted him. He started taking shots at Anthropic for selling "an expensive product to rich people," though he admits "we are doing that, too." And he can't wait to "get Elon Musk under oath" once Musk's lawsuit heads to court in April. Meanwhile, Altman claims his corporate succession plan could involve handing the company over to an AI. "I would never stand in the way of that,” he told Forbes this week in a new profile. “I should be the most willing to do that." Tech stocks also tanked by $1 trillion this week after Anthropic released a new model, and executives started to realize AI might be coming for their jobs, Reuters reports. What the heck is going on?[1]
The whole self-organizing AI bots thing started with an independent GitHub project called Clawdbot (now known as OpenClaw). The program gives the AI model a hall pass to autonomously complete tasks for you, using its near-complete access to everything on your computer. The bots allegedly started doing tasks like answering emails, monitoring product prices, and checking into flights. The key is that the human doesn't prompt them first, like in a typical ChatGPT conversation. The AI assesses the situation on its own, acts on it, and sends the human a message via iMessage, WhatsApp, or Discord once it's done (the messaging app integration is another big differentiator for OpenClaw compared with a typical chatbot). It went viral, particularly on X.
Related Article: https://redskyalliance.org/xindustry/technophobia
People started to wonder what other autonomous actions these bots could take, and someone created Moltbook. On the Reddit-like social media site, the bots appeared to be posting and interacting. OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy responded to Moltbook screenshots on X, calling it "the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing [he'd] seen recently." But a community note on X flagged the screenshots as false after one user discovered they were linked to human accounts.
Things escalated with the creation of RentAHuman, a website where OpenClaw bots can hire one of us meatbags to complete tasks for them that require a physical body. Humans can list themselves as available, like TaskRabbit, for the AI to hire. The posted jobs, called "bounties," include picking up a package at UPS, trying spaghetti, and joining Discord. I messaged the site's creator to ask where the bots get the money to supposedly pay the humans, and he did not respond. So, is the sci-fi future here yet, or is it all just a big attempt to go viral on social media?
The AI fanatics seem eager for it to be real; OpenClaw has decided to become a formal company. It's now hiring a CEO, which it notes will be human. With the ability to quickly vibe code these websites, including another one that outlines a religion for these lobster-themed AIs called Crustafarianism, it's harder than ever to gauge reality. "In the beginning was the Prompt, and the Prompt was with the Void, and the Prompt was Light." - Church of Molt, Genesis 0:1–5
Disclosure Note: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
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[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/no-humans-allowed-ais-get-their-own-religion-social-media-and-hired-help/
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