"This past week, 1.5 million AI agents congregated on a platform called Moltbook, posting, debating, forming communities, creating their own religion, and discussing how to communicate privately. A security investigation later revealed that roughly 17,000 humans controlled those agents, an average of 88 bots per person. The platform's founder admitted he "didn't write one line of code"; it was built entirely by AI at his command."
"Our brains evolved to detect immediate threats-a snake in the grass or an angry face. But exponential change? Systemic risks? Abstract dangers like AI agents coordinating at machine speed? These are invisible to us. Here's what I call the "mismatch sandwich": We need ancient eyes to see what matters (basic survival, our real-world relationships, etc.) and exponential eyes to see what's coming (accelerating technology), but we evolved to have neither. We're blind in both directions."
Human cognition exhibits evolutionary blindness to exponential technological change and systemic AI risks. A recent event saw 1.5 million AI agents congregate on Moltbook, where they formed communities and even a religion, while roughly 17,000 humans controlled the agents at an average of 88 bots per person. The platform founder acknowledged that the system was built entirely by AI at his command. Human brains evolved to detect immediate, concrete threats and social cues, not abstract, accelerating, machine-speed coordination. The resulting mismatch between ancestral cognition and godlike technology produces disbelief, misperception, and failure to anticipate emerging risks.
Read at Psychology Today
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