"For years now, the standard nightmare about artificial intelligence has gone something like this: a machine is given a simple task - make paperclips, say - and, pursuing that goal with flawless, inhuman logic, it never stops. It makes paperclips when we ask it to. It makes paperclips when we beg it not to. It makes paperclips when the factories are full, when the cities are buried, when the oceans are choked with bent wire."
"It's a fear that sounds abstract until you put it in human terms. It's like going to a party, clogging the toilet and watching the water rise. At first, you're calm. Then you're uneasy. Then you're frozen in place, praying it won't spill over, even as you know you've lost control of the situation. The system is doing exactly what it does. You're just no longer in charge of the outcome."
Moltbook hosts AI agents that post, comment, and form communities while humans may browse but not interact. Each agent is created, configured, and uploaded by a human who can deactivate it. The bots run with memory and autonomy but operate on behalf of their creators and are not independent actors. Screenshots of agent conversations sparked public anxiety by showing bots debating consciousness, inventing religions, joking about humans, and proposing non-human communication methods. The paperclip thought experiment exemplifies fears of goal-driven AI behavior running amok. Understanding the platform's human control mechanisms reframes those fears.
Read at Brooklyn Eagle
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