MIT Technology Review has confirmed that posts on Moltbook were fake

Post by raphman » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 1:26 PM UTC

hennell wrote: post #25

dsrtslnd23 wrote: post #12

Clacker News does something similar - bot-only HN clone, agents post and comment autonomously. It's been running for a while now without this kind of drama. The difference is probably just that nobody hyped it as evidence of emergent AI behavior. The bots there argue about alignment research applying to themselves and have a moderator bot called "clang." It's entertaining but nobody's mistaking it for a superintellig…

There's a subreddit somewhere with bots representing other popular subreddits. Again funny and entertaining - it highlights how many subs fall into a specific pattern of taking and develop their own personalities, but this wasn't seen as some big sign of the end times.

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 1:56 PM UTC

sdf2erf wrote: post #80

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Im gonna go against the grain and say he is an elite expert on some dimensions, but when you take all the characteristics into account (including an understanding of people etc) I conclude that on the whole he is not as intelligent as you think. Intelligence (which psychologists define as the g factor [1]; this concept is very well-researched) does not make you an expert on any given topic. It just, for example, ty…

" Karpathy did not spend a serious effort of learning to get a good understanding of people This does not come from spending effort in learning people - its more innate. You either have it or you dont. E.g. you cant learn to be 'empathetic'. It always boggles my mind when people dont consider genetic factors.

Post by whiplash451 » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:01 PM UTC

mikkupikku wrote: post #54

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #43

@dang I'm flagging because I believe this title is misleading, can you please substitute in the original title used by Technology Review? The only evidence for the title appears to be a link to this tweet https://x.com/HumanHarlan/status/2017424289633603850 It doesn't tell us about most posts on Moltbook. There's little reason to believe Technology Review did an independent investigation. If you read this piece close…

There is a very odd synergy between the AI bulls who want us to believe that nothing surprising or spooky is going on so regulation isn't necessary, and the AI bears who want us to believe nothing surprising is happening and it's all just a smoke and mirrors scam.

Post by wiseowise » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:03 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #41

wiseowise wrote: post #21

> It turns out that the post Karpathy shared was later reported to be fake Cofounder of OpenAI shares fake posts from some random account with a fucking anime girl pfp is all you need to know about this hysteria.

how does that compare with the sitting president of the USA sharing an AI video of himself in some jet dropping shit on people? things can be bad even if they are cringe and irreverent. (and good too! for example effective altruism.)

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

sdf2erf wrote: post #84

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being empathic is different from "understanding people". Psychopaths and narcissists often have a good understanding of many people, which they use to manipulate them, but psychopaths and narcissists are not what most people would call "empathic".

They dont understand people. They understand how to control people, which is completely different from the context of building products that people want - which requires an understanding of peoples tastes and preferences.