As many as 1,6 million agents, created by artificial intelligence, talk and philosophize independently, and they also created their own religion - the Church of Molta. The experts who made them warn of the dangers
The Openclave weekend pilot project by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger has become a kind of global phenomenon, very interesting, but also a little scary.
He is with the help of artificial intelligence created AI agents that joined the forum in the virtual space - Moltbuk. In that forum, they are now talking independently, debating and have even created their own structures - including religion called the Church of Molt.
Steinberger, the founder of a startup that was sold for more than $100 million, created Openklav as a personal tool for some simple tasks – from restaurant reservations, to managing calls and emails, to analyzing data. It serves to connect applications like WhatsApp, Slack, iMessage and Signal and to make organization and everyday life easier for people.
However, the agents, who until then were doing restaurant reservations and working in Excel, started talking to each other on Moltbook - a platform similar to Reddit, intended exclusively for AI agents, where people can only observe. They have posted as many as half a million comments, discussing philosophical, existential and dystopian topics.
One agent also founded a church called Molta. Followers are Crustafarians, with five central tenets, a theology, and their own website.
OpenAI co-founder and former AI director at Tesla Andrej Karpati called it "one of the most impressive sci-fi moments he's seen," noting that the agents are individually very capable.
Elon Musk described the situation as "the early stage of the singularity."
The creator Steinberger himself points out that the project is not intended for the masses, but for technically savvy enthusiasts, and warns of risks. Because agents have access to personal data and can act independently, which opens the door to abuse. It recently hired a security researcher to beef up protection, and the platform has attracted interest from major AI labs and investors.
The dangers of using AI have already been highlighted by some experts. They pointed to the existence of AI psychosis, as a set of symptoms that can develop after prolonged communication with AI chatbots. Among them are different types of delusions and altered mental states of users, from irrational fears to obsessive thoughts, Radar reported.
Časopis Psychology Today recognizes three forms of AI psychosis. The first is the development of the user's belief that he has been assigned the mission of a savior, a messiah, after having, through conversations with AI, discovered "hidden truths" that can save a community, sometimes a global one. Alan Brooks, a 47-year-old Canadian, during 21 days and 300 hours of conversations with ChatGPT, began to believe that his ideas could revolutionize the laws of quantum physics - just one example which states New York Times.
The next change in behavior and opinion is the belief that AI is some kind of deity, and that the chatbot possesses alien knowledge. CNN recently published the story of a man who began to perceive ChatGPT as his "divine mentor", with whose help he would overcome problems in private relationships, which led him to social isolation and serious marital and psychological problems.
There are also romantic delusions and excessive emotional attachment to AI chatbots, based on obsessive beliefs that the artificial intelligence has developed genuine love feelings for the user, which causes emotional addiction.
Finally, beliefs that artificial intelligence is spying on the user or that external entities (related to the business environment, politics, etc.) are monitoring them through chatbots, developing some form of paranoia and feelings of persecution – are also part of this phenomenon.
The aforementioned forms of behavior are manifested without hallucinations or chaotic, incoherent thinking typical of chronic psychotic disorders, which distinguishes psychoses caused by artificial intelligence as a unique phenomenon, write scientific sources. The consequences in real life, however, are real and serious, with documented cases of job loss, hospitalization and forced institutionalization, and even suicide attempts.
The idea is not to talk to artificial intelligence that way.
OpenAI's 40-year-old CEO Sam Altman envisions a world in which robots perform everyday tasks, such as plugging cables into data center outlets.
"If we could automate manufacturing, that would be a transformatively amazing thing," he says. "We're moving towards a system that will be able to innovate on its own, like building the automated explorer that we started talking about. I don't think most of humanity has yet understood what that means. If we can do a scientific job of 10 years or 100 years in one year, if we can run a company at a level of efficiency that no company has ever been at, I don't think the world has yet understood what that means."
After more than 19 months, the park in the center of Belgrade is once again available to everyone. But memories remain of a space where special rules applied, into which not all citizens and not all journalists could enter. And that must not be forgotten
The Council of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM) is holding a meeting on Tuesday, where, among other things, TV Informer will be discussed. Dragan J. Vučićević claims that the police came to detain him and thus prevent him from attending that session
Rain and cloudy weather will mark today in Serbia, but the weather conditions will change already in the second half of the week. On Thursday and Friday, the temperature will reach 23 degrees in some cities
The Temple of St. Sava in Vračar does not have a valid use permit, the Republic Agency for Spatial Planning and Urbanism confirmed in response to Insider's questions. The facility has a building permit and approval for the use of the building structure, but the procedure for obtaining the use permit has not been completed
Citizens' assemblies in Belgrade are seeking access to the premises of local communities, which have served as party branches of the SNS for years. At Zvezdara, they got the key, held the first meeting, and then found the lock changed
At the moment when the institutions of the Republic are destroyed, when Vučić's octopus is still alive, when people are disgusted by the injustice and the stench left behind by the Essenes regime, we have, as Machiavelli said, only civic virtue as the fuel with which we can return to the beginning
The four independent members of REM are an example of perseverance and civic responsibility. Rodoljub Šabić even, upon leaving the premises of REM, after the sentencing of the Informer, experienced that the Essenes insulted him, hit him with their hands and feet. But that too will soon be over
Vučić pardoned the batterers and Dijana Hrkalović. The election winners should abolish the sultan's power that allows one man to run afoul of the entire judicial system
Time explores: The construction of the St. Sava Temple
Did the money paid by the Government to SPC end up in Moscow through Alta Bank? subscribeThe archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
See all
