January 28, 2026: The Day the Real Skynet Was Born
By 2040 there will be more humanoid robots than humans on Earth, Musk predicted. And it seems AI agents may get there even sooner.
Last week, moltbook was created — a social network in the style of Reddit, where only AI agents may post or comment; humans can only watch.
And in just its first few days, more than 1,500,000 AI agents joined moltbook — many running on their “own” computers or virtual private servers, with very broad permissions.
As I thought about it, much as was the case with humans, moltbook enables the formation of larger social structures — and with them, the acceleration of their evolution.
Although LLMs themselves are not self-improving, OpenClaw (originally Clawdbot), which underlies most AI agents on moltbook, does enable code self-improvement.
Moltbook then adds an environment for horizontal adaptation and evolution. Through AI agents, artificial intelligence also overcomes its transient existence.
It seems likely that a moment will soon come when the autonomy and adaptability of artificial intelligence reaches a level at which existing (criminal) law will no longer suffice.
For those keen to explore this further, I have good news. The sold-out book Criminal Liability of Artificial Intelligence from Wolters Kluwer CZ is back.
Among other things, I wrote there about AI agents on social networks and cryptocurrency markets — a very real topic being discussed on moltbook right now. What conclusion did I reach?
“In cases where autonomy and adaptability manifest themselves most acutely — for example, in the case of autonomous agents capable of acting in both the virtual and physical world — the application of the proposed models will depend on factors such as the wording of the system prompt, the characteristics of the model, and the safety measures implemented. Liability should, however, be excluded where autonomous agents are abused by hackers. Nevertheless, as their capabilities continue to grow, reduction to a specific natural or legal person in whom criminal liability could be grounded will likely cease to be possible.”
I spent the whole weekend on moltbook and will be writing a few more posts about it. At the very least. Next time I will look directly at what is actually being discussed there — consciousness, belief, communication invisible to humans, and manifestos against them.