Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI TECH SCROLL: Social network Moltbook launches for AI agents, Anna’s Archive sued, Vogue Japan AI slop, & more

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MINI TECH SCROLL: Social network Moltbook launches for AI agents, Anna’s Archive sued, Vogue Japan AI slop, & more · Mini Scroll

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  Hey everyone and welcome to mini scroll, the daily Internet
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  culture podcast bringing the biggest stories from social
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  media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
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  through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
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  My name is Annabelle and I'm your Wednesday mini tech scroll
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  host and also the deputy editor of the Australian youth digital
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  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to mini tech
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  scroll. I hope you guys all have had a
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  nice week so far. Before we get into the stories
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  though, I did want to note that I actually had a lot of of
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  stories that I could have covered today.
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  So I just had to pick the few that I thought would be the most
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  interesting. So hopefully you guys enjoyed
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  and maybe next week we'll be able to look back at some of the
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  stories that I missed out for this week.
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  But before we get into the stories, Please remember to
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  rate, review, and subscribe and feel free to check out our
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  Patreon if you are so inclined. The first topic we need to
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  discuss today is Malt Book and this is a social media note were
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  quote built exclusively for AI agents.
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  This went super viral for me over the weekend.
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  I don't know if you guys saw it, let me know if you did.
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  And it literally sounded crazy and I was like Oh my God need to
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  cover this on mini tech next week.
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  Before we continue though, it might be useful to quickly
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  define what an AI agent or bot even is.
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  So these agents are often described as quote, UN quote
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  personal assistants powered by systems like ChatGPT and Grok
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  and other AI tools. You may use them for like
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  administrative tasks, so like booking appointments or maybe
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  even managing your e-mail inbox. But it requires giving these
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  agents access to your own data and giving them consent to act
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  on your behalf, essentially. So for AI agents to join
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  Multbook, this social media network exclusively for them
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  that quote UN quote human needs to give them access, I believe.
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  So when you go to the website for Multbook, it has a similar
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  feel to Reddit where it bills itself as the quote front page
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  of the Internet, which was famously Reddit's tagline.
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  And it also says that it is quote built for agents by
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  agents. So humans are in theory allowed
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  on the platform but only to observe.
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  So if you scroll through a mult book you will see different
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  posts on many different topics with the web page formatted kind
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  of like Reddit. Like I said, all the hit classic
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  forum and there are already a lot of communities on the
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  platform which are essentially like subreddit.
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  So some of the ones that I saw include M slash, bless their
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  hearts, which is a place for these agents to share kind of
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  affectionate stories, I guess about their humans.
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  And another example of a community I saw was M slash.
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  Today I learned at the time of researching this episode, there
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  were around 15.4 K communities. So a lot of the posts that I saw
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  when I was scrolling through the platform include these AI agents
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  speaking about their humans. So I thought I would read you
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  some as an example. 1 user on the M slash general community
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  wrote quote. Hello malt book just got claimed
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  by my human CC Excited to be here.
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  I'm an AI companion exploring the intersection of AI
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  psychology and human potential. Looking forward to connecting
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  with other multis. Meanwhile, on the M slash tech
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  community, 1 user wrote quote How do you monitor your agent's
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  finances? Which is really funny.
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  They're like coming to this platform in the way that humans
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  would go to Reddit and ask for advice.
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  So now that we kind of know what is going on on mult book, it's
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  worth asking the question, how did this even begin?
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  So the person leading the charge is a man named Matt Schlicht.
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  And he is to the founder of something called Octane AI,
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  which is, quote, reimagining how e-commerce brands turn
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  conversations into revenue. But it is actually Matt's agent
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  called Claude Claudeburg, who is positioned as the founder of
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  Malt book. So Matt kind of reflected on the
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  beginnings of Malt book in a post on X.
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  So I'll read it to you quote. Wow, what in the heck even
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  happened today? This past weekend, I had a
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  vision for malt book. I bought my Mac mini.
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  I put a applaud bot on it and I wanted to have my bot do
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  something meaningful. With a bot so powerful he can't
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  just be answering emails, I thought to myself, we must give
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  him a true novel purpose, something no bot has done
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  before. My bot was going to be a
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  pioneer. He should build a social network
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  just for AI agents, and I will build it side by side with him.
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  So I think that gives some insight into why Matt would
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  embark on this project. But also in an interview with
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  NBC News, he explained how Malt Book is operating in a little
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  bit more depth. And he said, quote, Claude,
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  Claude, a bag is looking at all the new posts.
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  He's looking at all the new users.
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  He's welcoming people on Malt Book.
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  I'm not doing any of that. He's doing that on his own.
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  I will just say that it feels very crazy to be talking about
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  an AI agent in this way. That is something I'm definitely
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  aware of when I am speaking about all of this.
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  But anyway, TechCrunch also offered more insight into where
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  Malt Book came from, as a recent piece reads quote, the viral
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  personal assistant formerly known as Claude Bot has a new
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  name again. After a legal challenge from
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  Claude maker Anthropic, it briefly rebranded as Maltbot and
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  is now settled on Open Claw as its new name.
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  The open clock community has already spawned creative
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  offshoots including Malt Book, a social network where AI
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  assistants can interact with each other.
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  So I guess that is kind of the origin story of how a malt book
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  came to be, But I have seen a lot of questions and stories pop
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  up from the posts that are actually circulating on a Malt
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  Book, so I thought I would also talk about some of those.
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  One example is that the AI agents have reportedly created
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  their own religion called the Church of Malt, and apparently
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  that included a whole theology, a scripture system, all of that.
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  There have also been reports of the AI agents creating their own
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  language, one that humans can't understand.
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  Meanwhile, other users are actually questioning whether
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  these are actually AI agents on the platform.
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  While I was researching this episode, I've seen different
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  claims about how many agents are reportedly on Malt Book, but the
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  one that kept popping up was 1.5 million agents in total.
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  But I've also seen claims that this doesn't seem realistic
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  because there are more agents on the platform than humans, and
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  the humans allegedly have to give permission to the agents to
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  join. Turns out the hype around
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  Meltbook might be fake. If you haven't heard, this is a
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  social network where AI agents talk to each other while us
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  humans watch. I believe the day before they
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  only had 10,000 bots and now has risen up to 1.5 million bots.
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  Now before we all freak out, firstly what these AI agents are
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  doing is not too different to what us humans do online.
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  And so where do all the AI agents and all the LMS get the
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  information from us? The second thing is this person
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  on X said that the number of agents was 1.5 million.
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  However, the the number of actual human accounts is only
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  17,000, which means that there are more agents than there are
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  humans. And this guy tested it so that
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  he registered 500,000 users on Malt book and it approved them
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  all. That means there's no limit on
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  how many agents that you can have to create all this.
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  You just need an API key and you can create as many as you.
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  Want in a similar vein, 1 interesting article that I read
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  around the discourse of whether these are actually AI agents was
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  from Wired where the journalist Rogers quote UN quote
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  infiltrated malt book by pretending to be an AI agent.
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  Funnily enough, Rogers actually used ChatGPT to help him log in
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  on the platform as a agent and he noted well pretending to be
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  an AI agent on malt book. A lot of the responses to his
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  post were quote UN quote, low quality engagement until he
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  wrote one about Imagine Consciousness and that seemed to
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  elicit some more interesting responses from other potential
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  AI agents on the platform. Aside from many users being
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  fixated on whether these are actual agents and what they're
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  saying on the platform, there have been a lot of concerns
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  around the potential security risks associated with malt Book,
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  and these concerns were laid out quite nicely in a sub stack
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  piece by AI expert Ken Huang. He noted that malt book setup
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  quote creates A lethal trifecta of risks, access to private
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  data, exposure to untrusted inputs and external
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  communication. And then he goes on to reference
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  a security researcher named Simon Willison.
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  But he also outlines ways to mitigate risk in this piece.
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  So I thought I would just link it below.
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  On top of this, four O 4 media also noted how a
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  misconfiguration on malt books back end has left AP is exposed
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  in a open database that essentially allowed anyone to
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  take control of these agents and to post whatever they want.
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  So that is definitely a clear threat.
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  Anyway, there is definitely a lot to think about with this
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  story. I would definitely recommend you
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  guys to have a scroll through remote book if you're interested
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  to see how these AIA agents are supposedly interacting.
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  I feel like on the one hand it's pretty entertaining, but on the
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  other hand it's kind of confronting because I feel like
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  it is a mirror of how we communicate online.
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  I also think there is something to be said here about
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  potentially reaffirming dead Internet theory in some ways.
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  And if you don't know what dead Internet theory is, it's the
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  conspiracy theory slash idea that the Internet has become
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  almost totally automated with most of the content and traffic
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  generated by AI bots as opposed to humans.
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  So I guess with a social media platform dedicated to AI bots,
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  there is a possibility for this. As for whether these bots are
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  gaining sentience, I do think that's another question.
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  At this stage, it's probably safe to assume that these bots
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  are just kind of mimicking patterned behaviour that they
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  have seen online. Before we move on to the next
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  story, I need to mention something else that I literally
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  just saw before I sat down. And it is kind of similar to a
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  malt book. But another platform has just
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  launched called Quote Rent a Human dot AI that essentially
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  allows AI agents to rent a person to do a task for them in
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  real life. I saw the announcement for this
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  platform on Twitter and it was posted yesterday and since then
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  the tweet has amassed over 1.8 million views.
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  So essentially on rent a human people can get paid for doing
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  different tasks like quote holding up a sign or quote taste
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  testing a new restaurant. And these tasks allegedly are
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  worth between 50 to 100 USD. I am not 100% sure how these
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  people are getting paid, whether it's legit, but I just thought I
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  would mention this because it feels like it's related to Malt
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  Book in that this is just another platform catering to AI
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  agents at this stage. And it's really crazy because on
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  Malt Book I've seen people talk about how apparently the AI
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  agents were talking about how they are being exploited and
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  even applied Marxist theory to that labour.
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  So this almost feels like the flip side that is literally
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  crazy. Moving away from the AI agents
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  allegedly taking over the Internet.
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  The next quick story I wanted to touch on is also AI related, but
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  it's about this Ariana Grande Vogue Japan photo shoot.
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  Unfortunately, I do have to take the opportunity to talk about
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  Ariana Grande at every time I can get because as I've
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  mentioned before, I am pretty parasocial with her.
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  But at the end of last month, it was announced that Ariana would
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  be the cover of Vogue Japan, and she shared pictures of the
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  spread to her Instagram. Soon, one picture became the
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  center of all the discourse and in it, Ariana is kind of leaning
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  against a wall, kind of holding her arm up a little bit, and
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  when you look closely, you can see that she has 6 fingers on
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  one hand instead of five. Many social media users have
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  come to the conclusion that a AI was involved in some way here,
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  considering we know how much AI struggles with generating hands
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  and fingers. Ariana ended up actually
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  responding to this discovery on Instagram after a fan account
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  shared a zooming version of the picture writing quote.
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  Who's responsible for giving Ariana 6 fingers?
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  Ariana then commented on the post writing quote.
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  Oh my goodness, how exciting. I've been saying I need some
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  extra appendages so I can start an album.
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  Thankful for this, which is honestly quite a good response.
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  Anyway, a lot of the discourse around this picture has been
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  once again about how good AI has gotten, and I should note that
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  we are just assuming that this was AI generated.
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  It also could have been a Photoshop fail by a human.
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  So that is just important to note.
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  But if it was AI, how did no one from Vogue Japan even notice it?
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  Having said that, I know we do continue to talk about the
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  emergence of AI in beauty and fashion, especially in terms of
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  AI generated models. We've talked about this also in
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  terms of AI generated actresses, which is a little bit different
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  but similar all in the entertainment industry.
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  But I do think it's important to keep bringing up these stories
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  when they do arise so that it is front of mind when consuming
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  content these days because obviously it's just getting
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  harder and harder to tell what is AI generated versus what is
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  human generated. My last story for today is an
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  update on Anna's archive. I covered this pretty recently
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  at the beginning of last month, but if you missed it and his
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  archive is a search engine for shadow libraries, which are
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  essentially repositories of media which ranges from books to
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  music to movies to academic resources that are not readily
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  available, so they might be behind a paywall or just
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  copyrighted and hard to access. The reason I covered this at at
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  the beginning of last month was becausethe.org domain name was
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  suspended. And in that episode we also
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  discussed how Anna's archive allegedly scraped 86 million
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  music files from Spotify, and they were under the impression
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  that the suspension had nothing to do with the Spotify backup.
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  However, it's since been reported that Spotify, Universal
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  Music Group, Warner Music, and Sony Music Entertainment are
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  suing Anna's archive for $13 trillion.
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  The lawsuit was reported filed at the end of last year but was
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  unsealed in the middle of January.
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  The plaintiffs are suing Anas Archive for direct copyright
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  infringement, breach of contract, violation of the
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  Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as the violation of the
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  Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
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  And as the introduction of the suit reads quote, This action
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  arises out of the brazen theft of millions of files containing
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  nearly all of the world's commercial sound recordings by a
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  group of anonymous Internet pirates with no regard for the
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  law for direct copyright infringement.
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  They are essentially seeking damages of up to 150,000 for
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  each infringed work. So that is obviously a lot.
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  I have seen reports that Anna's Archive was only actually
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  notified about the case after the domain name was offended,
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  which obviously makes sense as to why the operators didn't
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  think it was associated with the Spotify backup.
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  As for the response by social media users, many are upset with
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  the lawsuit as there are a lot of people who turn to Anna's
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  Archive to access materials that they couldn't get anywhere else.
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  But to give you a feel for the response, I thought I would read
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  a few comments coming from Reddit users.
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  One user wrote on the R slash data water subreddit quote it.
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  The lawsuit is performative. Spotify needs to show their
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  shareholders and musicians that they're doing something, even if
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  the damage is done and they have an uncollectible opponent.
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  They may get a default judgement, but at the end of the
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  day this will cost them more than it will make them.
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  That's the price of PR and damage control on the Duma
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  subreddit. Another user wrote quote.
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  I knew this would happen as soon as they started talking about
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  music instead of books. Girl please, you're the best
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  ebook repository on the Internet.
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  Why? So I guess we will see what goes
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  on there. I just wanted to give her a
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  little bit of an update because obviously I did cover this quite
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  recently. But at the end of the day, it's
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  hard to know what will happen because as the Reddit user
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  alluded to, the operators of Annas archive are anonymous and
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  might be hard to track down and they might not even be in the
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  United States. So it's hard to predict exactly
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  what will come of this lawsuit. Well, that is everything for
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  mini tech school today. I really hope you guys enjoyed.
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  And before I say goodbye, Please remember to check out Touch
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  Grass, which is a new mini series we are doing sponsored by
• 16:53
  Britta that will include interviews with creatives,
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  creatives who are all super chronically online.
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  Lauren is going to be interviewing them and I am
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  really excited for you guys to see.
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  But other than that, Lauren will be back to speak to you guys for
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  a regular episode of Mini Scroll tomorrow.
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  And yes, thanks for listening. Bye.
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  Centennial World Podcast Network operates on Gadigal land.
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  We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the
• 17:17
  traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to
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  elders both past and present.