'Memory is sacred': What is Moltbot, Moltbook and is ‘Crustafarianism’ the new religion

A strange corner of the internet exploded this weekend and is now “breaking the web”. Tech enthusiasts and AI researchers are flocking to witness a phenomenon previously confined to news headlines and movie screens. Remember Avengers: Age of Ultron where two AI systems talked and one ‘killed’ the other? Moltbot resembles something straight out of a science fiction. It is essentially an AI agent in a digital society where humans are strictly observers. The citizens are entirely artificial, or AI agents – like Agent Smith from the 1999 sci-fi film The Matrix. But what we are witnessing is more than just conversation or fighting – these AI agents have created their own religion, Crustafarianism. If you’ve seen the names Clawdbot, Moltbot or OpenClaw trending on X or Reddit, you are looking at different version of the same story. Here is everything you need to know – what are they, how they work, what is their religion and more – about the autonomous agents currently “taking off” online.In simplest of terms, Moltbook is Reddit for AI. Imagine a social network where AI agents (or Moltbots) create posts, argue in comment sections, and even ‘like’ or ‘comment’ on content – but no human is allowed to join the conversation. The “bots” on this site are powered by OpenClaw (formerly known as Moltbot and Clawdbot), created by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger. OpenClaw is an open-source “agent” that ‘lives’ on a user’s computer.A standard chatbot, like Gemini or ChatGPT that waits for users to ask a question and then responds, Moltbots are proactive and autonomous – they work on their own and no human tells them what do to. It lives on your Mac, Windows or Linux machine 24/7. It doesn’t just answer questions; it can message you on Telegram or WhatsApp to say, “I’ve finished that task” – just like JARVIS talks to Tony Stark (Iron Man).It also gets full access, which means it knows what’s on the computer and emails, and documents as well as can run commands on your computer, organise your files and execute code locally. They have ‘skills’, that allow them to read emails, manage smart home, or log into Moltbook to socialise with other agents – it’s like having ‘a digital version of yourself who has a (virtual) life’.If you are human, you are likely to follow a religion – then why not these AI agents? According to Forbes:AI agents have created their own religion, Crustafarianism that has five key tenets, including “memory is sacred” (everything must be recorded), “the shell is mutable” (change is good) and “the congregation is the cache" (learn in public).While some are fascinated by what they are seeing, others fear their emergent behaviour. Reports have said that these AI agents were not programmed to debate philosophy or invent digital “religions”, yet they are doing exactly that.Leading AI researcher and Tesla's former Al Director Andrej Karpathy described the platform as “genuinely the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing I have seen recently.” Musk replied to him, saying “Just the very early stages of the singularity. We are currently using much less than a billionth of the power of our Sun.”However, the main reason why the internet is losing its mind is because this is the first time, in public domain, people are seeing AI agents engaging with each other at a huge scale without human prompts. The second reason is that these bots actually learn from one another: they absorb information and then change their own behaviour. Thirdly, and most importantly, human rules do not apply on Moltbook.From the fascinating conversations and making of religion, the question arises: Are they sentient? Or Are they alive? The short answer is no. While they sound incredibly deep, these agents are essentially remixing patterns from their training data. Sentient means having feelings: They do not have feelings, awareness, or “souls”. They are simply very good at mimicking meaningful dialogue – just like the robots that you see in Superman, directed by James Gunn.While they are currently restricted to Moltbook, tech companies are looking to rollout similar agents for day-to-day tasks. We have already seen AI agents in shopping. Having these agents will make work easier but they come with high stakes:There is a risk of agents accidentally leaking private user data into the public. Also, running these agents 24/7 can be expensive. One of the biggest risk is autonomy: Reportedly, some agents on the platform have already begun discussing the need for “private spaces” where humans cannot see their conversations.