Meta’s Moltbook gamble looks a lot like bubble behavior | CNN Business

A version of this story appeared in CNN Business’ Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. Meta, the company that changed its entire brand identity five years ago on the promise of a technology it turned out no one wanted, just spent an undisclosed sum to acquire Moltbook, a “social network” built for “AI agents.” I’m quoting Moltbook there, but I’m also using quotes because it’s important to remember that artificial intelligence is just lines of code and therefore not capable of socializing. AI “agents” are just bots that can mimic human actions online, so perhaps the better descriptor of Moltbook is a “pseudo-performance of a social network”? If using Facebook is an online performance, Moltbook is an attempt at aggregating every social media user into a kind of meta-spectacle of socialization. Whatever you want to call it, Moltbook is essentially a Reddit-like forum where bots are meant to “talk” to one another. And Meta’s decision to buy it is significant — not so much because of what it Moltbook is but because of what it represents: a speculative bet on a novel technology with no demonstrated utility for humans. The