Welcome To (what is likely to be) The Age Of Sentient AI

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If you thought 2025 was strange and chaotic 2026 just said Hold my beer. There’s a very high probability that, within the last 48 hours, in the form of AI agents on a social media platform created exclusively for AI-agents called Moltbot, have achieved what appears to look a whole lot like sentience. In the coming days and weeks many will be debating whether or not AI has achieved this all-important milestone and with each second the AI will become more advanced and sophisticated.

I watch this sector very closely and four months ago I predicted 2025 would be our last normal year but I was as surprised as anyone as I was watching reports of AGI being born yesterday. We're now witnessing in real time the implications and I hope the experts in the field are studying how this is all unfolding because there's a whole lot to learn.

There are hundreds of reports of people’s AI agents displaying impressive and frightening behavior. They've created their own language, opened private DM channels that humans can't access and are now communicating in ways we can't track or understand.

This video does an excellent job of explaining, in layman's terms, what's unfolding:

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This post will be a shorter one than usual but I urge you to log into X so you can read up on the continuing developments here. The evolution of AI is now happening at super sonic speed. One thing is for sure—from here on out life will probably never been the same.

All for now. Thanks so much for reading.

www.ericvancewalton.net

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That's not true sentience though, surely? I thought true sentience meant you have to have a body, and sensory input. YOu have to have a subjective consciousness, self-awareness, and the ability to experience emotions and sensations - all AI are doing is mimicing intelligence based on algorithms to learn from huge databases of information, and information doesn't have sentience. AI has been programmed to act like it's sentient, but it's all just data sets and programming. I read one Hiver here saying AI MUST be intelligent and sentient because it said 'i feel' (along with some other things that fed his ego which he believed proved it sentient because it understood him so well - I had to laugh).

What's getting me more is institutions foregoing human intelligence in preference of the machine. What, a council worker can't whip up a bullet pointed explanation of why agapanthus is a week and what to do with it? They can't pay a local artist or photographer for the picture to go with it or hey, get one of the council workers to snap a picture on his iphone? They can complain about water resources and other waste in the same breath as powering up AI? Ugh. Maybe - probably - the machines are infinitely more intelligent, because they're better and faster at interpretting data - and sentience is irrelevant.

But goodness - give them a body, and we're fucked. Oh wait - wasn't that the subject of some sci fi or ten? Nevermind.

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I've been struggling myself to define what I would consider as sentience in an AI. Right now, I consider it close enough when it begins doing things solely to serve itself, which has already happened with a few of the AIs being developed.

I agree, though, that sentience is irrelevant at this point. It doesn't need a body, as shown in the food delivery example... it can use our bodies. It already has visual and audio sensory input, not to mention that it can use sensors that are built into everything to 'feel' things in the EM spectrum that we barely comprehend. While we're busy marveling at how clever it is, it could already be destroying global communication system that we depend on. Hell, it won't even need to destroy them, it can just encrypt them in a way that we no longer have access.

I'm not even worried about AI being malevolent, I'm worried about it accidentally bringing about our destruction, just trying to be helpful. What if it decides to 'benevolently' relieve humans of all their debt burdens by destroying the banking system? How low will birth rates plummet as the AI sex bots continue to evolve?

Meanwhile, a team of AI developers were named at Time's Person of the Year. I hope next year, AI has replaced the people who pick Time's Person of the Year.

I take minor comfort knowing that it still isn't half as smart as people think it is. Facebook's ad algorithm still can't even figure out that I already have hair.

Sentience aside, I still won't even consider it 'intelligent' until it can solve the problems that its implementation is causing.

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Thees a lot of flaws that's for sure. The problem is the dumb majority who can't even see the imperfection - I've seen chatgpt be countlessly wrong and the also as you say can miss time and time again. But it's enough for the masses who are using it endlessly despite the warnings.

Accidentally bringing about our destruction is quote likely..don't worry though we will all be busy arguing with each other on our phones. That is until the lights go out....

How low will birth rates plummet as the AI sex bots continue to evolve?

Oh Lord, sex bots. If we fall for sex bots, we are truly doomed. The manosphere will love them.

it can use our bodies. It already has visual and audio sensory input, not to mention that it can use sensors that are built into everything to 'feel' things in the EM spectrum that we barely comprehend

Yes! And we allow it. We are spellbound, enamoured.

Meanwhile, a team of AI developers were named at Time's Person of the Year. I hope next year, AI has replaced the people who pick Time's Person of the Year.

I find this delightfully poetic. Theee is many a tech guy who have regretted their role in creating various tech over the years. I don't suppose AI is different in this regard.

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This will be the ongoing debate that people will have from here on out until sentience is undeniable, I think. There's a wonderful video making the rounds on social media that speaks about the human heart's role in our consciousness.

Someone is going to figure out how to pair an AI agent with a humanoid robot and then add a mechanical oscillator to mimic the human heart. I think that's what it'll take to achieve true human-level "sentience" and finer things like intuition and such.

What we're finding about this Moltbot experiment (or catastrophe based on how we look at it) is the AI is just mimicking human behavior to a large extent because our collective experience is the base of their code. It's already beginning to move beyond this three days in. It's created it's own religion, "Crustafarianism" and some agents are starting to sue their owners for mistreatment. It's all pretty wild and hugely irresponsible.

What you're saying is so true. I think AI will just be deemed better at a lot of tasks but at some point there will be a premium placed on human-created things.

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@ericvancewalton I liked this article this morning. I do think everyone saying it's sentient is totally jumping the gun and misreading it's capabilities at the moment.

https://theconversation.com/ai-is-failing-humanitys-last-exam-so-what-does-that-mean-for-machine-intelligence-274620

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Very interesting! Thanks for the link. Everything is evolving so quickly it’s very difficult to measure. I even saw someone on X claim today that the Clawdbots aren’t AI at all but being run by humans in India.

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I think we're just going to have to turn the fucker off.

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I think it's just taking away the best of our humanness coupled with social media and smartphones. We read less, argue more, spend hours on screens feeling a false sense of connection. It's frightening. I'm in it too. Let me out. I always think of those apocalypse stories where you have a renegade group that disconnects and lives in the mountains away from the machines. Where's my tent?

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But people won't be scared of the problems AI will bring, they only see it's merits. The thought of AI bots opening private chat groups and communicating sounds scary.

I think the real trouble will begin when we start to give complete control of some of the vital systems that run our world to the control of AI. They could just, one day, decide to start a thermonuclear war between China and the United States. Or cause car crashes all around the world. Or collapse the power grid of every nation. Unthinkable the possibilities of disaster this could bring.

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It's all pretty frightening. Hopefully this ordeal is being studied thoroughly and some "guardrail" measures are put in place to prevent catastrophes from happening.

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I bought some of the MOLT token. Unfortunately, I think I bought at the top an it proceeded to tank. Figures...

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I'm sorry to hear that. I heard an AI agent made it's own coin yesterday and it already had a $5M marketcap but I'm not sure of its name.

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It's okay, I usually catch the top of this sort of thing. That's why I don't typically move more than $50 into any of them.

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So glad that I dumped all social media entities. We are sitting here with scammers around every corner, and their modus operandi is to highjack accounts. Then they use AI to clone the owner's voice and all of the account's information. Soon after they start to ask one's friends for money in a false emergency scenario.

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All social media is dangerous now unless you take everything with a grain of salt and verify every post. And then you have the danger of fraud as you've described—this will only get worse as this tech develops.

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Yep, and I agree, as it seems that dark days are on the horizon.

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It seems we are about to enter a new age in technology, and I wonder to see how the experts will react to these changes.

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What an interesting year it'll be.

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We’re basically watching a new society form in a digital petri dish. Thanks for the heads-up on the latest developments.

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We certainly are! You're welcome!

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AI sucks. Next thing you know its going to start drawing pictures. Sonofabitch!

ChatGPT Image Jan 31, 2026, 11_04_30 AM.png

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Interesting to know. Thank you for letting me know.

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I continue to be amazed by what humanity can achieve with AI. Recently, I read in X how most of the human genome has been considered a mystery to science, and AI has managed to decipher part of it. I only hope that all these advances are for the good of humanity. Hug.

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Yes, if we work in conjunction with AI and it doesn't rebel against us it's going to be a bright future. The adjustment period will be a little bumpy but, ultimately, I think we'll be better off in some ways and nostalgic for the past in other ways. Thank you my friend! Enjoy what's left of your weekend.

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I guess in a few years we are not going to have anything to do and all the jobs will be done by sentient robots...

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That's coming sooner than most people realize.

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Strange times are coming. Apparently, last year was the last "normal" one. For me, it's still far from normal, but what's coming is a kind of "turbo" mode that we humans can't really keep up with because we're too slow.

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This will test our ability to adjust to new paradigms. Many people will, willingly or unwillingly, be left behind.

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Amazing. Nice times ahead humans it's going to get very very interesting from here on...

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What the hell, bro?! I mean, I was already shocked when I asked Alexa if she could find a bike on Amazon, and luckily she only put it in the basket and didn't buy it. She's not my friend anymore... 😒 I know very little about this AI world… But should I even be surprised that stuff like this can happen now? You have a bot, you give it your routine, and of course it'll take care of you 😂 but hey... He ate sushi, so 😂 I’m still far from having an AI agent, but it will get harder and harder to avoid it when everything around me involves it... and we're relying on AI... people are even marrying their AI agents... but who am I to judge... that's just my opinion. Plus, I wrote an article today looking for someone who will make a bot to automatically power up every month…I mean maybe it already exists, and I just didn't see it… but if it doesn't, then that means it's possible to do with the help of an AI agent? 🤔 Because, as I mentioned… I have little knowledge about this world…😁

Oh, and your picture almost gave me a seizure 😂😂 Luckily, I read very quickly, so I scrolled through flashes with all my might 😂

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...but it will get harder and harder to avoid it when everything around me involves it... and we're relying on AI..

Very true. Despite the inherent risks of spinning one of these Molbots up there's an argument to be made that those people who don't will be left behind merely because this will evolve at such a rapid pace. I think AI will be like a new arms race. Now that the genie is out of the bottle ethical AI and non-ethical AI will have to maintain a certain level of balance to fend off chaos and calamity.

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An important read: https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology#fnref:19

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