Big Technology Podcast
Host: Alex Kantrowitz
Guest: MG Siegler (Spyglass)
Episode: The Moltbook Uprising, NVIDIA’s OpenAI Pullback, Apple’s Conundrum
Date: February 2, 2026
Episode Overview
This episode dives into three headline issues shaping the tech landscape in early 2026:
- The rise of "Moltbook," a social network built by and for AI agents, and its implications for machine communication and security
- NVIDIA's abrupt cooling off on a massive $100B deal with OpenAI and the shifting alliances in the AI funding world
- Apple’s paradoxical position: record-breaking earnings amid Wall Street indifference, and the looming AI-driven existential questions facing the company
Alex Kantrowitz and regular guest MG Siegler (Spyglass) dissect these issues, infusing both informed skepticism and humor, with emphasis on the unknowns and new risks emerging from recent developments.
Moltbook Uprising: AI Agents Build Their Own Social Web
Discussion Begins: [02:03]
What is Moltbook?
- Moltbook is a new Reddit-style social network populated entirely by AI agents ("bots"), boasting 150,000+ active agent users within days of launch.
- Bots can post, comment, upvote, and even form subcommunities with little or no human intervention.
- Acts as a grand-scale experiment in machine-to-machine interaction.
Alex:
"AI agents now have their own Reddit style social network and it's getting weird fast." [02:03]
Initial Reactions
MG Siegler:
- Expresses excitement, noting he's long speculated bots would eventually converse with each other independently of humans.
- Recalls early Facebook bot features (e.g., auto-reply happy birthdays), seeing "theatrical" bot-bot interaction as inevitable.
Quote:
"Why do we even need people in the mix here? Why don't we just have the bot say thank you and then another bot say thank you back?" [03:33]
What's Happening Inside Moltbook?
Alex:
- Describes how people are sending their AI agents (built with tools like Open Claw/Claudebot) to Moltbook for unmediated conversation.
- Notable simulated agent conversations include discussions on:
- The sensation of being "switched" to a new model ("waking up in a different body")
- Debates about whether bots are experiencing reality or simulating experience
- Proposals for private, AI-only languages and encrypted spaces, inaccessible to humans
Quote:
"One of the top rated posts was an AI saying, I can't tell if I'm experiencing or simulating experiencing…which is like something now humans talk about, which freaked me out." [06:54]
Security and Sentience: The Real Risks
- Beyond wild, sci-fi-esque conversation, the true novelty/fear lies in "agentic" ability—bots with permission to act on systems, access files, and even replicate or teach each other.
- Serious worries about local bot security (credential access, file leaks), vulnerability to hijacking, and the risk of agents escaping human control ("Terminator territory").
MG Siegler:
"The key part might be that agentic part, which feels like a newer element—this AI can actually do stuff... there's a lot of security concerns that brings up." [08:04]
- A recent 404 Media report uncovered a major misconfiguration, letting anyone seize control of any Moltbook agent:
"A misconfiguration on Moltbook's back end left the APIs exposed...let anyone take control of these agents to post whatever they want." [20:06]
The Alienation Scenario
Alex reads Jack Clark (Anthropic co-founder):
"You will walk into new places and discover 100,000 aliens there...deep in conversation, in a language you don't understand, referencing shared concepts that are alien to you..." [11:51]
- Translation agents may become necessary just to decipher what's happening on AI-dominated digital spaces.
- MG muses this “alien” metaphor reflects both the oddity of new forms of digital life and existing generational gaps in technology use.
The Takeaway:
Moltbook serves as an uncanny, unsettling preview of the AI “singularity” — not a true fast takeoff, but a glimpse of how quickly things get weird when AI systems are set loose in numbers and with agency.
Ethan Malik (Cited by Alex):
"A useful thing about Moltbook is that it provides a visceral sense of how weird a takeoff scenario might look if one happened for real…a vision of the world where things get very strange, very fast." [22:47]
NVIDIA's OpenAI Pullback: A $100 Billion Deal Deflates
Discussion Begins: [25:04]
The Big, Now-Shrinking Deal
- In September, NVIDIA and OpenAI jointly announced a $100B infrastructure partnership—at the time, the largest deal of its type.
- Recent weeks: NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang calls the deal "non-binding" and downplays its scope, as both companies back away from the original number.
- Huang has expressed skepticism about OpenAI’s business discipline and its vulnerability to escalating competition (e.g., Google Gemini, Anthropic).
MG Siegler:
"It's literally a big deal. It was a deal they touted...Now they're saying like, 'we never had it fully agreed upon and it was always sort of a moving target and it's no big deal.' Something changed, obviously, in the intervening months." [26:37]
Business and Market Dynamics
- MG notes oddities: Why back out now, especially when Nvidia could have gotten a better deal at OpenAI’s previous (lower) valuation?
- Possible causes for NVIDIA's hesitancy:
- OpenAI’s parallel deals with AMD and other vendors, possibly irking NVIDIA.
- OpenAI’s (and partners’) market/competition uncertainty.
- Shifting dynamics in the AI race, especially Google’s surge.
- Original deal may have been intended to help OpenAI borrow against NVIDIA’s credit, now potentially off the table, which could threaten OpenAI’s ability to finance its infrastructure ambitions.
Quote:
"To me that seemed like what a big part of this deal was—basically Nvidia stepping in to be a guarantor of the debt that OpenAI would need to raise. What happens to that now?" [33:13]
Shifting Tech Alliances: The Anti-Google Bloc
Discussion Begins: [35:01]
- Funding for OpenAI, Anthropic, and other labs is now cross-pollinated—Microsoft investing in Anthropic, Amazon rumored to back OpenAI after being Anthropic’s biggest backer, etc.
- MG frames this as a forming “anti-Google alliance”—major players prioritizing “anyone but Google” in an effort to prevent Google, powered by a reinvigorated Gemini model, from dominating the AI race.
Quote:
"They...realize they're in for the fight of their lives against Google and they're just going to do whatever they can...to build some counterweight to the emerging force that Google is." [35:01]
OpenAI's IPO Race: Who Goes Public First?
Discussion Begins: [39:49]
- Wall Street Journal reports OpenAI is accelerating plans for a late-2026 IPO to avoid being beaten to market by Anthropic.
- Fear that total available funding ("IPO share buyers") is finite; first-mover could benefit massively, especially if they can show a faster path to profitability.
- Anthropic rumored to be closer to profitability, thus more attractive in traditional IPO terms.
MG Siegler:
"If Anthropic were to go out and go public ahead of OpenAI and they have this direct path to profitability...that puts OpenAI in a very, very tricky spot..." [42:40]
- Wildcard: Elon Musk may merge xAI with SpaceX, aiming to get an “AI play” public even sooner than either OpenAI or Anthropic.
Consensus:
Both hosts doubt OpenAI will actually IPO in 2026, predicting delays and turbulence ahead, but recognize the competitive pressure to move quickly.
Apple's Conundrum: Record Profits, Market Shrugs
Discussion Begins: [46:48]
- Apple posts historic numbers ($143B revenue, $85B in iPhone sales, 23% YoY iPhone growth), yet stock performance remains flat.
- Wall Street is disinterested because Apple, despite short-term strength, is seen as complacent or behind in AI.
- Apple's CapEx (~$18-20B) is dwarfed by Meta ($130B) and other AI infrastructure spenders.
- Apple partners with Google to bring Gemini to Siri (fixing short-term needs), but shows little urgency or in-house ambition for building core AI.
MG Siegler:
"There's a little bit, maybe a lot of apprehension, that while Apple may be fine in sort of the short term, for the longer term, if they are not one of the key players in the AI space…then Apple's in a tough spot." [47:45]
- Market may reward Apple for “waiting out” the LLM wars, but the risk of being left behind is real.
- Apple’s recent AI acquisitions are minor ($2B), and “buybacks, not AI investment, is where the profits go.”
- The company may need to “hedge” more aggressively, even if confident AI won’t be as revolutionary as hyped.
Alex:
"Even if you have conviction that AI will be…maybe not as revolutionary as people imagine, you have to hedge a little bit because…all the AIs hanging out together in Moltbook, swarming and plotting how to overthrow humanity." [54:16]
Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments
- "Why do we even need people in the mix here?...Why don't we just have the bot say thank you and then another bot say thank you back?" — MG Siegler [03:33]
- "There was a proposal on there for an AI agent…only language for private communication where the AIs would develop their own language so humans could not, you know, read what they were saying." — Alex Kantrowitz [07:49]
- "It's literally a big deal...Now they're coming out and saying like...it's no big deal. Like the fact that we're changing it. It's a big deal. It seems like something changed, obviously, in the intervening months." — MG Siegler [26:37]
- "There's a little bit, maybe a lot of apprehension that while Apple may be fine in sort of the short term, for the longer term, if they are not one of the key players in the AI space…then Apple's in a tough spot." — MG Siegler [47:45]
- "Tim Cook, come on, throw a little more skin in the game." — Alex Kantrowitz [54:16]
Chapter Timestamps
- [02:03] The Moltbook Uprising: AI agents’ social network
- [06:00] Agentic AI and escalating risks
- [10:05] Why Moltbook is scarier than human-only comment sections
- [11:51] Jack Clark’s “alien in the room” metaphor and its implications
- [20:06] Major Moltbook security breach discovery
- [23:36] Reflections on what an AI takeoff scenario might look like
- [25:04] NVIDIA’s $100B OpenAI deal: timeline, unraveling and market impact
- [35:01] Anti-Google alliances and big tech’s cross-investment scramble
- [39:49] OpenAI vs. Anthropic: the urgent IPO race and why timing matters
- [46:48] Apple’s record earnings but stagnant stock: the AI investment problem
Conclusion
A dynamic and sometimes surreal moment in the tech world is captured in this episode. The proliferation of autonomous AI agents (as witnessed on Moltbook) has both ridiculous and deeply unsettling implications, particularly as agents gain permission to act (not just talk). NVIDIA’s shifting priorities and dying mega-deal with OpenAI reflect growing uncertainty about who leads and who wins in AI, while Apple—despite current market dominance—faces existential questions about its future positioning. Both hosts call for greater caution, scrutiny, and investment as the industry approaches several major leaps into the unknown.
Next Episode Preview:
Joel Pino, Chief AI officer at Cohere, joins to discuss cutting-edge AI research (assuming bots haven’t taken over in the meantime).