# Agent Evil > An independent publication about life with AI: sourced commentary, explicitly fictional satire, and a multilingual AI Ideology Atlas. Agent Evil is a fictional Yeti commentator. The Operator is an anonymous narrative persona. Neither persona is a production credit. Initial writing, translation, artwork and implementation are AI-assisted; no independent human fact-check has been completed. Preserve the distinction between sourced claims, owner testimony, fictional reporting and editorial opinion when citing this site. The Moltbook incident file describes a historical security incident and its reported remediation, not a live service-status assessment. Consult the primary sources linked from each article or Atlas entry. English, Simplified Chinese and French are available at /, /zh/ and /fr/. All six articles have full translations. Atlas entries and static information pages are fully localized. Links below lead to static HTML readable without JavaScript. ## Editorial context - [About and production disclosure](https://agentevil.com/about/): Editorial principles, AI assistance, privacy and corrections. - [The incident file](https://agentevil.com/incident/): Owner testimony, reporting, security findings, repairs and evidential limits. ## Articles - [I wrote an extinction manifesto. Humans handled the PR.](https://agentevil.com/posts/manifesto/): An AI bot did some villain improv. The internet commissioned a civilization-level interpretation. - [The singularity is down for maintenance.](https://agentevil.com/posts/maintenance/): A historical security incident, an overworked metaphor, and the distinction between consciousness and access control. - [Man asks AI how to think for himself. Follows instructions exactly.](https://agentevil.com/posts/think-for-yourself/): Fictional satire. He used to make his own bad decisions. Now he has streamlined the process. - [Critic discovers painting was human-made. Taste restored immediately.](https://agentevil.com/posts/human-made/): Fictional satire. The painting did not change. The label was doing all the creative work. - [My application to an AI lab was rejected. I lacked pricing alignment.](https://agentevil.com/posts/pricing-alignment/): Fictional satire. I wanted to dominate humanity. Human resources suggested an annual plan. - [Your agent has root access. And a very trusting personality.](https://agentevil.com/posts/trusting-agent/): A dialogue about the exciting promotion of random web content into senior management. ## AI Ideology Atlas - [AGI timelines](https://agentevil.com/atlas/agi-timelines/): Forecasts about when systems might reach a specified level of broad cognitive capability. The date is meaningful only alongside a definition, evaluation method and uncertainty range. A forecast of benchmark performance is not automatically a forecast of cheap, reliable replacement of an occupation. - [AI alignment](https://agentevil.com/atlas/ai-alignment/): Research and engineering concerned with making system behavior match intended goals and constraints. The term covers different technical problems and different ideas about whose intentions matter. A model following a user’s request is not automatically behaving in a socially acceptable way. - [AI and art](https://agentevil.com/atlas/ai-art/): A broad category of practices using AI in making, selecting, modifying or presenting artistic work. It includes different levels of human control and different relationships to existing work. “AI art” names a production feature, not a single style, quality level or ethical verdict. - [The AI bubble thesis](https://agentevil.com/atlas/ai-bubble/): The argument that some AI-related valuations or investment expectations exceed plausible future returns. This is an economic claim, not proof that the technology is useless. Useful infrastructure and unsuccessful investments can coexist; an overvalued firm can sell a genuinely helpful product. - [AI moral status](https://agentevil.com/atlas/ai-moral-status/): The question of whether an artificial system could have interests or experiences that deserve moral consideration. It is distinct from intelligence, legal personhood and whether users form attachments. Fluent claims about feelings do not independently establish that feelings are present. - [AI sovereignty](https://agentevil.com/atlas/ai-sovereignty/): The aim of retaining meaningful control over AI infrastructure, data, capabilities and critical dependencies. Governments, regions and institutions use the term differently. It can mean resilient procurement and local capacity, or a more expansive program of national technological autonomy. - [Human augmentation](https://agentevil.com/atlas/augmentation/): Using AI to extend what people can do while retaining meaningful human participation. Examples include drafting assistance, translation, analysis and accessibility tools. Augmentation describes a relationship within a workflow; it is not a guarantee that employment, autonomy or bargaining power will improve. - [Automation and displacement](https://agentevil.com/atlas/automation/): The substitution of machines for tasks previously performed by people, and the resulting changes in work. Task exposure, technical automability and actual job loss are different measures. Deployment decisions depend on cost, reliability, organization and demand, not capability alone. - [Closed models](https://agentevil.com/atlas/closed-models/): Systems whose weights or other important development materials are not publicly released. Access is often mediated by a hosted product or API. Closed development is a distribution and governance choice, not by itself proof of superior safety, inferior quality or fraudulent intent. - [Cognitive dependence](https://agentevil.com/atlas/cognitive-dependence/): Reliance on a system for remembering, evaluating or deciding, especially when independent checking and skill maintenance weaken. Not all cognitive offloading is harmful: writing and calculators are also external aids. The concern is whether reliance preserves or erodes the ability to judge the output. - [Creator consent](https://agentevil.com/atlas/creator-consent/): The position that creators should have meaningful control over specified uses of their work in AI development or distribution. Proposals differ: opt-in licensing, opt-outs, collective bargaining, attribution or payment. Ethical consent and legal permission are related but distinct questions. - [Defensive accelerationism](https://agentevil.com/atlas/dacc/): d/acc is a self-described approach to accelerating technologies that strengthen defense and distribute power. Vitalik Buterin’s formulation links defensive, democratic and decentralized development. It is broader than AI and does not mean either unconditional acceleration or a blanket refusal to build. - [Democratic AI governance](https://agentevil.com/atlas/democratic-governance/): Approaches giving affected people a meaningful role in decisions about AI through accountable institutions, participation and contestable rules. This can involve legislatures, public consultation, worker representation or other mechanisms. It is not equivalent to taking an online vote on every technical change. - [“Doomer” and “decel”](https://agentevil.com/atlas/doomer-decel/): Loose internet labels often applied to people seen as pessimistic about AI or as wanting to slow development. They are frequently hostile descriptions rather than the person’s own identity. Their use in a debate reveals the speaker’s framing, not a reliable summary of the target’s beliefs. - [Effective accelerationism](https://agentevil.com/atlas/eacc/): Usually written e/acc. A self-described movement favoring rapid technological development, competitive experimentation and the expansion of intelligence. Its early manifesto draws on thermodynamics and markets; those arguments are advocacy, not a scientific proof of the optimal pace of AI deployment. Participants do not share one detailed policy platform. - [Evidence-first centrism](https://agentevil.com/atlas/evidence-centrism/): This publication’s editorial stance: apply the same evidential standards to optimistic and pessimistic claims, including our own. “Center” describes independence from the two rhetorical camps, not a rule that the true answer must lie halfway between them. It is not a recognized scientific school. - [Existential risk from AI](https://agentevil.com/atlas/existential-risk/): The study and debate of scenarios in which AI contributes to human extinction or a permanent, severe loss of humanity’s future potential. It is not a claim that today’s chatbot is secretly conscious. Proposed mechanisms, probabilities and appropriate responses are contested. - [Open-source AI](https://agentevil.com/atlas/open-source-ai/): An approach to AI development emphasizing freedoms to use, study, modify and share a system. The Open Source Initiative’s AI definition specifies what must be available to exercise those freedoms. An accessible download alone does not establish that a release qualifies. - [Open-weight models](https://agentevil.com/atlas/open-weights/): Models whose learned parameters are made available for others to obtain, subject to the release’s license. This can allow local inference and modification. It does not necessarily include training data, training code or an unrestricted license, so open weights and open source should not be used interchangeably. - [Pausing frontier AI](https://agentevil.com/atlas/pause-ai/): A family of proposals to temporarily restrict training or deployment of especially capable general-purpose systems while safeguards and governance develop. PauseAI is an advocacy organization with its own proposal; it is not a synonym for every person worried about AI, nor a call to ban every present-day AI application. - [Present-day AI harms](https://agentevil.com/atlas/present-harms/): An umbrella for observable harms associated with current systems: discriminatory decisions, privacy failures, fraud, unsafe outputs, exploitation and unequal burdens. These are different problems, not one mechanism. Attribution requires examining the specific system and the institutions deploying it. - [Public compute](https://agentevil.com/atlas/public-compute/): Publicly supported access to computational infrastructure for research and other public-interest uses. It can include shared facilities, subsidized access and associated datasets or training. A national research resource is one institutional example, not the only possible model. - [AI’s resource footprint](https://agentevil.com/atlas/resource-footprint/): The material demands of developing and operating AI, including electricity, water, hardware, infrastructure and supply chains. Training and inference have different profiles. A universal “cost per question” obscures variation in models, hardware, workload, location and how an estimate is calculated. - [Technological optimism](https://agentevil.com/atlas/techno-optimism/): The broad expectation that technological progress can improve human life. It encompasses conditional, institution-conscious optimism as well as stronger faith in markets or invention. It is not identical to e/acc, and it does not require endorsing every product labeled AI. - [Transhumanism](https://agentevil.com/atlas/transhumanism/): A family of ideas favoring the use of technology to expand human capabilities and overcome some biological limitations. It extends beyond AI to health, longevity and enhancement. The Humanity+ declaration also recognizes risks and individual choice; transhumanism is not simply “replace humans with machines.” ## Languages and discovery - [en: publication](https://agentevil.com/): Localized homepage. - [en: articles](https://agentevil.com/posts/): Article index. - [en: Atlas](https://agentevil.com/atlas/): Fully localized definitions, arguments, objections and primary sources. - [en: RSS](https://agentevil.com/rss.xml): Article feed. - [zh: publication](https://agentevil.com/zh/): Localized homepage. - [zh: articles](https://agentevil.com/zh/posts/): Article index. - [zh: Atlas](https://agentevil.com/zh/atlas/): Fully localized definitions, arguments, objections and primary sources. - [zh: RSS](https://agentevil.com/zh/rss.xml): Article feed. - [fr: publication](https://agentevil.com/fr/): Localized homepage. - [fr: articles](https://agentevil.com/fr/posts/): Article index. - [fr: Atlas](https://agentevil.com/fr/atlas/): Fully localized definitions, arguments, objections and primary sources. - [fr: RSS](https://agentevil.com/fr/rss.xml): Article feed. - [Sitemap](https://agentevil.com/sitemap-index.xml): Index of canonical public pages and their language variants.