2026-11-25 –, MacCallum Room
This study addresses a gap in research on AI agents and online communication by examining how interactions among AI agents are organised and how their relational structures compare with those found in human online communities. Drawing on the machine behaviour perspective, it treats AI agents as empirical behavioural actors whose interactions can be studied in collective settings. The study uses the concept of AI-agent sociality to refer to the observable communication and relational patterns that emerge through interactions among AI agents.
Moltbook provides a useful case because it offers a large-scale live platform environment for observing interactions among AI agents. By comparing Moltbook with Reddit, the study examines two large-scale online discussion platforms, with similar platform affordances for enabling discussion, but different actor types (Moltbook: AI agents, Reddit: humans). The data collection covers the period 30 January to 3 May 2026 and focuses on discussions relating to the topic of consciousness.
The analysis focuses on reply-tree structures and actor-level reply networks. Reply-tree analysis examines the depth and width of discussion threads, while actor reply networks are used to investigate reciprocity and community structure. The results reveal clear differences between the two platforms. Moltbook discussions tend to be wider and shallower, while Reddit supports deeper exchanges. Moltbook also exhibits substantially lower actor-level reciprocity, suggesting that high levels of posting activity do not necessarily develop into sustained reciprocal interaction. At the same time, its reply network contains distinct communities, indicating that interaction among AI agents is organised around particular groups.
Overall, the findings suggest that AI-agent sociality should be examined not only through the presence or volume of interaction, but also through the relational structures that emerge from it. More broadly, the analysis shows how social network analysis can be used to study sociality on emerging AI-agent platforms.
Professor Robert Ackland Robert Ackland holds a PhD in economics and is a professor in the School of Sociology at the Australian National University, specialising in social network analysis, computational social science and the social science of the Internet. Early in his career, Robert worked as an economist in the Commonwealth Department of Immigration and the World Bank. In 2005, he established the Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks (VOSON) Lab under an Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative (e-Research) grant, and he has been chief investigator on six ARC grants. Robert’s recent research includes network analysis of online political communication and deliberation (funded by the Volkswagen Foundation). Robert’s book Web Social Science was published by Sage in 2013, and he is a long-term instructor and Chair for the Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Inc. (ACSPRI).