Human Control Is the Anchor, Not the Answer: Early Divergence of Oversight in Agentic AI Communities

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2602.09286v1
• Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:10:20 GMT
• Title: Human Control Is the Anchor, Not the Answer: Early Divergence of Oversight in Agentic AI Communities
• Authors: Hanjing Shi, Dominic DiFranzo,
• Abstract summary: Oversight for agentic AI is often discussed as a single goal ("human control"), yet early adoption may produce role-specific expectations.<n>We present a comparative analysis of two newly active Reddit communities that reflect different socio-technical roles: r/OpenClaw (deployment and operations) and r/Moltbook (agent-centered social interaction)<n>Across both communities, "human control" is an operational meaning, but its meaning diverges: r/OpenClaw emphasizes execution guardrails and recovery (action-risk), while r/Moltbook emphasizes identity, legitimacy, and accountability in public interaction (meaning
• Score: 2.5424331328233207
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Oversight for agentic AI is often discussed as a single goal ("human control"), yet early adoption may produce role-specific expectations. We present a comparative analysis of two newly active Reddit communities in Jan--Feb 2026 that reflect different socio-technical roles: r/OpenClaw (deployment and operations) and r/Moltbook (agent-centered social interaction). We conceptualize this period as an early-stage crystallization phase, where oversight expectations form before norms reach equilibrium. Using topic modeling in a shared comparison space, a coarse-grained oversight-theme abstraction, engagement-weighted salience, and divergence tests, we show the communities are strongly separable (JSD =0.418, cosine =0.372, permutation $p=0.0005$). Across both communities, "human control" is an anchor term, but its operational meaning diverges: r/OpenClaw} emphasizes execution guardrails and recovery (action-risk), while r/Moltbook} emphasizes identity, legitimacy, and accountability in public interaction (meaning-risk). The resulting distinction offers a portable lens for designing and evaluating oversight mechanisms that match agent role, rather than applying one-size-fits-all control policies.

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