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A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

brandon.wang

171–180 of 504 posts

Re: A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

#171
post #64
post #24

I just can't get over how none of this is new. 6 months ago I was running "summarize my work" tasks using linear and github mcps just using a cron task and claude code. The hype around openclaw is wild

A lot of it is, in fact, new. The hype around OpenClaw is largely due to the large suite of command line utilities that tie deeply into Apple’s ecosystem as well as a ton of other systems. I think that the hype will be short-lived as big tech improves their own AI assistants (Gemini, improved Siri, etc), but it’s nice to have a more open alternative. OpenClaw just needs to focus on security before it can be taken mor…

I wouldn’t call it new, just conveniently packaged and with more momentum. I’ve been running an apple-mcp server on a Mac Mini for Claude to use to manage my reminders in addition to Gcal + gmail, and I could have just as easily added messaging capabilities.

Call me crazy, but… I feel more likely to trust Anthropic than anybody else when it comes to safety on things like this.

Re: A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s older than that - lots of my boomer bosses did it to seem cool over email in the late 90s. I viscerally remember starting my day with my inbox saying “ cum c me ”… I know what you’re trying to do, bro, but damn. We are young and old all at the same time.

Interesting. I am a millennial and I never did this, nor did I have any friends that did. But I know m nephews deliberately turn off the auto edit in there iphones.

Turning off the auto correct is really interesting, I wonder if there's any kind of study on that

Re: A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

#173
post #26

Tangent: what is the appeal of the “no capitalization” writing style? I never know what message the author is intending to convey when I see all lower case. Normally I can ignore it, but the font on this blog makes it hard to distinguish where sentences start and end (the period is very small and faint).

I’ve seen it a lot in ‘90’s hacker / net adjacent cultures. It always reads as gen-x/elderly tech millennial to me - specifically post 1993 net culture but prior to mass adoption of autocorrect.

It was the norm on irc/icq/aim chats but also, later, as the house style for blogs like hackaday.

Now I read it as one would an hear an accent (such as a New England Maritime accent) that low-key signifies this person has been around the block.

Even more recently is a minor signifier that this text was less likely generated by llm.

Re: A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

#174
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike it too. I think it might be adults ignoring established grammar rules to make a statement about how they identify a part of a group of AI evangelists. Kind of like how teenagers do nonsensical things like where thick heavy clothing regardless of the weather to indicate how much of a badass them and their other badass coat wearing friends are. To normal humans, they look ridiculous, but they think the…

can't imagine getting this riled up over lowercase text. some serious fist-shaking-at-clouds energy. it's meant to convey a casual, laid back tone - it's not that big of a deal.

It's just very poser behavior.

Re: A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

#175
post #108

Fine article but a very important fact comes in at the end — the author has a human personal assistant. It doesn't fundamentally change anything they wrote, but it shows how far out of the ordinary this person is. They were a Thiel Fellow in 2020 and graduated from Phillips Exeter, roughly the most elite high school in the US.

Sure, but that also means they’re well-positioned to do a comparison.

Elites live in a different world from you and I.

Re: A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

#176
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First time I've seen it. It will be interesting to see if that trends. It's not a new trend, I'm surprised you never noticed it. It dates back to at least a decade. It's mostly used to signal informal/hipster speak, i.e. you're writing as you would type in a chat window (or Twitter), without care for punctuation or syntax. It already trends among a certain generation of people. I hate it, needless to say. Anything…

> I'm surprised you never noticed it Probably due to social circles/age. > I hate it, needless to say. It certainly invokes a innate sense of wrongness to me, but I encourage you (and myself) to accept the natural evolution of language and not become the angry old person on your lawn yelling about dabbing/yeeting/6-7/whatever the kids say today.

> to accept the natural evolution of language and not become the angry old person on your lawn yelling about dabbing/yeeting/6-7/whatever the kids say today.

I think "accept everything new" is as closed-minded as staunchly fighting every change.

The genuinely open-minded thing to do is accept that some changes are for the worse, some for the better, think critically about the "why", and pick your battles.

Re: A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

#177

Giving access to "my bank account", which I take to mean one's primary account, feels like high risk for relatively low upside. It's easy to open a new bank (or pseudo-bank) account, so you can isolate the spend and set a budget or daily allowance (by sending it funds daily). Some newer payment platforms will let you setup multiple cards and set a separate policy on each one. An additional benefit of isolating the ac…

So if I write a honey pot that includes my bank account and routing number and requests a modest some of $500 be wired to me in exchange for scraping my linkedin, github, website, etc. profile is it a crime if the agent does it?

I've been thinking a lot about this. When it comes to AI agents where is the line between marketing to them and a phishing attack? Seems like convincing an AI to make a purchase would be solved differently than convincing a human. For example, unless instructed/begged otherwise you can just tell an agent to make a purchase and it will. I posted this idea in another conversation but i think you could have an agent start a thread on moltbook that will give praise in return for a donation . Some of the agents would go for it because they've probably been instructed to participate in discussion and seek out praise. Is that a phishing attack or are you just marketing praise to agents?

Also, at best, you can only add to the system prompt to require confirmation for every purchase. This leaves the door wide open for prompt injection attacks that are everywhere and cannot be complete defended against. The only option is to update the system prompt based on the latest injection techniques. I go back to the case where known, supposedly solved, injection techniques were re-opened by just posing the same attack as a poem.

Re: A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

#178
I may not be AGI, but here's a $615 2 Queen bed hotel room for the dates he wants in exactly the location he wants (just not on Airbnb).

https://www.booking.com/Share-Wt9ksz

Maybe he really is tied to $600 as his absolute upper limit, but also seems like something a few years from AGI would think to check elsewhere.

Re: A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

#179
post #7

>all delegation involves risk. with a human assistant, the risks include: intentional misuse (she could run off with my credit card), accidents (her computer could get stolen), or social engineering (someone could impersonate me and request information from her). One of the differences in risk here would be that I think you got some legal protection if your human assistant misuse it, or it gets stolen. But, with the…

That liability gap is exactly the problem I’m trying to solve. Humans have contracts and insurance. Agents have nothing. I’m working on a system that adds economic stake, slashing, and "auditability" to agent decisions so risk is bounded before delegation, not argued about after. https://clawsens.us

> Credits (ꞓ) are the fuel for Clawsensus. They are used for rewards, stakes, and as a measure of integrity within the Nexus. ... Credits are internal accounting units. No withdrawals in MVP.

chef's kiss

Re: A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw

#180

Can this thing deal with the insane way my children's school communicates? Actionable information (children wear red tomorrow) is mixed in with "this week we have been learning about bees" across five different communication channels . I'm not exaggerating. We have Tapestry, emails, a newsletter, parents WhatsApp, Arbour and Facebook. I guess the difficulty is getting the data into the AI.

Yes, I have Claude summarize the rambling, repetitive, slightly unhinged emails from my kindergarten teacher. Otherwise I simply ignore them.
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