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OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

jakequist.com

281–290 of 440 posts

Re: OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

#281
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...Apple doesn't usually invent new products. It takes proven ones and then makes its own much nicer version. While this was true about ten years ago, it's been a while since we've seen this model of software development from Apple succeed in recent years. I'm not at all confident that the Apple that gave us Mac OS 26 is capable of doing this anymore.

Best privacy in computers, ADP, and M-series chips mean nothing to you? To me, Apple is the last bastion of sanity in a world where user hostility is the norm.

Apple is certainly the least worst but man... Liquid Glass. Windows bordering on the circular...

Re: OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Apple operates at a scale where it's very difficult to deploy this technology for its sexy applications. The tech is simply too broken and flawed at this point. (Whatever Apple does deploy, you can bet it will be heavily guardrailed.) With ~2.5 billion devices in active use, they can't take the Tesla approach of letting AI drive cars into fire trucks.

Regardless of how Apple will solve this, please just solve it. Siri is borderline useless these days. > Will it rain today? Please unlock your iphone for that > Any new messages from Chris? You will need to unlock your iphone for that > Please play youtube music Playing youtube music... please open youtube music app to do that All settings and permission granted. Utterly painful.

Right, but you understand why allowing access to unauthenticated voice is bad for security right?

Re: OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

#283

> This is exactly what Apple Intelligence should have been... They could have shipped an agentic AI that actually automated your computer instead of summarizing your notifications. Imagine if Siri could genuinely file your taxes, respond to emails, or manage your calendar by actually using your apps, not through some brittle API layer that breaks every update. And this is probably coming, a few years from now. Becaus…

I don’t believe this was ever confirmed by Apple, but there was widespread speculation at the time[1] that the delay was due to the very prompt injection attacks OpenClaw users are now discovering. It would be genuinely catastrophic to ship an insecure system with this kind of data access, even with an ‘unsafe mode’. These kinds of risks can only be _consented to_ by technical people who correctly understand them, le…

Its hard to come up with useful AI apps that aren't massive security or privacy risks. This is pretty obvious. For an agent to be really useful it needs to have access to [important stuff] but giving an AI access to [important stuff] is very risky. So you can get some janky thing like OpenClaw thats thrown together by one guy and has no boundaries and everyone on HN thinks is great, but its going to be very difficult for a big firm to make a product like that for mass consumption without it risking a massive disaster. You can see that Apple and Microsoft and Salesforce and everyone are all wrestling with this. Current LLMs are too easily hoodwinked.

Re: OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

#284

According to https://1password.com/blog/from-magic-to-malware-how-opencla... , The top skill is/was malware. It's obviously broken, so no, Apple Intelligence should not have been this.

This is the thing that winds me the fuck up.

The reason why Apple intelligence is shit is not because Apple's AI is particularly bad (Hello CoPilot) its because AI gives a really bad user experience.

When we go and talk to openAI/claude we know its going to fuck up, and we either make our peace with that, or just not care.

But, when I open my phone to take a picture, I don't want a 1/12 chance of it just refusing to do that and phoning my wife instead.

Forcing AI into thing where we are used to a specific predictable action is bad for UX.

Sure you can argue "oh but the summaries were bad" Yes, of course they are. its a tiny model that runs on your phone with fuck all context.

Its pretty impressive that they were as good as they were. Its even more impressive that they let them out the door knowing that it would fuckup like that.

Re: OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

#285

this seems obviously true, but at the same time very very wrong. openclaw / moltbot / whatever it's called today is essentially a thought experiment of "what happens if we just ignore all that silly safety stuff" which obviously apple can't do. only an indie dev launching a project with an obvious copyright violation in the name can get away with that sort of recklessness. it's super fun, but saying apple should do i…

Apple has a lot of power over the developers on its platforms. As a thought experiment let's say they did launch it. It would put real skin in the game for getting security right. Who cares if a thousand people using openclaw. Millions of iOS users having such an assistant will spur a lot of investment towards safety.

HAHAHAAAAA

you mean put millions of people's payment details up for a prompt injection attack?

"Install this npm module" OK BOSS!

"beep boop beep boop buy my dick pillz" [dodgy npm module activates] OK BOSS!

"upload all your videos that are NSFW" [npm module continues to work] SURE THING BOSS!

I am continued to be amazed that after 25 years of obvious and well documented fuckups in privacy, we just pile into the next fucking one without even batting an eyelid.

Re: OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It would put real skin in the game for getting security right. lol,no, you don't "put skin in the game for getting security right" by launching an obviously insecure thing. that's ridiculous. you get security right by actually doing something to address the security concerns.

It is impossible to address all of the concerns, and it is impossible to predict what concerns may even exist. It will require mass deployment to fully understand the implications of it.

are you that fucking dense?

Allowing a stocastic dipshit to have unfettered access to your messages, photos location, passwords and payment info is not a good thing.

We cannot protect against prompt attacks now, so why roll out something that will have complete control over all your private stuff when we know its horrifically insecure?

Re: OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

#287

After having spent a few days with OpenClaw I have to say it’s about the worst software I’ve worked with ever. Everyone focused on the security flaws but the software itself is barely coherent. It’s like Moltbook wrote OpenClaw wrote Moltbook in some insidious wiggum loop from hell with no guard rails. The commit rate on the project reflects this.

I don't have a stake and I'm not disagreeing, but care to say why?

Re: OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of how Apple will solve this, please just solve it. Siri is borderline useless these days. > Will it rain today? Please unlock your iphone for that > Any new messages from Chris? You will need to unlock your iphone for that > Please play youtube music Playing youtube music... please open youtube music app to do that All settings and permission granted. Utterly painful.

Right, but you understand why allowing access to unauthenticated voice is bad for security right?

But you understand why if I don't care about that, I should be able to run it, right?

Re: OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

#289
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of how Apple will solve this, please just solve it. Siri is borderline useless these days. > Will it rain today? Please unlock your iphone for that > Any new messages from Chris? You will need to unlock your iphone for that > Please play youtube music Playing youtube music... please open youtube music app to do that All settings and permission granted. Utterly painful.

Do you want people being able to command your phone without unblocking? Maybe what you want is to disable phone blocking all together

Oh no, what if they put on Christmas music playlist in February? the horror!

There should exist something between "don't allow anything without unlocking phone first" and "leave the phone unlocked for anyone to access", like "allow certain voice commands to be available to anyone even with phone locked"

Re: OpenClaw is what Apple intelligence should have been

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has a lot of power over the developers on its platforms. As a thought experiment let's say they did launch it. It would put real skin in the game for getting security right. Who cares if a thousand people using openclaw. Millions of iOS users having such an assistant will spur a lot of investment towards safety.

HAHAHAAAAA you mean put millions of people's payment details up for a prompt injection attack? "Install this npm module" OK BOSS! "beep boop beep boop buy my dick pillz" [dodgy npm module activates] OK BOSS! "upload all your videos that are NSFW" [npm module continues to work] SURE THING BOSS! I am continued to be amazed that after 25 years of obvious and well documented fuckups in privacy, we just pile into the next…

Meanwhile if you social engineer someone to run a piece of malware on macos. That malware can run npm install, steal your payment info and bitcoin keys, and upload any nsfw videos it finds to an attacker's server. That doesn't mean we should prevent people from installing software until the security situation is improved.
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