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Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents
741–750 of 1001 posts
Re: Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents
#742I don't understand why folks are buying Mac Minis specifically for this? Why not repurpose an old existing computer? Run Linux? What am I missing?
Hype and confusion.
OpenClaw is hyped for running local/private LLMs and controlling your data, but these people don't realize the difference between
(1) running local open source LLMs
(2) and API calls to cloud LLMs.
The vast majority will do #2. To your point, a Raspberry Pi is sufficient.
For the former, you still need a lot of RAM (+32GB for larger models) so most minis are underpowered despite having unified memory and higher efficiency.
Re: Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents
#743I don't understand why folks are buying Mac Minis specifically for this? Why not repurpose an old existing computer? Run Linux? What am I missing?
Hype and confusion. OpenClaw is hyped for running local/private LLMs and controlling your data, but these people don't realize the difference between (1) running local open source LLMs (2) and API calls to cloud LLMs. The vast majority will do #2. To your point, a Raspberry Pi is sufficient. For the former, you still need a lot of RAM (+32GB for larger models) so most minis are underpowered despite having unified mem…
Yup. Been building my own "Claw" in Go using cloud LLMs and it's running very happily on a $6/mo VPS with 1 vCPU and 1GB of RAM.
Re: Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents
#744One safety pattern I’m baking into CLI tools meant for agents: anytime an agent could do something very bad, like email blast too many people, CLI tools now require a one-time password The tool tells the agent to ask the user for it, and the agent cannot proceed without it. The instructions from the tool show an all caps message explaining the risk and telling the agent that they must prompt the user for the OTP I ha…
I've created my own "claw" running in fly.io with a pattern that seems to work well. I have MCP tools for actions that I want to ensure human-in-the loop - email sending, slack message sending, etc. I call these "activities". The only way for my claw to execute these commands is to create an activity which generates a link with the summary of the acitvity for me to approve.
Is there a risk that the summary doesn't fully match the action that actually gets executed?
Re: Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents
#745I don't understand why folks are buying Mac Minis specifically for this? Why not repurpose an old existing computer? Run Linux? What am I missing?
Mac minis are particularly suited to running AI models because they can have a pretty good quantity of RAM (64GB) assigned to the GPU at a reasonable price compared to Nvidia offerings. Mac minis have unified memory which means it can be split between CPU and GPU in a configurable way. I think apple didn’t price mac minis with AI stuff in mind, so they end up being good value.
Sure but the GPUs are fairly anemic, right? I get that they have more Gpu-addressable memory from the shared pool.
I have a 10900K with 65GB RAN and a 3090 24GB VRAM lying around gathering dust. 24GB isn't as much as a Mac but my cores run a whole lot faster. I may be able to run a 34B 4bit quantized model in that. Granted, the mofo will eat a lot of power.
Re: Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents
#746I still don't understand what openclaw is or does and i've read the docs multiple times over.
"Any OS gateway for AI agents across WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, iMessage, and more. Send a message, get an agent response from your pocket. Plugins add Mattermost and more."
"What is OpenClaw?
OpenClaw is a self-hosted gateway that connects your favorite chat apps — WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, iMessage, and more — to AI coding agents like Pi. You run a single Gateway process on your own machine (or a server), and it becomes the bridge between your messaging apps and an always-available AI assistant."
My best interpretation of this is that it connects an BYO agent to your messenger client of choice. I don't understand the hype. I already have apps that allow me to message the model server running on my home lab. The model server handles tool calls (ie it is "agentic"). It has RAG over a dataset with a vector search for query. What is new about openclaw? I would like to understand it but what i see people say and what is in the docs do not seem compatible. Anyone have a resource?
Re: Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents
#747Security-wise, having a Claw doesn’t seem so different from having a traditional (human) assistant or working with a consultant. You wouldn’t give them access to your personal email or bank account. You’d set them up with their own email and a limited credit card.
>You wouldn’t give them access to your personal email or bank account. I thought it was vaguely common for secretaries (or staffers) to run the email/social media accounts of politicians and executives? Also you might not give access your secretary access to your bank account, but you'd give it to your financial adviser or accountant.
And like with Claws, every now and then a politician's secretary will post something inappropriate or embarrassing, and then the politician will end up taking the heat for it. Recently the president was caught up in some less-than-appropriate posts about a former president and blamed it on a staffer.
Re: Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents
#748Earlier quoted context omitted.
The OTP is required for the tool to execute. The all caps message just helps make sure the agent doesn't waste time/tokens trying to execute without it.
Why not just wrap the tool so that when the LLM uses it, the wrapper enforces the OTP? The LLM doesn't even need to know that the tool is protected. What is the benefit of having the LLM enter the OTP?
Yes could do that, I think it makes things more complex though because then the tool is less plug and play and the thing calling it would need to handle it
Re: Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents
#749Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the future we need to make happen. I would love to subscribe to / pay for service that are just APIs. Then have my agent organize them how I want. Imagine youtube, gmail, hacker news, chase bank, whatsapp, the electric company all being just apis. You can interact how you want. The agent can display the content the way you choose. Incumbent companies will fight tooth and nail to avoid this future. Because it'…
> Imagine youtube, gmail, hacker news, chase bank, whatsapp, the electric company all being just apis. too easy to skip/strip the ads that way...
Premium accounts?
Re: Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents
#750The real big deal about 'claws' in that they're agents oriented around the user. The kind of AI everyone hates is the stuff that is built into products. This is AI representing the company. It's a foreign invader in your space. Claws are owned by you and are custom to you. You even name them. It's the difference between R2D2 and a robot clone trying to sell you shit. (I'm aware that the llms themselves aren't local b…
Yet the Claw is powered by an LLM provider whose underlying model may not align with your priorities? Do I understand that correctly?
That's right. And don't forget that the chips it runs on are manufactured by companies I might not agree with. Nor the mining companies that got the metal. Nor the energy company that powers it.
The wonderful thing about markets that work is that you can swap things out without being under their boot.
I worry about a LLM duopology. But as long as open weight models are nipping at their heels, it is the consumer that stands to benefit.
The train we're on means a lot of tech companies will feel a creative destruction sort of pain. They might want to stop it but are forced by the market to participate.
Remember that Google sat on their AI tech before being forced to productize it by OpenAI.
In a working market, companies are forced to give consumers what they want.