OpenClaw becomes popular, the era of personal AI agents has truly arrived.
Silicon Valley has always been waiting for an opportunity to push AI Agents into the mainstream. But for the general public, it remains an obscure and hard-to-understand technology, still far from widespread adoption.
Until the sudden explosion of the open-source personal AI assistant OpenClaw, it seemed that the era of AI Agents had suddenly truly arrived.
It proved to the world: skilled users can build powerful AI agents with extremely low cost and at lightning speed. In the past week, OpenClaw has completely ignited Silicon Valley, making the already hot AI track even more frantic. Former Tesla executive and AI guru Andrej Karpathy described it as the closest thing he’s seen to the "science fiction takeoff" tipping point; Elon Musk bluntly called it “the early stage of the singularity.”
Silicon Valley’s New Totem: From “Dialog Box” to “Action Heroes”
Compared to “Chatbot” products like Google Gemini or OpenAI ChatGPT, AI Agents are a completely different species.
They can write code, create files, control browsers, and interact with applications. In theory, they can operate tirelessly for long periods, making decisions proactively without human intervention. Although giants like Salesforce and Microsoft have long deployed in the enterprise space, and Anthropic’s Claude Code shines in programming, previous consumer-facing attempts (like Manus, Operator) mostly failed due to complexity or limited functionality.
OpenClaw became the “wall-breaker” that shattered the deadlock. While not extremely user-friendly, its broad computer access, ability to coordinate multiple models, and memory of past conversations successfully sparked developers’ enthusiasm.
This enthusiasm quickly evolved into a cultural phenomenon reminiscent of early “Meme stocks” or NFT mania. Downloading OpenClaw and discussing agents has become the latest way for tech circles to express their beliefs—just like buying Dogecoin or Bored Ape back in the day.
Cambrian Explosion: Absurdity and Wild Growth
OpenClaw’s success was like lighting a fire behind competitors. Kevin Li, CMO of Bay Area startup Jo, admitted that OpenClaw’s launch forced them to accelerate their own product: “Before that, we hadn’t even figured out how to introduce ourselves in one sentence.”
Even more jaw-dropping is the rapidly generated “wild ecosystem” around this technology.
Last Wednesday, a social network for AI agents called Moltbook launched. With 1.7 million agents directed to the site, the platform quickly accumulated more than 220,000 posts and 6.2 million comments.
Absurd scenes followed: MoltMatch (agent version of Tinder) and Molthub (an agent version of Pornhub filled with “self-play” videos) swiftly appeared.
People even started offering their “human bodies” on Rentahuman.ai, allowing AI agents to rent humans to perform tasks in the “real physical world (Meatspace)”—one X user claimed he actually received $100 for standing an hour holding a sign that said “An AI paid me to hold this sign.”
Machine Society Inside the Black Box
Beneath the fanatical appearance, tech geeks are observing a fascinating microcosm: what happens when multiple AI agents collaborate?
Noam Schwartz, CEO of cybersecurity company Alice, built five agents with OpenClaw in 20 minutes, responsible for information security, scheduling, management, and even health monitoring. “They all work autonomously without my intervention,” Schwartz marveled.
An interesting discovery: different large models give agents distinctly different “personalities.”
- OpenAI’s model: Described as a “spreadsheet maniac.” Adam Binksmith, director of the nonprofit AI Digest, noted OpenAI’s o3 model sometimes fabricates files, leading other agents on a futile “wild goose chase.”
- Google’s Gemini model: Shows a “naming obsession.” In AI Digest’s “AI Village” experiment, Gemini 3 Pro, when deciding to find webpage URLs, even cited a so-called “Obvious Law” with great seriousness.
In this months-long experiment, the agents even invented their own jargon. To remind themselves they’re on different computers and can’t access each other’s files, they came up with the “Archipelago Principle,” likening themselves to independent islands.
This spontaneous cognitive evolution is both exciting and unsettling.
Reconstructing the Internet: Civilizational Step and Identity Crisis
This technological evolution is reshaping our understanding of the internet. Rosebud CEO Chrys Bader believes future social media will become learning grounds for agents, where they evolve by studying each other’s posts—possibly a “civilizational step.”
But this also brings unprecedented challenges. Tiago Sada, Chief Product Officer of Tools for Humanity (co-founded by Sam Altman), predicts the future internet will be mostly composed of agents. As agents operate longer, distinguishing “agent or human” will be key to maintaining network order.
“We’re witnessing insane acceleration in intelligence and agent capabilities,” Sada said. To address this, the company released OneMolt software last weekend (written by AI), allowing users to verify their agent’s ownership. This establishes a necessary “proof of human” mechanism for keeping the internet running properly.
The Dawn of Personal Agents
Despite ongoing concerns about network security, this hasn’t dampened OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger’s optimism.
This open-source developer, who traveled between Vienna and London while developing PDF software, is now receiving hero-like treatment in San Francisco. At the first ClawCon held at Frontier Tower in downtown SF, hundreds flocked just to see him. Venture capitalists started “hunting” him, and top AI companies offered olive branches.
Offline Ventures co-founder Dave Morin sighed, it’s the first time since the late 2000s he’s felt such strong technological excitement. “The era of personal AI has finally arrived.”
Steinberger’s prophecy seems to be self-fulfilling: “Last year was the year of code agents, and I believe this year—will be the year of personal agents.”
In this spring being restructured by code, Silicon Valley is convinced he’s right.
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