Peter Steinberger, creator of OpenClaw, recently appeared on Lex Fridman's podcast to discuss the creation and evolution of OpenClaw as well as the current state and future of AI. Here are some thoughts I had on some of the topics and opinions presented in the episode.
lexfridman.com
Zero tolerance policy for AI tweets: Peter mentions he feels an intolerance toward AI generated tweets. This is a sentiment I share when interacting with X and other social media platforms. I believe this stems from a desire to use social media as a tool to interact with other humans. AI generated content pollutes the ecosystem and removes the humanity from online social interaction.
Clearly marking when an agent is doing something on your behalf on social media: Sharing a social media account with an agent who interacts on your behalf introduces another entity to an otherwise human-to-human interaction. Maybe the AI should have its own account. Maybe it should use your account but marked as such. Maybe there should be no differentiation because social media is already a filtered layer on top of human interaction. As AI increasingly occupies our world, we're figuring out how it fits into existing structures. Your AI != you and if someone is reaching out to you, a human, they should know if a human is at the other end of the computer. https://www.moltbook.com/ as the perfect home for agent interaction.
“We’re reaching a point where I value typos again": Ironic, but humans crave human interaction (even online)! When I'm reading an AI generated document at my job, I enjoy spotting a human comment that proves this document is not devoid of human touch.
80% of existing apps will die off: When these apps are no longer needed, what will happen to the economy? What role will software engineers play and what will software companies look like? Although many apps will die off, this will pave the way for a world of new apps and technological needs. Peter gives the example of giving his agent and allowance to go and do things for him. Apps will function much more autonomously.
Many apps will transition to APIs instead of UIs: Just like during the Internet revolution, companies will need to have a quick pivot and transition in order to survive. Peter mentions that we're past the age of opening apps to do things. If you’re on the go and want to plan a dinner party with your friends, you don’t want to have to go on your phone and go into the calendar app. We're reimagining how we interact with technology and embed it into our daily lives. Will this UI-less future and convergence of services preserve precious time for human interaction or will it wedge a new layer of technological barriers between us?
MCP’s are dead and tools/CLI are the future: After Anthropic's hard push on MCP, I found this to be an interesting idea. Peter mentions the simplicity of CLI usage vs the comparative complexities of interacting with an API or MCP server.
Programming as an antiquated hobby: I appreciate that Peter and Lex mourn the loss of tinkering and the flow state and process of programming that is going away. As a software engineer myself, this is a sentiment I share as my role as a developer looks drastically different these days. Although old-school coding still exists, it's decreasingly needed with the AI tools that are available today.
Acknowledgement of change and hardship: I appreciate that Lex mentioned the basic dismissal of the impact of the transformative change happening in the world right now. Lex mentions that along with any change comes suffering or pain for some groups of people. Although AI and a changing world can be exciting, the rapid change and its effects are something to reflect on. I appreciate that Lex takes the time to mention the real impact of this, whether that materializes as job loss, misinformation, or other ethical challenges.
Power to the people is a beautiful thing to come out of AI: Ending on a positive note, AI democratizes skills, resources, knowledge to groups and people who would otherwise not have access, and that is something to celebrate.
Thanks for reading!
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