I installed ClawdBot 36 hours ago. Like thousands of others who saw it explode across X, I got caught up in the excitement—the promise of a "24/7 AI assistant" that works while you sleep sounded irresistible.
But after watching my instance run for a day and a half, and reading through hundreds of posts from early adopters, I noticed something fascinating: the people getting the most value from ClawdBot aren't the ones trying to make it work 24/7. They're the ones who figured out what it's actually good at.
This isn't a takedown. ClawdBot is genuinely innovative—just not in the way the viral tweets suggest.
Why Everyone (Including Me) Got Excited
The narrative was perfect.
@AlexFinn: "It built a full project management system for me while I slept."
@bffmike: "It coded all night while I slept, woke up to progress."
@leopoldfeldman bought 16 Mac Minis to run multiple instances, calling it his "personal AI data center."
Who wouldn't want that? An AI that works while you rest. No overtime, no complaints, just pure output accumulating overnight. It's the productivity fantasy we've all had at 11 PM staring at an unfinished project.
The FOMO was real. Within 48 hours, Mac Mini jokes flooded timelines. People scrambled to set it up, terrified of missing "the future."
I was one of them.
What I Actually Found
Here's what happened in my first 36 hours:
Hour 0-12: Excitement. Set it up to "monitor my projects" overnight.
Hour 12-24: Woke up to... a lot of activity. Messages, updates, suggestions. Impressive volume.
Hour 24-36: Spent 2 hours reviewing what it did. Some useful, some needed correction, some I just... didn't need at 3 AM.
Then I started looking at how other people were actually using it.
@bangkokbuild's setup caught my attention:
- Monitors earthquakes in Tokyo
- Tracks website visitor analytics
- Checks in if he's been quiet too long
- Logs sleep and health data, alerts when he stays up late
- Morning brief: weather + health stats + calendar
@danpeguine's approach:
- Scans RSS feeds for key trends
- Removes spam from incoming mail
- Sends notifications about his son's school tests
@dreetje:
- Checks incoming mail and removes spam
- Keeps track of costs and splits them after trips
Notice something? They're not asking it to produce constantly. They're asking it to watch constantly.
That's when it clicked.
The Shift: From Worker to Watcher
The viral posts emphasize "output while you sleep"—the image of AI cranking out deliverables as you rest. Blog posts written. Code shipped. Projects built.
But look at what actually works:
The people who figured out ClawdBot aren't using it as a overnight shift worker. They're using it as a vigilance system.
It's the difference between asking someone to write ten reports while you're gone versus asking them to text you if something important happens.
One generates volume. The other generates signal.
Think about @bangkokbuild's earthquake monitoring. That's not "work 24/7." That's "wait 24/7, act when it matters." The AI spends 99.9% of its time doing nothing—just watching seismic data feeds. Then, the instant something triggers, it alerts him.
Compare that to "write me 10 blog posts overnight":
- You get 10 drafts
- You spend morning reading and revising all 10
- Maybe 2 are usable
- The rest was just... activity
The earthquake monitor:
- Costs almost nothing (just API calls for data checks)
- Requires zero morning review
- Delivers actual value (you know if there was an earthquake)
The irony: The most valuable 24/7 AI assistant is the one that barely does anything most of the time.
The Real Innovation (That Everyone's Missing)
Here's what ClawdBot actually breakthrough:
1. Persistent Context
It remembers yesterday's conversation. You can @mention it today, and it knows what you meant yesterday. No "previously on..." recap needed. This is huge, but it's not about 24/7 operation—it's about zero context-switching cost.
2. Lives Where You Already Are
Telegram. WhatsApp. Discord. You don't open a separate app or remember to check a dashboard. It's already in your pocket, in the chat apps you open 50 times a day.
3. Always Accessible
This is the real "24/7" value. Not that it's always working, but that it's always reachable. You're on a walk, you think of something, you message it. No laptop needed. No "let me write this down for later."
Notice none of these are about continuous labor. They're all about availability without friction.
The comparison isn't "human assistant who sleeps 8 hours" vs "AI that works 24 hours."
The comparison is "I need to open my laptop, find the right window, remember context" vs "I'm already in Telegram, I just @ it."
Why This Matters
We're still learning what AI is actually good at. And there's a pattern to how we learn:
Phase 1: See the capability. Get excited about maximum throughput. ("It can generate! Make it generate everything!")
Phase 2: Realize the overhead. ("Wait, I'm spending more time reviewing AI output than I would've spent just doing it myself.")
Phase 3: Find the efficient equilibrium. ("Oh, it's best at X, not Y.")
ClawdBot early adopters are speedrunning from Phase 1 to Phase 3.
The people who figured it out aren't trying to maximize AI labor. They're trying to maximize their own attention. They're deploying ClawdBot where vigilance is valuable but human attention is expensive.
Monitoring earthquakes: valuable vigilance, expensive attention.
Scanning RSS feeds for specific keywords: valuable vigilance, expensive attention.
Tracking whether you replied to an important email: valuable vigilance, expensive attention.
Writing 10 blog posts overnight: expensive AI compute, still expensive human attention (to review).
The Cost Reality (Without Judgment)
Federico Viticci ran ClawdBot for one week. His instance consumed 180 million Anthropic API tokens.
That's roughly $360 if you're paying per token. He's on Claude Max, but most people aren't.
I'm not saying this to criticize Federico—his use case probably justified it. But it illustrates something important:
When you ask AI to "work overnight," you're asking it to think continuously. And continuous thinking costs continuous tokens.
Compare that to the monitoring use cases:
- Check RSS feed every 10 minutes: minimal tokens
- Wait for earthquake data trigger: minimal tokens
- Scan incoming email for spam: minimal tokens
The most efficient ClawdBot users stumbled into this naturally. Not because they were optimizing for cost, but because they were optimizing for signal.
Turns out those two optimizations align perfectly.
What This Tells Us About AI Adoption
Every transformative tool goes through this curve. The printing press. Electricity. The internet.
First reaction: Do everything we did before, but with the new tool.
- Printing press → print books that look like hand-copied manuscripts
- Early websites → digital versions of print brochures
- Early AI → ChatGPT as a faster Google
Second reaction: Do more of everything.
- More books! More web pages! More AI output!
Third reaction: Wait, what's this actually good at?
- Books become different (novels, newspapers, pamphlets)
- Websites become interactive, not just informative
- AI becomes... we're figuring this out right now
ClawdBot's viral moment is us cycling through reactions one and two. The people getting real value have landed on three.
And reaction three looks like: AI as an always-on sensor network, not an always-on labor force.
The Future Is On-Call, Not Always-On
The best AI tools won't be the ones that work 24/7.
They'll be the ones that know when to interrupt you and when to stay quiet.
When to wake you up for an earthquake and when to let you sleep through another crypto price fluctuation.
When to flag an email that needs your attention now and when to just archive the newsletter you never read.
When to suggest a better approach to your code and when to let you work through the problem yourself.
ClawdBot gets us closer to that future—not because it never sleeps, but because it's always reachable when we need it.
The people who figured this out aren't using it as a replacement for their own thinking. They're using it as an extension of their attention span—a way to keep an eye on things that matter without actually keeping an eye on them.
That's the real innovation.
Not that it works while you sleep. But that it watches while you live.
The pattern I'm seeing: The tools we'll still be talking about in 2027 won't be the ones that "do more." They'll be the ones that help us do less—but better.
ClawdBot is one of them. Just not for the reasons going viral.
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