alt Hacker NewsSo what is a "claw" exactly?
An ai that you let loose on your email etc?
And we run it in a container and use a local llm for "safety" but it has access to all our data and the web?
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I think for me it is an agent that runs on some schedule, checks some sort of inbox (or not) and does things based on that. Optionally it has all of your credentials for email, PayPal, whatever so that it can do things on your behalf.
Basically cron-for-agents.
Before we had to go prompt an agent to do something right now but this allows them to be async, with more of a YOLO-outlook on permissions to use your creds, and a more permissive SI.
Not rocket science, but interesting.
That's it basically. I do not think running the tool in a container really solves the fundamental danger these tools pose to your personal data.
There are a few qualitative product experiences that make claw agents unique.
One is that it relentlessly strives thoroughly to complete tasks without asking you to micromanage it.
The second is that it has personality.
The third is that it's artfully constructed so that it feels like it has infinite context.
The above may sound purely circumstantial and frivolous. But together it's the first agent that many people who usually avoid AI simply LOVE.
A claw is an orchestrator for agents with its own memory, multiprocessing, job queue and access to instant messengers.
It's a new, dangerous and wildly popular shape of what I've in the past called a "personal digital assistant" - usually while writing about how hard it is to secure them from prompt injection attacks.
The term is in the process of being defined right now, but I think the key characteristics may be:
- Used by an individual. People have their own Claw (or Claws).
- Has access to a terminal that lets it write code and run tools.
- Can be prompted via various chat app integrations.
- Ability to run things on a schedule (it can edit its own frontal equivalent)
- Probably has access to the user's private data from various sources - calendars, email, files etc. very lethal trifecta.
Claws often run directly on consumer hardware, but that's not a requirement - you can host them on a VPS or pay someone to host them for you too (a brand new market.)