4 ms·

One could argue that the discussion is once again about tech debt. Both OpenClaw and MSDOS gaining a lot a traction by taking short cuts, ignoring decades of l

One could argue that the discussion is once again about tech debt. Both OpenClaw and MSDOS gaining a lot a traction by taking short cuts, ignoring decades of lessons learned and delivering now what might have been ready next year. MSDOS (or the QDOS predecessor) was meant to run on "cheap" microcomputer hardware and appeal to tinkerers. OpenClaw is supposed to appeal to YOLO / FOMO sentiments. And of course, neither will be able to evolve to their eventual real-world context. But for some time (much longer than intended), that's where it will be.

TeMPOraL 6mo ago
OpenClaw was an inevitability. An obvious idea that predates LLMs. It took this long for models and pricing to catch up. As much as I dislike this term, if there's one clear example of "Product Model Fit", it's OpenClaw - well, except that arguably what made it truly possible was subscription pricing introduced with Claude Code; before, people were extremely conservative with tokens. But the point is, OpenClaw is just the first that lucked and got viral. If not for it, something equivalent would. Much like LangChain in the early LLM days.
- marssaxman 6mo ago
  Would you mind explaining what that idea actually is? I don't understand what people are trying to do with this thing, or why they would think that would be a good thing to do, and some of the stories about it sound basically insane, so I must not be grasping the core idea.
  - bravura 6mo ago
    It's a handful of useful features that together feel qualitatively different, like you're talking to a real person.
    - Planktonne 6mo ago
      Such things always feel qualitatively different to the people captured by the craze; it doesn't mean there actually is a difference.
  - neutronicus 6mo ago
    It seems like the most fully reified attempt at allowing a person to delegate _all_ of their responsibilities to the Slop Machine. Which has of course always been the true allure of AI. Do nothing and pretend you did something, when pretending is something you can be bothered to do.
  - radlad 6mo ago
    Plain English automation, including control of external systems. Even better that it exhibits some forms of decision-making autonomy for edge cases.
  - tguedes 6mo ago
    To me it seems like an LLM-based implementation of automation software like Zapier. The problem with Zapier is you need services to provide APIs and Zapier needs to support those APIs to implement it in the automation workflow. But because OpenClaw can just use a web browser like a normal user, you don't need all these APIs and there's no theoretical limitations on the services that can be integrated and automated. Right now there's a lot of issues/bugs. People have more trust in a deterministic solution like Zapier. But maybe the LLMs and OpenClaw will get there eventually, and if it does, I can see how that's a better solution than a deterministic system.
- mikeocool 6mo ago
  > if there's one clear example of "Product Model Fit", it's OpenClaw You think so? OpenClaw certainly owned the hype cycle for a while. There was a thread on HN last week where someone asked who was actually using it, and the comments were overwhelmingly "tried it, it was janky and I didn't have a good use case for it, so I turned it off." With a handful of people who seemed to have committed to it and had compelling use cases. Obviously anecdotal, but that has been the trend I've seen on conversations around it lately. Also, the fact that the most starred repo on GitHub in a matter of a few months raises a few questions for me about what is actually driving that hype cycle. Seems hard to believe that is strictly organic.
  - arrowsmith 6mo ago
    This thread? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47783940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47783940
  - smrtinsert 6mo ago
    pi.dev I'm much more interested in. Closer to the bone, or maybe better said, pi.dev is more like a lego and OpenClaw seems like a big Ninjago set. I was shocked when I saw the guy behind libgdx was also behind pi.dev. Random tech worlds colliding.
Schlagbohrer 6mo ago
It worked to launch the creator into a gig at OpenAI. Similar YOLO attitude to OpenAI's launch of modern LLMs while Google was still worrying about all the legal and safety implications. The free market does not often reward conservative responsible thinking. That's where government regulation comes in.
- classified 6mo ago
  > It worked to launch the creator into a gig at OpenAI. True, but it doesn't scale. No amount of YOLO will let anyone else repeat that feat.
  - charcircuit 6mo ago
    Then why does the creator keep complaining that the maintainers he onboards keep getting poached by AI companies. It seems more like it is scaling too well.
  - alfiedotwtf 6mo ago
    Let’s not forget that (from what I’ve read) llama.cpp was a weekend YOLO side project and kicked off this whole new industry
- mghackerlady 6mo ago
  I wonder if public perception of LLMs would be better had Google been the one to introduce them after said safety considerations
  - malfist 6mo ago
    "safety considerations" don't matter. The main sticking point with LLMs is that it's a blatant theft of everyone's copyright all while letting the bosses threaten your job. Blatantly stealing to wealth transfer to the ultrawealthy.
    - radlad 6mo ago
      I realized that one of my bigger issues with LLMs is actually that I worry they increase "information entropy" on average. Most tools help me reduce entropy - LLMs seem to increase it, on a global scale. This is related to my observation that for thousands of years, written text has indicated a human author - this is no longer true, and I think this is going to be very difficult for us to wrap our human brains around fully.
leonidasrup 6mo ago
OpenClaw, the ultimate example of Facebook's motto "Move Fast and Break Things"
Earw0rm 6mo ago
MSDOS and similar single-user OS were not originally designed for networked computers with persistent storage. Different set of constraints.
wk_end 6mo ago
Worse is Better rears its head again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better
mettamage 6mo ago
Aka a marketing play This is why we can’t have nice things

TeMPOraL 6mo ago

OpenClaw was an inevitability. An obvious idea that predates LLMs. It took this long for models and pricing to catch up. As much as I dislike this term, if there's one clear example of "Product Model Fit", it's OpenClaw - well, except that arguably what made it truly possible was subscription pricing introduced with Claude Code; before, people were extremely conservative with tokens. But the point is, OpenClaw is just the first that lucked and got viral. If not for it, something equivalent would. Much like LangChain in the early LLM days.

marssaxman 6mo ago
Would you mind explaining what that idea actually is? I don't understand what people are trying to do with this thing, or why they would think that would be a good thing to do, and some of the stories about it sound basically insane, so I must not be grasping the core idea.
- bravura 6mo ago
  It's a handful of useful features that together feel qualitatively different, like you're talking to a real person.
  - Planktonne 6mo ago
    Such things always feel qualitatively different to the people captured by the craze; it doesn't mean there actually is a difference.
- neutronicus 6mo ago
  It seems like the most fully reified attempt at allowing a person to delegate _all_ of their responsibilities to the Slop Machine. Which has of course always been the true allure of AI. Do nothing and pretend you did something, when pretending is something you can be bothered to do.
- radlad 6mo ago
  Plain English automation, including control of external systems. Even better that it exhibits some forms of decision-making autonomy for edge cases.
- tguedes 6mo ago
  To me it seems like an LLM-based implementation of automation software like Zapier. The problem with Zapier is you need services to provide APIs and Zapier needs to support those APIs to implement it in the automation workflow. But because OpenClaw can just use a web browser like a normal user, you don't need all these APIs and there's no theoretical limitations on the services that can be integrated and automated. Right now there's a lot of issues/bugs. People have more trust in a deterministic solution like Zapier. But maybe the LLMs and OpenClaw will get there eventually, and if it does, I can see how that's a better solution than a deterministic system.
mikeocool 6mo ago
> if there's one clear example of "Product Model Fit", it's OpenClaw You think so? OpenClaw certainly owned the hype cycle for a while. There was a thread on HN last week where someone asked who was actually using it, and the comments were overwhelmingly "tried it, it was janky and I didn't have a good use case for it, so I turned it off." With a handful of people who seemed to have committed to it and had compelling use cases. Obviously anecdotal, but that has been the trend I've seen on conversations around it lately. Also, the fact that the most starred repo on GitHub in a matter of a few months raises a few questions for me about what is actually driving that hype cycle. Seems hard to believe that is strictly organic.
- arrowsmith 6mo ago
  This thread? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47783940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47783940
- smrtinsert 6mo ago
  pi.dev I'm much more interested in. Closer to the bone, or maybe better said, pi.dev is more like a lego and OpenClaw seems like a big Ninjago set. I was shocked when I saw the guy behind libgdx was also behind pi.dev. Random tech worlds colliding.

Schlagbohrer 6mo ago

It worked to launch the creator into a gig at OpenAI. Similar YOLO attitude to OpenAI's launch of modern LLMs while Google was still worrying about all the legal and safety implications. The free market does not often reward conservative responsible thinking. That's where government regulation comes in.

classified 6mo ago
> It worked to launch the creator into a gig at OpenAI. True, but it doesn't scale. No amount of YOLO will let anyone else repeat that feat.
- charcircuit 6mo ago
  Then why does the creator keep complaining that the maintainers he onboards keep getting poached by AI companies. It seems more like it is scaling too well.
- alfiedotwtf 6mo ago
  Let’s not forget that (from what I’ve read) llama.cpp was a weekend YOLO side project and kicked off this whole new industry
mghackerlady 6mo ago
I wonder if public perception of LLMs would be better had Google been the one to introduce them after said safety considerations
- malfist 6mo ago
  "safety considerations" don't matter. The main sticking point with LLMs is that it's a blatant theft of everyone's copyright all while letting the bosses threaten your job. Blatantly stealing to wealth transfer to the ultrawealthy.
  - radlad 6mo ago
    I realized that one of my bigger issues with LLMs is actually that I worry they increase "information entropy" on average. Most tools help me reduce entropy - LLMs seem to increase it, on a global scale. This is related to my observation that for thousands of years, written text has indicated a human author - this is no longer true, and I think this is going to be very difficult for us to wrap our human brains around fully.

leonidasrup 6mo ago

OpenClaw, the ultimate example of Facebook's motto "Move Fast and Break Things"

Earw0rm 6mo ago

MSDOS and similar single-user OS were not originally designed for networked computers with persistent storage. Different set of constraints.

wk_end 6mo ago

Worse is Better rears its head again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better

mettamage 6mo ago

Aka a marketing play This is why we can’t have nice things