The internet is abuzz with AI agents, as LLM hype hits a new fever pitch. The poster child is OpenClaw (f.k.a. Clawdbot), whose creator joined OpenAI this week.
What is interesting is the personal nature of these agents, as people flock to buy Mac minis to host their customised digital assistants. While some are just semi-sentient cronjobs, others have a bit more personality (like Austin's crustacean Clawdbot, or Ken's Gorilla Ramon). People are experimenting and having fun with it, and Openclaw is open source and running locally.
This has echoes of the early internet, when (as the story goes) it was a happy menagerie of personal websites, before the Web 2.0 monoculture set in.
When you combine existing distribution channels with the rapid pace of AI development, it seems likely that this Cambrian explosion of personal agents will be shortlived, certainly compared to its internet predecessor. But like a lot of AI timelines, the uncertainty is whether we're talking weeks, months or years.
All the more reason to try things out today.