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back to article OpenAI grabs OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger to build personal agents

Peter Steinberger, the creator of the tantalizing-but-risky personal AI agent OpenClaw, is joining OpenAI. In a Sunday Xeet, OpenAI boss Sam Altman said Steinberger will “drive the next generation of personal agents.” “He is a genius with a lot of amazing ideas about the future of very smart agents interacting with each other …

  1. that one in the corner Silver badge

    A genius

    Who shoddily glued together systems created by other people, without taking any account of the (now well reported) gaping security holes that resulted?

    Genius can be shown by taking separate things and joining them in a totally unexpected fashion to create something that nobody had previously considered, but:

    Taking something that coordinates talking to a bunch of already existing commercial LLMs, joining that with a library that implements MCP, whose entire purpose is to be connected to LLMs, sprinkling on some connections to attach the 'bots to arbitrary existing messaging channels, which some may say is the natural environment for 'bots (waves at Twitter).

    You know, in the Good Old Days, a genius might say something like "if I've seen so far, it is only because I've stood in the shoulders of giants", now the accepted way to be "a genius" is to hope nobody asks if there is anybody behind the curtain - that suspiciously large curtain.

    1. that one in the corner Silver badge

      Re: A genius

      > I've stood in the shoulders of giants

      Big shoulder pads, you sink into them like a cosy cushion. Bit wobbly but good exercise.

  2. Vikingforties

    Last minute Switcheroo

    Interesting end result. From listening to the latest podcast from Lex Fridman, Steinberger seemed to be much closer to a deal with Meta. Maybe Open AI just had better beanbags and lattes in the office.

    The pod is a useful listen though.

  3. Dan 55 Silver badge

    LLM tower of shit

    As well as being a well-documented security nightmare, OpenClaw (that's what it's called this week) can be lashed up and used in some kind of sociopath's experiment where it's unleashed onto GitHub where it opening issues, makes pull requests, and gets into arguments with the owners on its own personal blog. And that's what happened. And now tools like this will be part of Open AI and amplified 1000-fold because it's OpenAI.

    And if that weren't absurd enough, the story was written up for Ars Technica. The author of the story says he was trying to work through Covid and used ChatGPT (OpenAI again) in a bid to have it finished by the weekend and ChatGPT made up fictitious quotes which ended up in his article which got pulled. Sick leave still not a thing in the US?

    Aren't we so lucky that OpenAI is helping all this happen?

    1. John F Jennings

      Re: LLM tower of shit

      I think AI has, unfortunately, stumbled onto something important.

      Politician have nown for years that its vital to control the narrative. But we have learned not to trust any politician. We make do with our own research. How in the name of your deity of choice do you do that amongst all the narrative slop that the internet has become with AI generated stuff - from conspiracy loons to regurgitating uninformed mainstream - its getting impossible to find quality information.

      Jefferson said something along the lines of 'the defense against tyranny is a well informed populace.' AI is taking that away.

  4. blu3b3rry Silver badge
    Devil

    Surprised that they're coy about how much money changed hands

    Normally the AI bros twats can't stop themselves from shouting about how much they spend. Then again it's easy to splash the cash around when it's all Other People's Money.

    1. EnviableOne Silver badge
      Go

      Re: Surprised that they're coy about how much money changed hands

      Other peoples money, paying to run on other peoples tin, trained on other peoples information, ro waste other peoples time.

      What exactly they selling?

  5. rgjnk
    Mushroom

    Not a bubble

    So we're at the 'randomly thrown together amateur shit gets hype & money & leadership role' stage are we?

    Can't be long left.

  6. Irongut Silver badge

    Steinberger did not create OpenClaw

    It was vibe coded so Claude created it. Perhaps OpenAI should have hired Anthropic?

    OpenClaw is a huge security mess. Do OpenAI not have enough problems with prompt injection, etc that Altman thought it a good idea to hire someone to make their security worse?

  7. spacecadet66

    You know, for all his money and power, I'd rather be me than Sam Altman. Because when I lie down in bed at night, I don't hear that tick...tick...tick...sound, counting down to when I'm revealed to be a charlatan.

  8. Editra

    No thanks

    Note to self: avoid OpenAI's agents.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ... and everyone know how unsecure OpenClaw is.

    Now as standard with OpenAI. Good luck on that.

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