I am not interested in the "claw" workflow, but if I can use it for a safer "code" environment it is a win for me.
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.
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.
I too remember DOS. Data and code finely blended and perfectly mixed in the same universally accessible block of memory. Oh, wait… single context. nwm
Problem is, I was just learning and the mac was running System 7. Which, like MS-DOS, lacked memory protection.
So, one backwards test at the end of your loop and you could -- quite easily -- just overwrite system memory with whatever bytes you like.
I must have hard-locked that computer half a dozen times. Power cycle. Wait for it to slowly reboot off the external 20MB SCSI HDD.
Eventually I took to just printing out the code and tracing through it instead of bothering to run it. Once I could get through the code without any obvious mistakes I'd hazard a "real" execution.
To this day, automatic memory management still feels a little luxurious.
piker•55m ago
_pdp_•52m ago
piker•49m ago
TheDong•46m ago
I have it hooked up to my smart home stuff, like my speaker and smart lights and TV, and I've given it various skills to talk to those things.
I can message it "Play my X playlist" or "Give me the gorillaz song I was listening to yesterday"
I can also message it "Download Titanic to my jellyfin server and queue it up", and it'll go straight to the pirate bay.
It having a browser and the ability to run cli tools, and also understand English well enough to know that "Give me some Beatles" means to use its audio skill, means it's a vastly better alexa
It only costs me like $180 a month in API credits (now that they banned using the max plan), so seems okay still.
puelocesar•41m ago
quietbritishjim•17m ago
tikotus•31m ago
TeMPOraL•9m ago
LeCompteSftware•3m ago
retired•17m ago
In The Netherlands you can get a live-in au-pair from the Philippines for less than that. She will happily play your Beatles song, download the Titanic movie for you, find your Gorillaz song and even cook and take care of your children.
It's horrible that we have such human exploitation in 2026, but it does put into perspective how much those credits are if you can get a real-life person doing those tasks for less.
quietbritishjim•9m ago
swiftcoder•3m ago
retired•1m ago
kombine•8m ago
DrewADesign•20s ago
A lot of people in the Silicon Valley area spend that much ($6/day) on coffee. What they don’t realize is how out of touch they are in thinking makes sense for the rest of the fucking world. $180/mo is about 5% of the median US per capita income. It’s not going to pick your kids up from school, do your taxes, fix your car, or do the dishes. It’s going to download movies and call restaurants and play music. It’s a hobby, high-touch leisure assistant that costs a lot of money.
bluedel•13m ago
Not to be a narc or anything, but is OpenClaw liable to just perform illegal acts on your behalf just because it seemed like that's what you meant for it to do?
swiftcoder•2m ago
I have a hard time imagining how much better Alexa would have to be for me to spend $180/month on it...
onchainintel•39m ago
iugtmkbdfil834•21m ago
mathgladiator•12m ago
bayindirh•10m ago
ZeroGravitas•21s ago
If you ignore the risks I don't see why it's hard to see value.
The AI can read all your email, that's useful. It can delete them to free up space after deciding they are useless. It can push to GitHub. The more of your private info and passwords you give it the more useful it becomes.
That's all great, until it isn't.
Putting firewalls in place is probably possible and obviously desirable but is a bit of a hassle and will probably reduce the usefulness to some degree, so people won't. We'll all collectively touch the stove and find out that it is hot.