I know there’s plenty of fatigue around seeing AI influencers posting about the latest tooling.

But, I am writing about Clawdbot/Moltbot because I know people in my network (business owners, AI tinkerers) that I think might try it. And I really hope read this little guide before using it (which also has some alternatives).

What is it?

I think of Clawdbot/Moltbot as an open-source tool that encourages you to turn your laptop into a super chatbot that can act on your behalf.

For example, you send a WhatsApp voice note asking it to email a picture of your passport that’s on your desktop to the bnb manager you’re going to this weekend.

How:

it can only be setup/installed by either developers or AI-tinkerers familiar with the command line.

My recommendation:

Don’t. Don’t install it. But, I’m not going to get into fear-triggering details about the security exploits.

The tool is totally in line with the strategy of how AI can help a business. You can talk to your agents in the interface of you choice, and connect them to software with otherwise clunky UIs.

But from a tactical perspective: there’s no real organization of rules. When we developers write code with AI, we’re still heavily involved in the review of that code after it’s generated, and even more so, the planning process before hand.

We also carefully monitor the code generated by the LLMs, because very often it makes mistakes, or we made mistakes in prompting it.

We are actively organizing.

We also have many guardrails in place for the coding with AI workflows. Version control systems, test environments, code reviews.

None of that is in place for code you have Moltbot doing things for you. Similar things will come out soon. But, wait for the tools that are carefully organized.

Alternatives

There are a couple alternatives that I feel help inform the future of digital work:

1. Wispr Flow

If you’re not already on it, try Wispr Flow. It’s the voice to text software that has always been missing. I use it all day long.

• Good for: replacing a lot of the raw typing we do.
• Still not great at: actually commanding a browser or your Windows. I still do that with a mouse and a keyboard. Also not great at: editing text. It tries, but I still do that with a keyboard. Finally, on iOS/iPad, I use it, but the app switching makes it cumbersome.

2. Claude Cowork

Claude cowork is on the desktop app of Claude, and it’s like a slightly safer, easier to use Clawdbot/moldbot.

• Good for: trying out organizing files, creating repeatable browser actions, etc.
• Still not great at: security. It’s maybe not as risky as Moltbot, but it’s still sidestepping things. You can still cause chaos. Proceed with caution.

(Bonus: gavrielc/nanoclaw. If you’re a developer, and are prepared to be security-cautious, try out nanoclaw, a smaller alternative to Moltbot that’s easier to manage)

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
🦛🔥