Viral AI personal assistant seen as step change – but experts warn of risks

One OpenClaw user said he recently allowed the bot to delete 75,000 of his old emails. One OpenClaw user said he recently allowed the bot to delete 75,000 of his old emails. OpenClaw is billed as'the AI that actually does things' and needs almost no input to potentially wreak havoc A new viral AI personal assistant will handle your email inbox, trade away your entire stock portfolio and text your wife "good morning" and "goodnight" on your behalf. OpenClaw, formerly known as Moltbot, and before that known as Clawdbot (until the AI firm Anthropic requested it rebrand due to similarities with its own product Claude), bills itself as "the AI that actually does things": a personal assistant that takes instructions via messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram. Developed last November, it now has nearly 600,000 downloads and has gone viral among a niche ecosystem of the AI obsessed who say it represents a step change in the capabilities of AI agents, or even an "AGI moment" - that is, a revelation of generally intelligent AI. "It only does exactly what you tell it to do and exactly what you give it access to," said Ben Yorke, who works with the AI vibe trading platform Starchild and recently allowed the bot to delete, he claims, 75,000 of his old emails while he was in the shower.