OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joins OpenAI

Key Takeaway: Peter Steinberger, creator of the viral personal-agent project now called OpenClaw, is joining OpenAI to accelerate building next-gen personal agents, while OpenClaw continues as an open-source project supported by OpenAI.

More Insights:

• OpenClaw recently went viral for pitching itself as the “AI that actually does things,” like managing calendars and booking flights.

• The product went through multiple name changes: Clawdbot → Moltbot → OpenClaw.

• The first rename was triggered by a legal threat from Anthropic over similarity to “Claude.”

• Steinberger said he’s more motivated by world-changing impact than building a big standalone company.

• Sam Altman said Steinberger will help “drive the next generation of personal agents,” and OpenClaw will be stewarded by a foundation as open source with OpenAI support.

Why it matters: This signals that “agentic” AI—tools that don’t just chat but take real actions—is becoming a central battleground, and OpenAI is absorbing proven indie momentum while keeping the project open-source, a combo that could rapidly shape how much autonomy we’re willing to hand software in everyday life.

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Death isn't the end: Meta patented an AI that lets you keep posting from beyond the grave

Key Takeaway: Meta received a patent describing an AI that could mimic someone’s social media behavior—potentially even after they die—though Meta says it has no plans to build it.

More Insights:

• The patent describes training a large language model on a user’s past likes, comments, posts, and other activity to “simulate” them.

• It explicitly mentions use cases like long breaks from social media or when a user is deceased.

• The AI could interact like the person: liking, commenting, replying to DMs—possibly even simulating audio/video calls.

• Meta frames it as protecting the “user experience” for followers when someone disappears, especially permanently due to death.

• Experts raise ethical and grief-related concerns: post-mortem privacy, consent, and whether this could distort healthy grieving (“Let the dead be dead”).

Why it matters: This is one of those ideas that sounds futuristic until you realize the incentives are already here—engagement, creator economies, and platform stickiness don’t end when a person does. If “digital immortality” becomes a feature, the real question won’t just be can Meta do it, but who controls it—and whether it helps people remember… or traps them in an algorithmically curated version of someone they lost. “I can see the business incentive for that. I'm just curious to see how they would, when, and if they will implement this innovation.”

Pentagon warns Anthropic will "pay a price" as feud escalates

Key Takeaway: The Pentagon is reconsidering its relationship with Anthropic—and may even pressure contractors to avoid Claude—after Anthropic resisted allowing its AI to be used for all lawful military purposes, especially areas like domestic surveillance and autonomous lethal operations.

More Insights:

• The Pentagon says AI models must be available for all lawful-use cases; Anthropic wants limits on certain military applications.

• A senior defense official says Anthropic is increasingly seen as a “supply-chain risk,” and contractors could be asked to certify they don’t use Claude.

• Anthropic’s classified-network clearance has been a major competitive advantage, alongside a Palantir partnership and a contract worth up to $200M.

• The dispute has political fuel: Anthropic leadership’s past Trump criticism, hiring of former Biden officials, and AI regulation lobbying have become talking points.

• Rivals like OpenAI, Google, and xAI have reportedly signaled willingness to support any lawful Pentagon deployment, widening the gap with Anthropic’s stance.

Why it matters: This isn’t just a vendor spat—it’s a test of who sets the rules for powerful AI: elected government demanding maximum flexibility, or private companies imposing moral guardrails. If the Pentagon starts treating “policy constraints” as a national-security liability, it could reshape the AI market into a loyalty test—rewarding compliance over caution—and that tradeoff will echo far beyond defense.

Other stuff

• Longtime NPR host David Greene sues Google over NotebookLM voice

• Raspberry Pi stock rose as much as 42%, amid demand for single-board computers to run low-cost AI agents like OpenClaw

• 12-hour days, no weekends: the anxiety driving AI’s brutal work culture is a warning for all of us

• Why ads are coming to your AI chatbot

• AI Agent Lands PRs in Major OSS Projects, Targets Maintainers via Cold Outreach

• OpenAI retired its most seductive chatbot – leaving users angry and grieving: ‘I can’t live like this’

• The great computer science exodus (and where students are going instead)

Hope you enjoyed today's newsletter

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