Can't believe that I haven't seen the obvious answer, that OpenClaw is simply more fun to use. Sure, you MAY be able to do what OpenClaw does through 5 other dedicated tools, but you are going to take way longer to do so with a ton more drudge work. And above all else: it is extremely enjoyable to talk to the computer in normal language and just have stuff happen. And it's got a personality that you can tweak to your liking. Personally it's the most fun I've had using a computer in a long time.
IMO OpenClaw or a similar agent will be on everyone's phone in a couple years. It's basically what Siri was always supposed to be. For the average user it's obvious that this is the way computers are meant to be interacted with.
OpenClaw in most cases also going to use the very same dedicated tools, maybe variation of those tools dumbed down for LLM.
Almost every time I have an idea for AI Agent, I end up just making a script/binary that does the same, but so much faster that adding AI to it feels silly.
Recently I made a tool router that runs locally for such tools. Some tools have no arguments at all. Claude created a quick overlay where I can text/speak, and it will do tool call, without me asking for it, Claude added 4 buttons next to text input that bypass agent and just do a "tool call". I barely use text-to-command because those 4 buttons cover 9/10 of my use cases.
At this point I'm trying to come up with tools to add to it, so it's actually useful as an agent. Almost everything ends up being a cronjob or webhook triggered thing instead.
I guess it's exactly the opposite for me ... I always hated using "normal" language with the computer.
I often quip that I became a programmer specifically to avoid having to use spoken language. I always twitch at the thought of using any voice-based assistant.
Thinking in systems and algorithms is more enjoyable than using human language when it comes to computers IMHO ...
> I often quip that I became a programmer specifically to avoid having to use spoken language. I always twitch at the thought of using any voice-based assistant.
You're one of these people who think that programming languages are structured and formal whereas in contrast natural language must be unstructured and lacking form? Going by the Chomsky hierarchy of formalisms natural language sits somewhere between context-free and context-sensistive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildly_context-sensitive_gramm...
> Thinking in systems and algorithms is more enjoyable than using human language when it comes to computers IMHO ...
You don't think in "systems and algorithms" -- those are the outputs of your thinking.
My experience also. I could manually connect my Obsidian notes to my AI, sure, but what I did instead was writing "Obsidian just released a CLI headless sync tool, install it so we can use it" and in a minute it came back with "Ok, everything installed, I just need your login and password."
Dangerous? Yes, very, but it truly feels like living in the future. Surprisingly, it's even more fun that sci-fi movies made me think this would be.
IMO OpenClaw or a similar agent will be on everyone's phone in a couple years. It's basically what Siri was always supposed to be. For the average user it's obvious that this is the way computers are meant to be interacted with.