[simonw]

> Most of the time, users (or the author himself) submit this blog as the source, when in fact it is just content that ultimately just links to the original source for the goal of engagement.

I encourage you to look at submissions from my domain before you accuse me like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=simonwillison.net - the ones I submitted list "simonw" as the author.

I'm selective about what I submit to Hacker News. I usually only submit my long-form pieces.

In addition to long form writing I operate a link blog, which this Claw piece came from. I have no control over which of my link blog pieces are submitted by other people.

I still try to add value in each of my link posts, which I expect is why they get submitted so often: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/22/link-blog/ - in this case the value add was highlighting that this is Andrej helping coin yet another new term, something he's very good at.

[yunohn]

> Andrej helping coin yet another new term, something he's very good at

Ignoring all the other stuff, isn't this just a phenomenon of Andrej being worshipped by the AI hype crowd? This entire space is becoming a deification spree, and AGI will be the final boss I guess.

[simonw]

Language matters. If you have a term that's widely understood you can have much more productive conversations about that concept.

"Agent" is a bad term because it's so vaguely defined that you can have a conversation with someone about agents and later realize you were both talking about entirely different things.

I'm hoping "Claw" does better on that basis because it ties to a more firm existing example and it's also not something people can "guess" the meaning of.

[yunohn]

What is the firm example that provides meaning to “claw”? I guess we don’t have any concrete analytics, but I would be willing to bet that the fraction of people who actually used openclaw is abysmally small, vs the hype. “Agent”s have been used by a disproportionately larger number of people. “Assistant” is also a great existing term (understood by everyone), that encompasses what the blogs hyping openclaw discussed using it for as well.

[Barbing]

Coining terms affects normies too, it hits all of our headlines and lexicons.

[yunohn]

Completely agreed - and that media exposure is a result of clickbait journos piggybacking on the AI hype crowd. It's all a quite disappointing feedback loop.

[saberience]

Linking a tweet by Karpathy is a value add??

Karpathy calling OpenClaw a claw is an act of genius level naming?

Jesus wept.

[simonw]

The value add here is in highlighting and encouraging a new piece of terminology in the AI space which I think is genuinely useful.

I think it's a good idea to define a name for the category of personal digital assistant agents that fit the general shape pioneered by OpenClaw. And "Claw" fits the bill.

[Barbing]

Honestly in the end, I hope you don’t change your behavior b/c you’re one of the most engaging and accessible writers in the loudest space on earth right now.

It is self-evident the spirit of no rule would intend to prohibit anything I’ve ever seen you do (across dozens and dozens of comments).