Appless

Pieter Steinberg is a smart guy. Very playful, and probably that has something to do with him being smart. I learned something very important from Lex Friedman’s podcast episode with him today.

First, I learned that there are many more uses for OpenClaw than I expected. For example, it sort of replaces the human in the loop for n8n automations. In fact, it can replace the human in the loop for a wide selection of things. I also learned that the intelectual property behind OpenClaw is its “Soul”. What that means is that Steinberg’s product was his philosophy. This corroborates with the idea that slave work is ever less valuable (yeah, slave work - slaving away to money - money is your master). It matters more to know how to think, even in the developments of AI itself, than to “work hard”. Being balanced and wise will be - and in many ways has always been - principal.

The main thing I leaned, though, was that apps are dead. I had heard this idea before from Sam Altman, but Pieter made it a lot clearer, mainly through his creation. Apps are dead because in fact, Agents work better in the terminal. That’s what the terminal was designed for. The terminal is literally a text-based computer interface, and LLMs are text-based, so it removes the entire operating system abstraction level.

Right now, you might still be able to scrape some change off of the app-building market, especially if you are in an underdeveloped environment, but not for long. More and more, people are interacting with computers in the same way they interact with each-other. It is becoming normal to speak to a computer, and the interface of AI with the web and sensors are APIs. You will be able to talk to your computer and have any problem that is not physical - anything organizational, logical, or data-related solved without moving a finger.

No need for apps.