Muse, Dots, and other always-on agents may be the end of the PC era. Once you’re asking agents to do things on their own virtual machines, it’s game over. Everything moves to the cloud
Anyone wondering "why would I use this when I can use (OpenClaw|Hermes|my own computer)" -- these new services are not really meant for you. They're meant for the non-tech savvy and for the next generation of AI-natives who won't know anything other than how to use these type of services
For your casual user, these services will be hard to beat, since they’ll handle all the expensive and hard parts of using computers. No computer purchase necessary, no troubleshooting with tech support, etc. They’re also scalable where you could have not just one agent with one computer at any time, but many
In return, the agent providers would own your compute and data. I can even see them offering this low cost or for free so they can train off of users. Lock in would be insane
For privacy reasons, I really hope we find equally useful, private alternatives on our own hardware
I'm working on a project that solves some of this [1]. It runs agents in Docker and proxies the ACP connection via websocket, with WASM-based plugins in that proxy so you can get in between your client and the agent if you want.
It currently tears down the container after the session, but it wouldn't take much to leave it running post-connection and make a mode that continually re-uses the same container.
It's also possible to intercept ACP read/write file and shell commands via one of the WASM-based plugins if you wanted to execute them in a separate VM/container. I'd have to double check on FS permissions for the Docker socket; I think plugins have no file access currently because I haven't figured out a permission system for it yet. The whole plugin system is new and I'm still working out some of the edges.
jameslk · · focus · HN ↗
Anyone wondering "why would I use this when I can use (OpenClaw|Hermes|my own computer)" -- these new services are not really meant for you. They're meant for the non-tech savvy and for the next generation of AI-natives who won't know anything other than how to use these type of services
For your casual user, these services will be hard to beat, since they’ll handle all the expensive and hard parts of using computers. No computer purchase necessary, no troubleshooting with tech support, etc. They’re also scalable where you could have not just one agent with one computer at any time, but many
In return, the agent providers would own your compute and data. I can even see them offering this low cost or for free so they can train off of users. Lock in would be insane
For privacy reasons, I really hope we find equally useful, private alternatives on our own hardware
everforward · · focus · HN ↗
It currently tears down the container after the session, but it wouldn't take much to leave it running post-connection and make a mode that continually re-uses the same container.
It's also possible to intercept ACP read/write file and shell commands via one of the WASM-based plugins if you wanted to execute them in a separate VM/container. I'd have to double check on FS permissions for the Docker socket; I think plugins have no file access currently because I haven't figured out a permission system for it yet. The whole plugin system is new and I'm still working out some of the edges.
Feedback and feature requests welcome!
[1] <a href="https://github.com/SethCurry/abyss" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/SethCurry/abyss