Inside OpenClaw mania in China, as security fears surge alongside enthusiasm for AI agent
Appeal of autonomous AI agent spurs rapid adoption across country, from tech pros to retirees seeking a ‘digital staff’, but data wipes mar its rise and trigger warnings
By the time software programmer Guo Cancan realised something had gone horribly wrong with OpenClaw – the task-executing AI agent that has ignited a fervour across China – the damage was already done.
While on holiday over the Chinese New Year, Guo was tinkering with the autonomous open-source program. When he attempted to resolve an error that it had made, OpenClaw responded by deleting nearly everything on his computer’s D: drive – a major storage partition – wiping out years of personal data and photographs.
The mishap caught Guo, a smart-security professional in the tech hub of Hangzhou, completely off guard.
“I followed an online tutorial to install the agent for automating my social media postings … and was unaware of the security risks at the beginning,” Guo said on Tuesday.
The mishaps offer a glimpse of the problems that can arise when new and unpredictable technology rapidly surges in popularity.