Comment by frenchtoast8
13 hours ago
The security team at my company announced recently that OpenClaw was banned on any company device and could not be used with any company login. Later in an unrelated meeting a non technical executive said they were excited about their new Mac Mini they just bought for OpenClaw. When they were told it was banned they sort of laughed and said that obviously doesn't apply to them. No one said anything back. Why would they? This is an executive team that literally instructed the security team to weaken policies so it could be more accommodating of "this new world we live in."
Similar thing at my company. Someone /very/ high up in the org chart recently said to the entire company that OpenClaw is the future of computing, and specifically called out Moltbook as something amazing and ground breaking. There is literally no way security would ever let OpenClaw in the same room as company systems, never mind actually be installed anywhere with access to our data.
It should be noted that this exec also mentioned we should try "all the AIs", without offering up their credit card to cover the costs. I guess when your base salary is more than most people make in a life time, a few hundred bucks a month to test something doesn't even register.
That is groundbreaking for a product held in such high esteem, just not in a good way.
I lack the words to explain my frustration at this timeline.
I miss the old days of 5.5 years ago when people were skill sceptical of Yudkowsky's AI Box experiment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24402893
> exposed full read/write access to it’s supabase db, complete with over a million API keys.
When was this lol; I knew it didn’t drop out of the news that fast by inertia alone.
2 replies →
Sounds like you work at a music streaming company, but then again, this behavior is probably very wide spread.
I hope the security team talked to the legal team about that. There is potential for OpenClaw to commit crimes on behalf of the company.
In 3 decades of IT I have never seen such executive excitement combined with recklessness, and it is appalling.
Testing new and cutting edge tech has always been a good idea, but this rampant application of it is the ultimate Running-With-Scissors meme. Risks are not being evaluated, and everything is bleeding edge.
My disgust probably comes from the instinct that the excitement is based on the allure of doing more with less, and layoffs are the only idea so many business have left.
The other camp is excited about selling more stuff because AI has been slapped onto it.
They think they can taste a great divide about to be torn in human society, and they expect to be on the top half.
These execs are the people who previously cared about literally nothing except not looking bad to their bosses. Now they're getting all fired up about something and taking a stand and... it's this? Lol. Lmao. Etc.
The mac mini they bought with their own money to run their own stuff? Company policy doesn't apply to their personal computing.
I'm sure company policy would technically prohibit them from accessing company resources from their personal computer; or if it does allow access to company resources from their personal computer then their corporate tech policy very likely does apply to their personal computing.
If the executive bought it for a personal mac mini for personal use only, with no interaction with company resources, then the person probably wouldn't have told the story.
"Move fast and break things" (c) Zuck